Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) Receives Consensus Rating of “Hold” from Analysts

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

AGO has been the subject of several research analyst reports. UBS Group upgraded shares of Assured Guaranty from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $94.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Monday, May 18th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lowered their price objective on shares of Assured Guaranty from $108.00 to $103.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, March 19th. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of Assured Guaranty from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Roth Mkm downgraded shares of Assured Guaranty from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $80.00 price target on the stock. in a research note on Friday, May 8th. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Assured Guaranty from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, May 2nd.

View Our Latest Stock Analysis on AGO

Assured Guaranty Stock Up 2.4%

Shares of AGO opened at $75.62 on Tuesday. Assured Guaranty has a one year low of $72.76 and a one year high of $92.39. The company has a market cap of $3.34 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.68 and a beta of 0.76. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a current ratio of 0.63 and a quick ratio of 0.63. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $79.57 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $84.54.

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

Assured Guaranty Announces Dividend

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

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Lorin Radtke sold 1,047 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $74.32, for a total value of $77,813.04. Following the sale, the director directly owned 9,307 shares in the company, valued at approximately $691,696.24. This trade represents a 10.11% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder Guaranty Ltd Assured purchased 242,718 shares of Assured Guaranty stock in a transaction dated Thursday, April 30th. The stock was bought at an average price of $24.72 per share, for a total transaction of $5,999,988.96. Following the completion of the purchase, the insider owned 1,002,718 shares in the company, valued at $24,787,188.96. This represents a 31.94% increase in their position. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 224,797 shares of company stock worth $17,999,537 in the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 5.70% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Assured Guaranty

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in AGO. M&T Bank Corp raised its holdings in Assured Guaranty by 156.4% in the 4th quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 49,522 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $4,743,000 after buying an additional 30,208 shares during the last quarter. IMC Chicago LLC bought a new position in Assured Guaranty in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $1,446,000. Public Sector Pension Investment Board raised its holdings in Assured Guaranty by 7.5% in the 3rd quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 193,640 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $16,392,000 after buying an additional 13,575 shares during the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. raised its holdings in Assured Guaranty by 8.8% in the 3rd quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 1,145,054 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $96,929,000 after buying an additional 92,148 shares during the last quarter. Finally, First Trust Advisors LP raised its holdings in Assured Guaranty by 12.2% in the 3rd quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 1,333,024 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $112,840,000 after buying an additional 144,841 shares during the last quarter. 92.22% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Assured Guaranty Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

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.

See Also

Analyst Recommendations for Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO)

Receive News & Ratings for Assured Guaranty Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Assured Guaranty and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.