Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) Receives Average Rating of “Hold” from Analysts

Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) has earned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the five brokerages that are presently covering the stock, Marketbeat reports. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and two have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year price target among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $89.3333.

AGO has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Assured Guaranty from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Sunday, August 16th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods cut their price objective on shares of Assured Guaranty from $101.00 to $97.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, August 13th. UBS Group set a $91.00 target price on shares of Assured Guaranty in a research report on Monday. Finally, Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of Assured Guaranty from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 9th.

Insider Activity

In other news, major shareholder Guaranty Ltd Assured acquired 209,388 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 22nd. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $24.83 per share, for a total transaction of $5,199,104.04. Following the acquisition, the insider directly owned 1,212,106 shares in the company, valued at approximately $30,096,591.98. This represents a 20.88% increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 5.70% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Assured Guaranty in the 2nd quarter valued at about $463,926,000. California State Teachers Retirement System increased its position in Assured Guaranty by 7,687.3% during the 2nd quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 3,862,750 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $309,638,000 after purchasing an additional 3,813,147 shares in the last quarter. River Road Asset Management LLC increased its position in Assured Guaranty by 2.3% during the 4th quarter. River Road Asset Management LLC now owns 1,885,863 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $169,483,000 after purchasing an additional 42,311 shares in the last quarter. Reinhart Partners LLC. raised its holdings in Assured Guaranty by 11.7% in the fourth quarter. Reinhart Partners LLC. now owns 1,262,698 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $113,480,000 after buying an additional 132,351 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new position in Assured Guaranty in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $51,538,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.22% of the company’s stock.

Assured Guaranty Price Performance

AGO stock opened at $73.04 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.74 and a beta of 0.73. The company has a quick ratio of 0.64, a current ratio of 0.64 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31. Assured Guaranty has a 52-week low of $72.13 and a 52-week high of $92.39. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $79.01 and its 200-day simple moving average is $79.89.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, June 30th. The financial services provider reported $1.23 earnings per share for the quarter. Assured Guaranty had a return on equity of 7.11% and a net margin of 37.34%.The firm had revenue of $195.00 million for the quarter. Equities research analysts expect that Assured Guaranty will post 6.91 EPS for the current year.

Assured Guaranty Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 3rd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, August 20th were issued a $0.38 dividend. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.1%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 20th. Assured Guaranty’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 20.27%.

Assured Guaranty Company Profile

Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) is a Bermuda-based financial services company that provides financial guarantees and related credit enhancement products. Through its operating subsidiaries, the company helps support the repayment of debt issued by public-sector entities, infrastructure projects and other borrowers.

The company’s principal business is financial guaranty insurance, which generally protects investors against scheduled principal and interest payment defaults on insured obligations.