D.A. Davidson & CO. Acquires 828 Shares of Brown & Brown, Inc. (NYSE:BRO)

D.A. Davidson & CO. lifted its position in Brown & Brown, Inc. (NYSE:BRO) by 2.9% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 29,480 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after buying an additional 828 shares during the period. D.A. Davidson & CO.’s holdings in Brown & Brown were worth $3,054,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in BRO. Tidal Investments LLC raised its holdings in shares of Brown & Brown by 9.4% in the first quarter. Tidal Investments LLC now owns 21,259 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $1,861,000 after acquiring an additional 1,828 shares in the last quarter. Comerica Bank raised its holdings in shares of Brown & Brown by 1.5% in the first quarter. Comerica Bank now owns 126,007 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $11,031,000 after acquiring an additional 1,824 shares in the last quarter. Virtu Financial LLC bought a new stake in shares of Brown & Brown in the first quarter valued at about $672,000. Atria Investments Inc raised its holdings in shares of Brown & Brown by 19.0% in the first quarter. Atria Investments Inc now owns 23,701 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $2,075,000 after acquiring an additional 3,780 shares in the last quarter. Finally, DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale raised its holdings in shares of Brown & Brown by 12.4% in the first quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale now owns 251,839 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $21,855,000 after acquiring an additional 27,879 shares in the last quarter. 71.01% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently weighed in on BRO. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on Brown & Brown from $112.00 to $114.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, October 10th. StockNews.com lowered Brown & Brown from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, November 2nd. Barclays lifted their target price on Brown & Brown from $108.00 to $119.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 21st. Argus began coverage on Brown & Brown in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $120.00 target price on the stock. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on Brown & Brown from $113.00 to $118.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. One equities 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 company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Brown & Brown presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $107.42.

Brown & Brown Price Performance

Shares of BRO stock opened at $113.20 on Friday. Brown & Brown, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $69.13 and a fifty-two week high of $114.15. The firm has a market capitalization of $32.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.84, a PEG ratio of 2.57 and a beta of 0.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a quick ratio of 1.73 and a current ratio of 1.73. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $106.73 and its 200-day simple moving average is $99.48.

Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The financial services provider reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.88 by $0.03. Brown & Brown had a return on equity of 17.12% and a net margin of 22.65%. The business had revenue of $1.19 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.16 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.71 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Brown & Brown, Inc. will post 3.74 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Brown & Brown Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, November 13th. Investors of record on Wednesday, November 6th were given a $0.15 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, November 6th. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.53%. This is a positive change from Brown & Brown’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.13. Brown & Brown’s dividend payout ratio is currently 16.35%.

Brown & Brown Profile

Brown & Brown, Inc markets and sells insurance products and services in the United States, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Retail, National Programs, Wholesale Brokerage, and Services. The Retail segment provides property and casualty, employee benefits insurance products, personal insurance products, specialties insurance products, risk management strategies, loss control survey and analysis, consultancy, and claims processing services.