Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) Receives $92.33 Average Target Price from Brokerages

Shares of Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) have been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the five ratings firms that are covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. The average 12-month price objective among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $92.3333.

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Roth Mkm lowered Assured Guaranty from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $80.00 target price on the stock. in a research report on Friday, May 8th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods cut their target price on Assured Guaranty from $108.00 to $103.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, March 19th. Wall Street Zen raised Assured Guaranty from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, May 2nd. UBS Group raised Assured Guaranty from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $94.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday, May 18th. Finally, Weiss Ratings lowered Assured Guaranty from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 3rd.

Assured Guaranty Trading Down 1.1%

Shares of Assured Guaranty stock opened at $74.75 on Tuesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.63, a current ratio of 0.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31. The firm has a market cap of $3.30 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.58 and a beta of 0.76. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $79.43 and a 200-day simple moving average of $84.43. Assured Guaranty has a fifty-two week low of $72.76 and a fifty-two week high of $92.39.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 7th. The financial services provider reported $2.50 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.50 by $1.00. The business had revenue of $261.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $208.63 million. Assured Guaranty had a return on equity of 6.98% and a net margin of 40.45%.The company’s revenue was down 24.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.18 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that Assured Guaranty will post 7.08 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Assured Guaranty Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 29th. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 15th were given a dividend of $0.38 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, May 15th. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.0%. Assured Guaranty’s payout ratio is 17.45%.

Insider Activity at Assured Guaranty

In other news, Director Francisco L. Borges sold 123,750 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, March 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $80.22, for a total transaction of $9,927,225.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 176,952 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,195,089.44. The trade was a 41.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, major shareholder Guaranty Ltd Assured purchased 242,718 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, April 30th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $24.72 per share, for a total transaction of $5,999,988.96. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 1,002,718 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $24,787,188.96. This trade represents a 31.94% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 224,797 shares of company stock valued at $17,999,537 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 5.70% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Farther Finance Advisors LLC raised its position in Assured Guaranty by 5.1% during the fourth quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 2,800 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $252,000 after buying an additional 135 shares during the period. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI raised its position in Assured Guaranty by 4.9% during the fourth quarter. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI now owns 3,441 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $309,000 after buying an additional 160 shares during the period. HighTower Advisors LLC raised its position in Assured Guaranty by 3.7% during the fourth quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 5,111 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $459,000 after buying an additional 184 shares during the period. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC raised its position in Assured Guaranty by 3.4% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 6,030 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $542,000 after buying an additional 198 shares during the period. Finally, Prelude Capital Management LLC raised its position in Assured Guaranty by 6.3% during the third quarter. Prelude Capital Management LLC now owns 3,357 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $284,000 after buying an additional 199 shares during the period. 92.22% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Assured Guaranty

Assured Guaranty Ltd is a Bermuda-domiciled provider of financial guaranty insurance and reinsurance products serving public finance, infrastructure and structured finance markets. The company’s primary business activity is credit enhancement, whereby it guarantees the timely payment of principal and interest on debt obligations issued by municipal and infrastructure entities. By combining rigorous risk assessment with active portfolio management, Assured Guaranty helps issuers access capital at more attractive rates while protecting investors against credit events.

In its public finance segment, the company underwrites municipal bond insurance for state and local governments, public-private partnerships and essential infrastructure projects.