Ally Financial (NYSE:ALLY) to Repurchase $2.00 billion in Outstanding Shares

Ally Financial (NYSE:ALLY) declared that its board has approved a share buyback program on Wednesday, December 10th, RTT News reports. The company plans to repurchase $2.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the financial services provider to repurchase up to 15.3% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have weighed in on ALLY. TD Cowen upgraded Ally Financial from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $43.00 to $50.00 in a research note on Monday, October 20th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of Ally Financial in a report on Monday. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods cut their target price on shares of Ally Financial from $56.00 to $51.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, October 1st. Cowen upgraded shares of Ally Financial from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, October 20th. Finally, Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of Ally Financial from $59.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, September 15th. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Ally Financial presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $45.67.

Ally Financial Price Performance

ALLY stock traded up $2.14 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $44.48. 9,207,162 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,676,005. Ally Financial has a 52 week low of $29.52 and a 52 week high of $45.09. The stock has a market capitalization of $13.70 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.80, a P/E/G ratio of 0.29 and a beta of 1.22. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $40.02 and a 200 day simple moving average of $39.41. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.31, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a current ratio of 0.92.

Ally Financial (NYSE:ALLY) last posted its earnings results on Monday, July 28th. The financial services provider reported $0.99 earnings per share for the quarter. The firm had revenue of $2.06 billion for the quarter. Ally Financial had a net margin of 8.10% and a return on equity of 9.96%. As a group, research analysts expect that Ally Financial will post 3.57 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Ally Financial Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 14th. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 31st were issued a $0.30 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, October 31st. This represents a $1.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.7%. Ally Financial’s payout ratio is 72.29%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Ally Financial

In other news, insider Kathleen L. Patterson sold 29,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $40.86, for a total transaction of $1,184,940.00. Following the transaction, the insider owned 100,203 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,094,294.58. The trade was a 22.45% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.67% of the company’s stock.

About Ally Financial

Ally Financial Inc, a digital financial-services company, provides various digital financial products and services in the United States, Canada, and Bermuda. The company operates through Automotive Finance Operations, Insurance Operations, Mortgage Finance Operations, and Corporate Finance Operations segments.