Sage Rhino Capital LLC Buys New Position in Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO)

Sage Rhino Capital LLC bought a new stake in shares of Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 2,821 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $211,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Householder Group Estate & Retirement Specialist LLC bought a new position in Assured Guaranty in the fourth quarter worth $28,000. GAMMA Investing LLC bought a new position in Assured Guaranty in the fourth quarter worth $66,000. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale bought a new position in Assured Guaranty in the third quarter worth $174,000. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. bought a new position in Assured Guaranty in the fourth quarter worth $235,000. Finally, Procyon Advisors LLC bought a new position in Assured Guaranty in the fourth quarter worth $237,000. Institutional investors own 92.22% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on AGO shares. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reiterated a “market perform” rating and issued a $92.00 price objective (up previously from $75.00) on shares of Assured Guaranty in a report on Monday, April 1st. UBS Group increased their target price on Assured Guaranty from $64.00 to $102.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st.

Insider Buying and Selling at Assured Guaranty

In other news, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 55,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $92.43, for a total value of $5,083,650.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 1,450,824 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $134,099,662.32. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. 5.10% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Assured Guaranty Stock Performance

Shares of Assured Guaranty stock traded up $0.61 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $77.31. 22,021 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 377,751. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29, a current ratio of 0.88 and a quick ratio of 0.88. Assured Guaranty Ltd. has a 1 year low of $49.84 and a 1 year high of $96.60. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.29 billion, a P/E ratio of 6.14 and a beta of 1.12. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $85.46 and a 200-day simple moving average of $76.94.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 28th. The financial services provider reported $5.75 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.18 by $4.57. Assured Guaranty had a return on equity of 11.82% and a net margin of 53.82%. The company had revenue of $233.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $196.15 million. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.22 earnings per share. Assured Guaranty’s revenue was up 20.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts forecast that Assured Guaranty Ltd. will post 6 EPS for the current year.

Assured Guaranty Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 20th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, March 6th were issued a $0.28 dividend. This represents a $1.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.45%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, March 5th. Assured Guaranty’s dividend payout ratio is 10.00%.

Assured Guaranty Company Profile

Assured Guaranty Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides credit protection products to public finance, infrastructure, and structured finance markets in the United States and internationally. It operates through two segments: Insurance and Asset Management. The company offers financial guaranty insurance that protects holders of debt instruments and other monetary obligations from defaults in scheduled payments.