Nisa Investment Advisors LLC Has $513,000 Position in Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO)

Nisa Investment Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) by 2.2% in the first quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 5,827 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after buying an additional 127 shares during the quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Assured Guaranty were worth $513,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Reinhart Partners LLC. lifted its holdings in shares of Assured Guaranty by 12.8% during the first quarter. Reinhart Partners LLC. now owns 1,134,810 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $99,977,000 after buying an additional 129,026 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Assured Guaranty by 1.4% during the fourth quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 997,622 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $89,796,000 after buying an additional 13,552 shares in the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Assured Guaranty by 12.0% during the fourth quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 903,270 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $81,303,000 after buying an additional 97,091 shares in the last quarter. Boston Partners lifted its holdings in shares of Assured Guaranty by 46.0% during the fourth quarter. Boston Partners now owns 806,821 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $72,904,000 after buying an additional 254,063 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Assured Guaranty during the 4th quarter worth $50,447,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.22% of the company’s stock.

Assured Guaranty Stock Performance

AGO opened at $82.30 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $4.04 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.83 and a beta of 0.82. Assured Guaranty Ltd. has a 52-week low of $72.57 and a 52-week high of $96.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a current ratio of 0.83. The business’s fifty day moving average is $85.25 and its 200-day moving average is $87.09.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) last released its earnings results on Thursday, May 8th. The financial services provider reported $3.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.15 by $0.03. The company had revenue of $345.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $257.96 million. Assured Guaranty had a return on equity of 7.76% and a net margin of 45.58%. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $1.96 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Assured Guaranty Ltd. will post 7.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Assured Guaranty Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 30th. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 16th were issued a dividend of $0.34 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, May 16th. This represents a $1.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.65%. Assured Guaranty’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 16.25%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CAO Laura Bieling sold 2,649 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $87.76, for a total transaction of $232,476.24. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer owned 13,462 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,181,425.12. The trade was a 16.44% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 71,917 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, May 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $86.11, for a total value of $6,192,772.87. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 1,348,073 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $116,082,566.03. This trade represents a 5.06% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 85,004 shares of company stock valued at $7,324,274 in the last three months. 5.10% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About Assured Guaranty

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.