Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) Posts Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $1.00 EPS

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday. The financial services provider reported $2.42 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.42 by $1.00, Briefing.com reports. Assured Guaranty had a net margin of 61.17% and a return on equity of 13.19%. The company had revenue of $269.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $202.57 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $3.42 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 33.3% on a year-over-year basis.

Assured Guaranty Price Performance

Assured Guaranty stock opened at $89.56 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.71 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.28 and a beta of 1.10. Assured Guaranty has a one year low of $64.59 and a one year high of $96.60. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30, a current ratio of 0.96 and a quick ratio of 0.96. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $82.01 and a 200-day moving average price of $79.33.

Assured Guaranty Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 6th. Shareholders of record on Friday, November 22nd will be issued a dividend of $0.31 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, November 22nd. This represents a $1.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.38%. Assured Guaranty’s payout ratio is 10.08%.

Insider Activity at Assured Guaranty

In other Assured Guaranty news, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 31,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $80.01, for a total value of $2,480,310.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 1,380,119 shares in the company, valued at $110,423,321.19. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In other news, Director Yukiko Omura sold 3,599 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $79.73, for a total transaction of $286,948.27. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 19,285 shares in the company, valued at $1,537,593.05. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 31,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $80.01, for a total value of $2,480,310.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 1,380,119 shares in the company, valued at $110,423,321.19. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 5.10% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

AGO has been the topic of several research analyst reports. UBS Group upped their price objective on Assured Guaranty from $84.00 to $87.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. StockNews.com cut Assured Guaranty from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Friday, October 18th.

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.