Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) Announces Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.55 EPS

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) issued its earnings results on Tuesday. The financial services provider reported $1.96 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates 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%. Assured Guaranty’s revenue was down 13.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.12 earnings per share.

Assured Guaranty Stock Down 1.2 %

NYSE:AGO traded down $0.96 on Friday, hitting $79.06. 75,611 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 393,249. The company has a market cap of $4.38 billion, a PE ratio of 6.45 and a beta of 1.14. Assured Guaranty has a 1 year low of $51.05 and a 1 year 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 firm has a 50-day moving average price of $84.24 and a 200-day moving average price of $77.55.

Assured Guaranty Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 29th. Investors of record on Wednesday, May 15th will be paid a $0.31 dividend. This is an increase from Assured Guaranty’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. This represents a $1.24 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.57%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, May 14th. Assured Guaranty’s dividend payout ratio is currently 10.00%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

AGO has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods restated a “market perform” rating and issued a $92.00 target price (up previously from $75.00) on shares of Assured Guaranty in a research report on Monday, April 1st. UBS Group boosted their price objective on Assured Guaranty from $64.00 to $102.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st.

Insider Transactions at Assured Guaranty

In related news, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 55,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,450,824 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $134,099,662.32. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 5.10% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.