Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) Issues Quarterly Earnings Results

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) posted its earnings results on Tuesday. The financial services provider reported $1.96 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.41 by $0.55, Briefing.com reports. The firm had revenue of $245.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $194.78 million. Assured Guaranty had a net margin of 53.82% and a return on equity of 11.82%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 13.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $1.12 EPS.

Assured Guaranty Price Performance

Shares of AGO stock traded up $4.01 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $82.43. The stock had a trading volume of 151,372 shares, compared to its average volume of 388,671. Assured Guaranty has a 12 month low of $49.84 and a 12 month high of $96.60. The company has a current ratio of 0.88, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $84.73 and its 200 day simple moving average is $77.50. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.57 billion, a PE ratio of 6.66 and a beta of 1.14.

Assured Guaranty Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 29th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, May 15th will be issued a dividend of $0.31 per share. This represents a $1.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.50%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, May 14th. This is a positive change from Assured Guaranty’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. Assured Guaranty’s payout ratio is presently 10.00%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Assured Guaranty news, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 55,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $92.43, for a total transaction of $5,083,650.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 1,450,824 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $134,099,662.32. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Insiders own 5.10% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have commented on AGO. UBS Group lifted their price objective on shares of Assured Guaranty from $64.00 to $102.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reissued a “market perform” rating and issued a $92.00 price target (up previously from $75.00) on shares of Assured Guaranty in a research report on Monday, April 1st.

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.