Birchwood Financial Partners Inc. Purchases Shares of 9,094 Xcel Energy Inc. $XEL

Birchwood Financial Partners Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Xcel Energy Inc. (NASDAQ:XEL) during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor purchased 9,094 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $672,000.

Several other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in XEL. Corient Private Wealth LLC lifted its position in Xcel Energy by 12.1% during the fourth quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 140,564 shares of the company’s stock worth $9,989,000 after buying an additional 15,125 shares during the period. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV grew its holdings in Xcel Energy by 3.2% in the 4th quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV now owns 79,442 shares of the company’s stock valued at $5,868,000 after buying an additional 2,454 shares during the period. Blue Chip Partners LLC grew its holdings in Xcel Energy by 0.4% in the 4th quarter. Blue Chip Partners LLC now owns 205,322 shares of the company’s stock valued at $15,165,000 after buying an additional 747 shares during the period. Beacon Pointe Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Xcel Energy by 7.2% during the 4th quarter. Beacon Pointe Advisors LLC now owns 25,811 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,906,000 after acquiring an additional 1,732 shares during the last quarter. Finally, EP Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Xcel Energy during the 4th quarter valued at about $40,568,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 78.38% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on XEL shares. Evercore reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $96.00 target price on shares of Xcel Energy in a research report on Monday, May 4th. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Xcel Energy from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Saturday, May 9th. KeyCorp reaffirmed an “overweight” rating on shares of Xcel Energy in a research note on Monday, June 8th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on shares of Xcel Energy from $90.00 to $94.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 22nd. Finally, Argus set a $86.00 price objective on shares of Xcel Energy in a research note on Thursday, March 12th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirteen have assigned a Buy rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $90.62.

Xcel Energy Stock Performance

Xcel Energy stock opened at $77.41 on Friday. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $79.56 and its 200-day moving average is $78.34. The company has a market cap of $48.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.31, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.01 and a beta of 0.39. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.45, a current ratio of 0.77 and a quick ratio of 0.68. Xcel Energy Inc. has a 12 month low of $66.32 and a 12 month high of $84.23.

Xcel Energy (NASDAQ:XEL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 29th. The company reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.91. Xcel Energy had a return on equity of 10.37% and a net margin of 14.14%.The business had revenue of $4.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.21 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.84 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 2.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts anticipate that Xcel Energy Inc. will post 4.11 earnings per share for the current year.

Xcel Energy Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, July 20th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 15th will be given a dividend of $0.5925 per share. This represents a $2.37 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 15th. Xcel Energy’s payout ratio is 68.30%.

Xcel Energy Company Profile

Xcel Energy (NASDAQ: XEL) is a Minneapolis-based, publicly traded utility holding company that develops, owns and operates regulated electricity and natural gas delivery systems. The company’s core activities include generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, the delivery of natural gas to customers, and related customer service operations. Xcel provides a mix of utility services to residential, commercial and industrial customers and participates in wholesale energy markets where appropriate.

Its generation portfolio combines nuclear, natural gas, coal and a growing share of renewable resources such as wind and solar.