Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) Downgraded by StockNews.com to Sell

StockNews.com downgraded shares of Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) from a hold rating to a sell rating in a report published on Thursday morning.

A number of other brokerages also recently issued reports on AGO. UBS Group dropped their price objective on Assured Guaranty from $102.00 to $84.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, August 9th. Roth Mkm reissued a buy rating and issued a $110.00 price target on shares of Assured Guaranty in a research note on Tuesday, July 9th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised shares of Assured Guaranty from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $87.00 to $92.00 in a research report on Tuesday, July 9th.

Assured Guaranty Price Performance

Assured Guaranty stock opened at $79.70 on Thursday. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $78.35 and its 200 day moving average is $80.76. Assured Guaranty has a one year low of $58.14 and a one year high of $96.60. The firm has a market cap of $4.34 billion, a P/E ratio of 6.15 and a beta of 1.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30, a current ratio of 0.97 and a quick ratio of 0.97.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 7th. The financial services provider reported $1.44 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.39 by $0.05. Assured Guaranty had a net margin of 57.45% and a return on equity of 12.48%. The company had revenue of $202.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $193.05 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.60 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 43.9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that Assured Guaranty will post 6.45 EPS for the current year.

Assured Guaranty Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, September 4th. Investors of record on Wednesday, August 21st will be paid a dividend of $0.31 per share. This represents a $1.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.56%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, August 21st. Assured Guaranty’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 9.58%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 40,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $78.12, for a total transaction of $3,124,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 1,410,824 shares in the company, valued at $110,213,570.88. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 5.10% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Point72 Asset Management L.P. acquired a new stake in shares of Assured Guaranty in the 2nd quarter worth about $151,000. Creative Planning raised its stake in shares of Assured Guaranty by 1.4% in the second quarter. Creative Planning now owns 11,005 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $849,000 after purchasing an additional 153 shares during the last quarter. Algert Global LLC bought a new position in shares of Assured Guaranty in the second quarter valued at approximately $1,691,000. Lighthouse Investment Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of Assured Guaranty in the second quarter valued at approximately $491,000. Finally, Long Focus Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Assured Guaranty by 6.3% during the second quarter. Long Focus Capital Management LLC now owns 255,000 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $19,673,000 after buying an additional 15,000 shares during the last quarter. 92.22% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Assured Guaranty Company Profile

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.