Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) Lifted to Outperform at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded shares of Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) from a market perform rating to an outperform rating in a research report sent to investors on Tuesday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. The brokerage currently has $92.00 price target on the financial services provider’s stock, up from their previous price target of $87.00.

Assured Guaranty Trading Down 0.8 %

NYSE AGO opened at $80.43 on Tuesday. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $77.41 and its two-hundred day moving average is $80.73. Assured Guaranty has a 12 month low of $55.24 and a 12 month high of $96.60. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30, a current ratio of 0.97 and a quick ratio of 0.97. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.38 billion, a P/E ratio of 6.21 and a beta of 1.11.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, May 7th. The financial services provider reported $1.96 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.41 by $0.55. Assured Guaranty had a net margin of 57.45% and a return on equity of 12.48%. The company had revenue of $245.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $194.78 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.12 earnings per share. Assured Guaranty’s revenue for the quarter was down 13.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Assured Guaranty will post 6.45 earnings per share for the current year.

Assured Guaranty Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, May 29th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, May 15th were paid a dividend of $0.31 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, May 14th. This is a positive change from Assured Guaranty’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. This represents a $1.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.54%. Assured Guaranty’s dividend payout ratio is 9.58%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Assured Guaranty news, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 40,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, June 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $78.12, for a total transaction of $3,124,800.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,410,824 shares in the company, valued at $110,213,570.88. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Assured Guaranty news, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 40,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, June 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $78.12, for a total transaction of $3,124,800.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,410,824 shares in the company, valued at $110,213,570.88. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Laura Bieling sold 3,901 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $79.93, for a total transaction of $311,806.93. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 16,036 shares in the company, valued at $1,281,757.48. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 73,901 shares of company stock worth $5,834,807 over the last three months. Company insiders own 5.10% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Assured Guaranty

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Reinhart Partners LLC. increased its stake in shares of Assured Guaranty by 8.2% during the fourth quarter. Reinhart Partners LLC. now owns 893,788 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $66,882,000 after buying an additional 67,613 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Assured Guaranty during the fourth quarter worth approximately $41,609,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of Assured Guaranty by 1.2% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 407,268 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $30,476,000 after buying an additional 4,699 shares during the period. LRI Investments LLC purchased a new position in Assured Guaranty in the first quarter valued at approximately $25,554,000. Finally, Clearbridge Investments LLC increased its stake in Assured Guaranty by 0.4% in the fourth quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 252,270 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $18,877,000 after purchasing an additional 1,128 shares during the last quarter. 92.22% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Assured Guaranty

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.