Castlekeep Investment Advisors LLC Purchases New Stake in Axis Capital Holdings Limited $AXS

Castlekeep Investment Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Axis Capital Holdings Limited (NYSE:AXS) in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund purchased 12,823 shares of the insurance provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,331,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Axis Capital by 22.3% in the first quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 3,290,411 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $328,580,000 after purchasing an additional 600,901 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its holdings in shares of Axis Capital by 95.1% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 1,852,398 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $185,685,000 after purchasing an additional 903,107 shares during the last quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Axis Capital by 0.4% in the first quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 1,359,471 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $136,273,000 after purchasing an additional 4,793 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB increased its holdings in shares of Axis Capital by 28.9% in the second quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 964,260 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $100,109,000 after purchasing an additional 216,357 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Alliancebernstein L.P. increased its holdings in shares of Axis Capital by 12.1% in the first quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 925,265 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $92,749,000 after purchasing an additional 99,916 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.44% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Axis Capital

In other news, Director Henry B. Smith sold 3,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $98.67, for a total transaction of $345,345.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 47,295 shares in the company, valued at $4,666,597.65. This trade represents a 6.89% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Daniel J. Draper sold 4,305 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $97.57, for a total value of $420,038.85. Following the transaction, the insider owned 16,269 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,587,366.33. This represents a 20.92% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 12,205 shares of company stock valued at $1,188,048. Company insiders own 0.70% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently commented on AXS. Wells Fargo & Company set a $123.00 price target on Axis Capital and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 8th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b+)” rating on shares of Axis Capital in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Wall Street Zen cut Axis Capital from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 2nd. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their target price on Axis Capital from $118.00 to $121.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 9th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group assumed coverage on Axis Capital in a research note on Tuesday, October 14th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $104.00 target price for the company. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $115.29.

Axis Capital Price Performance

AXS stock opened at $93.62 on Friday. Axis Capital Holdings Limited has a 52-week low of $77.21 and a 52-week high of $107.19. The business has a fifty day moving average of $95.48 and a two-hundred day moving average of $97.80. The stock has a market cap of $7.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 0.73. The company has a quick ratio of 0.69, a current ratio of 0.69 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26.

Axis Capital (NYSE:AXS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The insurance provider reported $3.25 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.72 by $0.53. Axis Capital had a return on equity of 19.25% and a net margin of 16.08%.The business had revenue of $184.90 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.33 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.71 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 3.9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Axis Capital Holdings Limited will post 11.19 earnings per share for the current year.

Axis Capital Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 17th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, September 30th were given a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.9%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, September 30th. Axis Capital’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 14.55%.

Axis Capital Company Profile

AXIS Capital Holdings Limited, through its subsidiaries, provides various specialty insurance and reinsurance products in Bermuda, the United States, and internationally. It operates through two segments, Insurance and Reinsurance. The Insurance segment offers professional insurance products that cover directors' and officers' liability, errors and omissions, employment practices, fiduciary, crime, professional indemnity, medical malpractice, and other financial insurance related coverages for commercial enterprises, financial institutions, not-for-profit organizations, and other professional service providers; and property insurance products for commercial buildings, residential premises, construction projects, property in transit, onshore renewable energy installations, and physical damage and business interruption following an act of terrorism.