Aflac Incorporated $AFL Shares Sold by Heritage Wealth Partners LLC

Heritage Wealth Partners LLC lessened its holdings in shares of Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL) by 6.3% in the first quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 1,902 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 127 shares during the quarter. Heritage Wealth Partners LLC’s holdings in Aflac were worth $211,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of AFL. Brighton Jones LLC raised its stake in shares of Aflac by 64.4% in the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 14,570 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,507,000 after buying an additional 5,708 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its stake in shares of Aflac by 2.9% in the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 824,947 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $85,333,000 after buying an additional 23,455 shares in the last quarter. MGO One Seven LLC raised its stake in shares of Aflac by 13.6% in the 4th quarter. MGO One Seven LLC now owns 8,954 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $926,000 after buying an additional 1,071 shares in the last quarter. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of Aflac by 397.7% in the 4th quarter. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. now owns 3,235 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $335,000 after buying an additional 2,585 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC raised its stake in shares of Aflac by 11.7% in the 4th quarter. Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC now owns 1,157 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $119,000 after buying an additional 121 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 67.44% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have recently commented on AFL. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on Aflac from $105.00 to $107.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday, August 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on Aflac from $96.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 8th. UBS Group cut their target price on Aflac from $114.00 to $111.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, August 6th. Barclays set a $98.00 target price on Aflac and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research report on Monday, July 7th. Finally, Wall Street Zen raised Aflac from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 9th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eight have given a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Aflac currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $109.15.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Aflac news, Director Joseph L. Moskowitz sold 1,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.57, for a total value of $102,570.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 25,105 shares in the company, valued at $2,575,019.85. The trade was a 3.83% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 0.90% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Aflac Stock Performance

Shares of AFL stock opened at $108.3520 on Friday. Aflac Incorporated has a 1-year low of $96.95 and a 1-year high of $115.50. The company has a current ratio of 0.11, a quick ratio of 0.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33. The company has a market capitalization of $57.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.57, a P/E/G ratio of 3.04 and a beta of 0.83. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $103.08 and its 200-day simple moving average is $104.85.

Aflac (NYSE:AFL) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 5th. The financial services provider reported $1.78 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.71 by $0.07. Aflac had a return on equity of 15.08% and a net margin of 15.32%.The business had revenue of $4.16 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.30 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.83 earnings per share. Aflac’s revenue for the quarter was down 19.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Aflac Incorporated will post 6.88 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Aflac Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 2nd. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, August 20th will be paid a $0.58 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, August 20th. This represents a $2.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.1%. Aflac’s payout ratio is 52.61%.

Aflac announced that its board has initiated a stock repurchase program on Tuesday, August 12th that authorizes the company to buyback 100,000,000 shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the financial services provider to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are generally an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Aflac Company Profile

Aflac Incorporated, through its subsidiaries, provides supplemental health and life insurance products. The company operates through Aflac Japan and Aflac U.S. segments. The Aflac Japan segment offers cancer, medical, nursing care, work leave, GIFT, and whole and term life insurance products, as well as WAYS and child endowment plans under saving type insurance products in Japan.