Assured Guaranty Ltd. $AGO Shares Sold by Cwm LLC

Cwm LLC lowered its stake in shares of Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) by 30.4% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 9,496 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 4,155 shares during the quarter. Cwm LLC’s holdings in Assured Guaranty were worth $827,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Allworth Financial LP increased its stake in shares of Assured Guaranty by 27.6% during the 1st quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 717 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $62,000 after acquiring an additional 155 shares during the last quarter. Headlands Technologies LLC acquired a new position in shares of Assured Guaranty during the 1st quarter valued at about $104,000. State of Wyoming increased its stake in shares of Assured Guaranty by 583.3% during the 1st quarter. State of Wyoming now owns 1,517 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $134,000 after acquiring an additional 1,295 shares during the last quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Assured Guaranty by 28.2% during the 2nd quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 1,979 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $172,000 after acquiring an additional 435 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Summit Financial LLC acquired a new stake in Assured Guaranty during the 1st quarter worth approximately $203,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.22% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, COO Robert Bailenson sold 40,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, August 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $81.51, for a total transaction of $3,260,400.00. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 291,728 shares in the company, valued at $23,778,749.28. This trade represents a 12.06% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder Guaranty Ltd Assured sold 6,258 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $16.90, for a total value of $105,760.20. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 5,282,994 shares in the company, valued at $89,282,598.60. This represents a 0.12% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 79,089 shares of company stock worth $5,599,792 over the last ninety days. 5.10% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Assured Guaranty Stock Performance

Assured Guaranty stock opened at $81.55 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $3.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.01 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a current ratio of 0.75, a quick ratio of 0.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $82.26 and a 200-day moving average of $83.83. Assured Guaranty Ltd. has a 52 week low of $74.09 and a 52 week high of $96.50.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) last released its earnings results on Thursday, August 7th. The financial services provider reported $1.01 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.57 by ($0.56). The business had revenue of $281.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $203.91 million. Assured Guaranty had a net margin of 44.53% and a return on equity of 7.18%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 39.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.44 earnings per share. On average, analysts expect that Assured Guaranty Ltd. will post 7.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Assured Guaranty Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, September 3rd. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, August 20th were paid a dividend of $0.34 per share. This represents a $1.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.7%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, August 20th. Assured Guaranty’s dividend payout ratio is 15.03%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently issued reports on AGO. Zacks Research raised shares of Assured Guaranty from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 7th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of Assured Guaranty in a research report on Wednesday, October 8th. UBS Group dropped their target price on shares of Assured Guaranty from $95.00 to $92.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, August 13th. Finally, Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Assured Guaranty from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 9th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $98.50.

Assured Guaranty 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.