Progressive (NYSE:PGR) Receives “Neutral” Rating from JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Progressive (NYSE:PGR)‘s stock had its “neutral” rating restated by equities research analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in a note issued to investors on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. They presently have a $250.00 price objective on the insurance provider’s stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co.‘s price objective points to a potential upside of 6.45% from the company’s current price.

PGR has been the topic of several other reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their target price on shares of Progressive from $210.00 to $231.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 8th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered Progressive from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and set a $205.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Monday, June 29th. Weiss Ratings cut Progressive from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Royal Bank Of Canada set a $208.00 price objective on Progressive in a research report on Friday, May 22nd. Finally, UBS Group raised their price objective on Progressive from $220.00 to $230.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 30th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Progressive presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $236.74.

Progressive Trading Up 1.8%

PGR stock opened at $234.84 on Tuesday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $207.57 and a 200 day moving average price of $206.81. Progressive has a fifty-two week low of $189.20 and a fifty-two week high of $254.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26, a quick ratio of 0.27 and a current ratio of 0.27. The firm has a market cap of $137.23 billion, a PE ratio of 11.94, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.36 and a beta of 0.26.

Progressive (NYSE:PGR) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 15th. The insurance provider reported $4.80 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.67 by $0.13. Progressive had a net margin of 12.92% and a return on equity of 33.47%. The company had revenue of $22.19 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $23.51 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $4.37 earnings per share. Progressive’s revenue was up 6.5% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Progressive will post 17.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Progressive

In related news, insider John Jo Murphy sold 5,916 shares of Progressive stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $200.00, for a total transaction of $1,183,200.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 41,290 shares in the company, valued at $8,258,000. This trade represents a 12.53% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Jeffrey D. Kelly sold 7,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, June 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $216.33, for a total transaction of $1,514,310.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 22,546 shares in the company, valued at $4,877,376.18. This represents a 23.69% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 15,230 shares of company stock worth $3,165,817. 0.32% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Allstate Corp lifted its stake in shares of Progressive by 106.1% during the 4th quarter. Allstate Corp now owns 44,513 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $10,136,000 after purchasing an additional 22,915 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in Progressive in the fourth quarter worth about $1,836,094,000. Mariner LLC lifted its position in shares of Progressive by 7.9% during the third quarter. Mariner LLC now owns 644,636 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $159,183,000 after buying an additional 47,248 shares during the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Progressive by 5.7% during the fourth quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 1,807,068 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $411,506,000 after buying an additional 97,275 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Investment House LLC bought a new stake in shares of Progressive in the 4th quarter valued at about $8,447,000. Institutional investors own 85.34% of the company’s stock.

About Progressive

Progressive Corporation is a large U.S.-based property and casualty insurer that primarily underwrites personal auto insurance along with a broad suite of related products. Its offerings include coverage for private passenger automobiles, commercial auto fleets, motorcycles, boats and recreational vehicles, as well as homeowners, renters, umbrella and other specialty P&C products. Progressive also provides claims handling, risk management and related services to individual and commercial policyholders.

The company distributes its products through a mix of direct channels—online and by phone—and an extensive independent agent network.