AXQ Capital LP Has $298,000 Stake in W.R. Berkley Corporation $WRB

AXQ Capital LP reduced its stake in shares of W.R. Berkley Corporation (NYSE:WRB) by 75.1% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 4,054 shares of the insurance provider’s stock after selling 12,218 shares during the quarter. AXQ Capital LP’s holdings in W.R. Berkley were worth $298,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Woodline Partners LP increased its stake in W.R. Berkley by 4,198.9% in the first quarter. Woodline Partners LP now owns 777,201 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $55,306,000 after purchasing an additional 759,122 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of W.R. Berkley by 1.7% during the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 36,961,788 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $2,715,583,000 after purchasing an additional 625,685 shares in the last quarter. Nuveen LLC acquired a new position in shares of W.R. Berkley in the 1st quarter valued at $44,210,000. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its position in shares of W.R. Berkley by 8.6% in the 2nd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 7,274,234 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $534,438,000 after buying an additional 577,873 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. raised its stake in W.R. Berkley by 60.1% during the 1st quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. now owns 826,616 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $58,822,000 after buying an additional 310,313 shares during the period. 68.82% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have issued reports on WRB. Cantor Fitzgerald set a $78.00 target price on W.R. Berkley in a research note on Monday, October 27th. Barclays reiterated an “underweight” rating and set a $73.00 price objective on shares of W.R. Berkley in a report on Wednesday, October 8th. BMO Capital Markets cut W.R. Berkley from a “market perform” rating to an “underperform” rating and set a $64.00 target price for the company. in a research note on Wednesday, October 22nd. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b)” rating on shares of W.R. Berkley in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price target on shares of W.R. Berkley from $76.00 to $75.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, October 21st. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, ten have given a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, W.R. Berkley has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $74.85.

W.R. Berkley Trading Down 0.7%

Shares of NYSE:WRB opened at $77.56 on Tuesday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $75.30 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $72.92. W.R. Berkley Corporation has a one year low of $55.97 and a one year high of $78.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a current ratio of 0.37 and a quick ratio of 0.37. The stock has a market capitalization of $29.47 billion, a PE ratio of 16.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.73 and a beta of 0.40.

W.R. Berkley (NYSE:WRB) last released its earnings results on Monday, October 20th. The insurance provider reported $1.10 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.07 by $0.03. W.R. Berkley had a return on equity of 19.35% and a net margin of 13.01%.The business had revenue of $3.77 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.16 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.93 earnings per share. W.R. Berkley’s quarterly revenue was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts forecast that W.R. Berkley Corporation will post 4.33 EPS for the current fiscal year.

W.R. Berkley Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 30th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 22nd were paid a dividend of $0.09 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, September 22nd. This represents a $0.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.5%. W.R. Berkley’s dividend payout ratio is currently 7.56%.

W.R. Berkley Profile

W. R. Berkley Corporation, an insurance holding company, operates as a commercial lines writers worldwide. It operates in two segments, Insurance and Reinsurance & Monoline Excess. The Insurance segment underwrites commercial insurance business, including excess and surplus lines, admitted lines, and specialty personal lines.