Corient Private Wealth LLC Has $1.47 Million Stake in Assured Guaranty Ltd. $AGO

Corient Private Wealth LLC lifted its position in shares of Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) by 93.8% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 16,882 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 8,171 shares during the quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC’s holdings in Assured Guaranty were worth $1,470,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in AGO. Teacher Retirement System of Texas grew its holdings in Assured Guaranty by 1.9% during the 2nd quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas now owns 7,219 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $629,000 after acquiring an additional 134 shares during the period. MAI Capital Management grew its holdings in Assured Guaranty by 17.8% during the second quarter. MAI Capital Management now owns 927 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $81,000 after buying an additional 140 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Assured Guaranty by 2.7% in the second quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 5,742 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $500,000 after purchasing an additional 150 shares during the last quarter. Voya Investment Management LLC increased its stake in Assured Guaranty by 2.1% in the 1st quarter. Voya Investment Management LLC now owns 7,717 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $680,000 after buying an additional 158 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Freedom Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Assured Guaranty by 6.1% during the first quarter. Freedom Investment Management Inc. now owns 2,781 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $245,000 after acquiring an additional 161 shares during the period. 92.22% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Assured Guaranty Price Performance

Shares of NYSE AGO opened at $90.86 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $4.19 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.27 and a beta of 0.91. The company has a quick ratio of 0.88, a current ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30. Assured Guaranty Ltd. has a twelve month low of $74.09 and a twelve month high of $96.50. The company has a 50 day moving average of $86.80 and a 200 day moving average of $84.65.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 6th. The financial services provider reported $2.57 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.54 by $1.03. Assured Guaranty had a net margin of 40.65% and a return on equity of 7.09%. The firm had revenue of $207.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $196.76 million. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 23.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.42 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Assured Guaranty Ltd. will post 7.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Assured Guaranty Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 3rd. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, November 19th were issued a $0.34 dividend. This represents a $1.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.5%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, November 19th. Assured Guaranty’s payout ratio is 16.87%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have weighed in on AGO shares. UBS Group increased their price objective on Assured Guaranty from $92.00 to $94.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, November 17th. Weiss Ratings restated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Assured Guaranty in a research report on Monday. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their price target on shares of Assured Guaranty from $105.00 to $108.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 19th. Zacks Research upgraded Assured Guaranty from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 7th. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Assured Guaranty from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, November 8th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $101.00.

Insider Activity

In other Assured Guaranty news, major shareholder Guaranty Ltd Assured sold 1,882 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, October 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $16.64, for a total transaction of $31,316.48. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 5,281,112 shares in the company, valued at $87,877,703.68. This represents a 0.04% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 16,929 shares of company stock worth $290,924. 5.10% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

About Assured Guaranty

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.