Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) Announces Quarterly Earnings Results

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday. The financial services provider reported $1.44 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.39 by $0.05, Briefing.com reports. The company had revenue of $202.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $193.05 million. Assured Guaranty had a net margin of 57.45% and a return on equity of 12.48%. Assured Guaranty’s revenue was down 43.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.60 EPS.

Assured Guaranty Stock Down 0.6 %

NYSE:AGO traded down $0.48 on Friday, hitting $74.00. 408,585 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 397,703. The company has a market cap of $4.03 billion, a PE ratio of 5.71 and a beta of 1.11. Assured Guaranty has a 1 year low of $56.77 and a 1 year high of $96.60. The company has a current ratio of 0.97, a quick ratio of 0.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $78.42 and a 200-day moving average price of $81.32.

Assured Guaranty Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, September 4th. Investors of record on Wednesday, August 21st will be paid a $0.31 dividend. This represents a $1.24 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.68%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, August 21st. Assured Guaranty’s dividend payout ratio is currently 9.58%.

Insider Transactions at Assured Guaranty

In related news, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 40,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,410,824 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $110,213,570.88. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 5.10% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms recently commented on AGO. Roth Mkm reissued a “buy” rating and set a $110.00 target price on shares of Assured Guaranty in a research note on Tuesday, July 9th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded Assured Guaranty from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $87.00 to $92.00 in a research report on Tuesday, July 9th. Finally, UBS Group decreased their target price on Assured Guaranty from $102.00 to $84.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Friday.

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.