White Pine Capital LLC Sells 2,919 Shares of Xcel Energy Inc. (NASDAQ:XEL)

White Pine Capital LLC trimmed its position in shares of Xcel Energy Inc. (NASDAQ:XEL) by 12.6% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 20,265 shares of the company’s stock after selling 2,919 shares during the quarter. White Pine Capital LLC’s holdings in Xcel Energy were worth $1,255,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Xcel Energy by 15.6% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 64,062,856 shares of the company’s stock valued at $3,665,677,000 after acquiring an additional 8,644,054 shares in the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its position in Xcel Energy by 16.0% in the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 18,521,863 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,059,821,000 after acquiring an additional 2,559,321 shares in the last quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. lifted its position in Xcel Energy by 8.4% in the 3rd quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 7,504,622 shares of the company’s stock valued at $429,414,000 after acquiring an additional 583,318 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp lifted its position in Xcel Energy by 1.6% in the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 5,739,186 shares of the company’s stock valued at $328,396,000 after acquiring an additional 90,819 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Invesco Ltd. lifted its position in Xcel Energy by 11.6% in the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 5,303,047 shares of the company’s stock valued at $303,440,000 after acquiring an additional 550,508 shares in the last quarter. 78.38% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts recently commented on the stock. Barclays raised shares of Xcel Energy from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and cut their price objective for the company from $61.00 to $54.00 in a research report on Monday, March 11th. TheStreet cut shares of Xcel Energy from a “b-” rating to a “c+” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 14th. StockNews.com cut shares of Xcel Energy from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Friday. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on shares of Xcel Energy from $63.00 to $64.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 26th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised shares of Xcel Energy from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $58.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 11th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Xcel Energy presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $62.58.

Xcel Energy Stock Performance

Shares of Xcel Energy stock traded down $1.05 during trading on Friday, hitting $53.96. 6,451,721 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,954,739. The stock has a market capitalization of $29.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.81, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.41 and a beta of 0.36. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $53.77 and a 200-day moving average price of $58.07. Xcel Energy Inc. has a 1-year low of $46.79 and a 1-year high of $70.72. The company has a current ratio of 0.72, a quick ratio of 0.59 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.41.

Xcel Energy (NASDAQ:XEL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 25th. The company reported $0.88 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.80 by $0.08. Xcel Energy had a net margin of 13.36% and a return on equity of 11.12%. The business had revenue of $3.65 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.12 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.76 EPS. Xcel Energy’s quarterly revenue was down 10.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts predict that Xcel Energy Inc. will post 3.56 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Xcel Energy Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Saturday, April 20th. Investors of record on Friday, March 15th were paid a $0.548 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 14th. This represents a $2.19 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.06%. This is a positive change from Xcel Energy’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Xcel Energy’s dividend payout ratio is 68.22%.

About Xcel Energy

Xcel Energy Inc, through its subsidiaries, engages in the generation, purchasing, transmission, distribution, and sale of electricity. It operates through Regulated Electric Utility, Regulated Natural Gas Utility, and All Other segments. The company generates electricity through wind, nuclear, hydroelectric, biomass, and solar energy sources, as well as coal, natural gas, oil, wood, and refuse-derived fuels.