How to buy Royal Dutch Shell stock | 24.29

Royal Dutch Shell plc is an oil & gas integrated business based in the US. Royal Dutch Shell shares (RDS-B) are listed on the NYSE and all prices are listed in US Dollars. Royal Dutch Shell employs 83,000 staff and has a trailing 12-month revenue of around USD$263.1 billion.

How to buy shares in Royal Dutch Shell

1. Compare share trading platforms. If you're a beginner, look for a platform with low commissions, expert ratings and investment tools to track your portfolio. Narrow down top brands with our comparison table.
2. Open and fund your brokerage account. Complete an application with your personal and financial details, like your ID and bank information. Fund your account with a bank transfer, credit card or debit card.
3. Search for Royal Dutch Shell. Find the stock by name or ticker symbol: RDS-B. Research its history to confirm it's a solid investment against your financial goals.
4. Purchase now or later. Buy today with a market order or use a limit order to delay your purchase until Royal Dutch Shell reaches your desired price. To spread out your purchase, look into dollar-cost averaging, which smooths out buying at consistent intervals and amounts.
5. Decide on how many to buy. At last close price of USD$24.29, weigh your budget against a diversified portfolio that can minimize risk through the market's ups and downs. You may be able to buy a fractional share of Royal Dutch Shell, depending on your broker.
6. Check in on your investment. Congratulations, you own a part of Royal Dutch Shell. Optimize your portfolio by tracking how your stock — and even the business — performs with an eye on the long term. You may be eligible for dividends and shareholder voting rights on directors and management that can affect your stock.

How has coronavirus impacted Royal Dutch Shell's share price?

Since the stock market crash in March caused by coronavirus, Royal Dutch Shell's share price has had significant negative movement.

Its last market close was USD$24.29, which is 50.94% down on its pre-crash value of USD$49.51 and 26.58% up on the lowest point reached during the March crash when the shares fell as low as USD$19.19.

If you had bought USD$1,000 worth of Royal Dutch Shell shares at the start of February 2020, those shares would have been worth USD$484.14 at the bottom of the March crash, and if you held on to them, then as of the last market close they'd be worth USD$470.01.

Royal Dutch Shell share price

Use our graph to track the performance of RDS.B stocks over time.

Royal Dutch Shell shares at a glance

• Key figures

Information last updated 2020-10-19.

Latest market close	USD$24.29
52-week range	USD$19.19 - USD$61.54
50-day moving average	USD$25.5403
200-day moving average	USD$30.098
Wall St. target price	USD$41
PE ratio	12.5685
Dividend yield	USD$1.28 (5.27%)
Earnings per share (TTM)	USD$2.446

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Is it a good time to buy Royal Dutch Shell stock?

The technical analysis gauge below displays real-time ratings for the timeframes you select. This is not a recommendation, however. It represents a technical analysis based on the most popular technical indicators: Moving Averages, Oscillators and Pivots. Finder might not concur and takes no responsibility.

Technical Analysis of Royal Dutch Shell plc by TradingView

This chart is not advice or a guarantee of success. Rather, it gauges the real-time recommendations of three popular technical indicators: moving averages, oscillators and pivots. Finder is not responsible for how your stock performs.

Royal Dutch Shell price performance over time

Historical closes compared with the close of $24.29 from 2020-10-16

1 week (2020-11-16)	-22.37%
1 month (2020-10-26)	2.36%
3 months (2020-08-26)	-14.77%
6 months (2020-05-22)	-19.94%

1 year (2019-11-22)	-58.80%
2 years (2018-11-23)	-59.95%
3 years (2017-11-24)	-62.34%
5 years (2015-11-24)	-52.00%

Is Royal Dutch Shell under- or over-valued?

Valuing Royal Dutch Shell stock is incredibly difficult, and any metric has to be viewed as part of a bigger picture of Royal Dutch Shell's overall performance. However, analysts commonly use some key metrics to help gauge the value of a stock.

Royal Dutch Shell's P/E ratio

Royal Dutch Shell's current share price divided by its per-share earnings (EPS) over a 12-month period gives a "trailing price/earnings ratio" of roughly 13x. In other words, Royal Dutch Shell shares trade at around 13x recent earnings.

That's relatively low compared to, say, the trailing 12-month P/E ratio for the NASDAQ 100 at the end of 2019 (27.29). The low P/E ratio could mean that investors are pessimistic about the outlook for the shares or simply that they're under-valued.

Royal Dutch Shell's PEG ratio

Royal Dutch Shell's "price/earnings-to-growth ratio" can be calculated by dividing its P/E ratio by its growth – to give 1.4744. A low ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer better value, while a higher ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer worse value.

The PEG ratio provides a broader view than just the P/E ratio, as it gives more insight into Royal Dutch Shell's future profitability. By accounting for growth, it could also help you if you're comparing the share prices of multiple high-growth companies.

Royal Dutch Shell's EBITDA

Royal Dutch Shell's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) is USD$36.1 billion.

The EBITDA is a measure of a Royal Dutch Shell's overall financial performance and is widely used to measure a its profitability.

