Should You Invest in Shell plc (SHEL)?

Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Select Equity Fund” first-quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The US market was one of the world’s worst-performing markets in Q1. Against this backdrop, the fund’s Investor Class ARTNX, Advisor Class APDNX, and Institutional Class APHNX returned 5.79%, 5.85%, and 5.82%, respectively, in the first quarter, compared to a -4.27% return for the S&P 500 Index. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the strategy to know its best picks in 2025.

In its first-quarter 2025 investor letter, Artisan Select Equity Fund highlighted stocks such as Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL). Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) is an energy and petrochemical company. The one-month return of Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) was 2.09%, and its shares lost 2.76% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On June 5, 2025, Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) stock closed at $67.53 per share, with a market capitalization of $199.532 billion.

Artisan Select Equity Fund stated the following regarding Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:

“During the quarter, we added Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) to the portfolio and exited our investment in Danone. Danone’s shares were approaching their target price, and we believed that Shell offered a better risk-adjusted return.

Shell is one of the world’s largest integrated oil and gas companies. The business has a durable portfolio of oil and gas resources, which includes a global leadership position in liquefied natural gas (LNG), an attractive and growing market.

The business has been materially transformed over the past two years by a new management team that understands value creation. CEO Wael Sawan and his team have adjusted the capital investment plan to be more focused on the core business and generating returns. Management has also used the company’s strong free cash flow (FCF) to add significant value for shareholders through capital allocation. Over the last three years, Shell has produced about $100 billion in FCF, and the management team has returned all of it through a combination of dividends, buybacks and debt reduction. The current market capitalization is about $200 billion, which means the company has returned over half the market cap to shareholders over the past three years…” (Click here to read the full text)

Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 50 hedge fund portfolios held Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) at the end of the first quarter, which was 54 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as NVIDIA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the undervalued AI stock set for massive gains.

In another article, we covered Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) and shared the list of cheap energy stocks to buy. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2025 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.