Royal Dutch Shell financials

Revenue TTM	USD$263.1 billion
Operating margin TTM	4.01%
Gross profit TTM	USD$65.5 billion
Return on assets TTM	1.68%
Return on equity TTM	-6.17%
Profit margin	-4.3%
Book value	$40.35
Market capitalisation	USD$96.8 billion

TTM: trailing 12 months

Shorting Royal Dutch Shell shares

There are currently 1.4 million Royal Dutch Shell shares held short by investors – that's known as Royal Dutch Shell's "short interest". This figure is 221.6% up from 441,445 last month.

There are a few different ways that this level of interest in shorting Royal Dutch Shell shares can be evaluated.

Royal Dutch Shell's "short interest ratio" (SIR)

Royal Dutch Shell's "short interest ratio" (SIR) is the quantity of Royal Dutch Shell shares currently shorted divided by the average quantity of Royal Dutch Shell shares traded daily (recently around 4.1 million). Royal Dutch Shell's SIR currently stands at 0.35. In other words for every 100,000 Royal Dutch Shell shares traded daily on the market, roughly 350 shares are currently held short.

However Royal Dutch Shell's short interest can also be evaluated against the total number of Royal Dutch Shell shares, or, against the total number of tradable Royal Dutch Shell shares (the shares that aren't held by "insiders" or major long-term shareholders – also known as the "float"). In this case Royal Dutch Shell's short interest could be expressed as 0% of the outstanding shares (for every 100,000 Royal Dutch Shell shares in existence, roughly 0 shares are currently held short) or 0% of the tradable shares (for every 100,000 tradable Royal Dutch Shell shares, roughly 0 shares are currently held short).

Such a low SIR usually points to an optimistic outlook for the share price, with fewer people currently willing to bet against Royal Dutch Shell.

Find out more about how you can short Royal Dutch Shell stock.

Royal Dutch Shell share dividends

Dividend payout ratio: 111.1% of net profits

Recently Royal Dutch Shell has paid out, on average, around 111.1% of net profits as dividends. That has enabled analysts to estimate a "forward annual dividend yield" of 5.27% of the current stock value. This means that over a year, based on recent payouts (which are sadly no guarantee of future payouts), Royal Dutch Shell shareholders could enjoy a 5.27% return on their shares, in the form of dividend payments. In Royal Dutch Shell's case, that would currently equate to about $1.28 per share.

Royal Dutch Shell's payout ratio would broadly be considered high, and as such this stock could appeal to those looking to generate an income. Bear in mind however that companies should normally also look to re-invest a decent amount of net profits to ensure future growth.

Royal Dutch Shell's most recent dividend payout was on 21 September 2020. The latest dividend was paid out to all shareholders who bought their shares by 13 August 2020 (the "ex-dividend date").

Have Royal Dutch Shell's shares ever split?

Royal Dutch Shell's shares were split on a 100:116 basis on 20 July 2005. So if you had owned 116 shares the day before before the split, the next day you'd have owned 100 shares. This wouldn't directly have changed the overall worth of your Royal Dutch Shell shares – just the quantity. However, indirectly, the new 16% higher share price could have impacted the market appetite for Royal Dutch Shell shares which in turn could have impacted Royal Dutch Shell's share price.

Royal Dutch Shell share price volatility

Over the last 12 months, Royal Dutch Shell's shares have ranged in value from as little as $19.19 up to $61.54. A popular way to gauge a stock's volatility is its "beta".

Beta is a measure of a share's volatility in relation to the market. The market (NYSE average) beta is 1, while Royal Dutch Shell's is 0.7759. This would suggest that Royal Dutch Shell's shares are less volatile than average (for this exchange).

Royal Dutch Shell overview

Royal Dutch Shell plc operates as an energy and petrochemical company worldwide. The company operates through Integrated Gas, Upstream, and Downstream segments. It explores for and extracts crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids; markets and transports oil and gas; produces gas-to-liquids fuels and other products; and operates upstream and midstream infrastructure necessary to deliver gas to market. The company also markets and trades natural gas, liquefied natural gas (LNG), crude oil, electricity, carbon-emission rights; and markets and sells LNG as a fuel for heavy-duty vehicles and marine vessels. In addition, it trades in and refines crude oil and other feed stocks, such as gasoline, diesel, heating oil, aviation fuel, marine fuel, biofuel, lubricants, bitumen, and sulphur; produces and sells petrochemicals industrial use; and manages oil sands activities. Further, the company produces base chemicals comprising ethylene, propylene, and aromatics, as well as intermediate chemicals, such as styrene monomer, propylene oxide, solvents, detergent alcohols, ethylene oxide, and ethylene glycol. Royal Dutch Shell plc was founded in 1907 and is headquartered in The Hague, the Netherlands.

Frequently asked questions

• What percentage of Royal Dutch Shell is owned by insiders or institutions?

  Currently 0.021% of Royal Dutch Shell shares are held by insiders and 11.45% by institutions.

• How many people work for Royal Dutch Shell?

  Latest data suggests 83,000 work at Royal Dutch Shell.

• When does the fiscal year end for Royal Dutch Shell?

  Royal Dutch Shell's fiscal year ends in December.

• Where is Royal Dutch Shell based?

  Royal Dutch Shell's address is: Carel van Bylandtlaan 30, The Hague, Netherlands, 2596 HR

• What is Royal Dutch Shell's CUSIP number?

  Royal Dutch Shell's Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures number is: 780259107