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

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) announced its earnings results on Monday. The financial services provider reported $2.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.42 by $1.00, Briefing.com reports. Assured Guaranty had a net margin of 70.37% and a return on equity of 11.64%. The company had revenue of $269.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $202.57 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $3.42 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 33.3% on a year-over-year basis.

Assured Guaranty Trading Down 1.5 %

AGO stock traded down $1.33 on Wednesday, hitting $90.08. 67,506 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 381,106. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.74 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.10 and a beta of 1.10. 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’s fifty day moving average is $82.20 and its two-hundred day moving average is $79.41. Assured Guaranty has a twelve month low of $65.39 and a twelve month high of $96.60.

Assured Guaranty Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 6th. Shareholders of record on Friday, November 22nd will be paid a dividend of $0.31 per share. This represents a $1.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.38%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, November 22nd. Assured Guaranty’s dividend payout ratio is presently 9.63%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts recently weighed in on AGO shares. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Assured Guaranty from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Friday, October 18th. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Assured Guaranty from $84.00 to $87.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 17th.

Insider Buying and Selling at Assured Guaranty

In other news, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 31,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 4th. The shares were 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 directly owns 1,380,119 shares in the company, valued at approximately $110,423,321.19. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 31,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, September 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $80.01, for a total transaction 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 approximately $110,423,321.19. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director Yukiko Omura sold 3,599 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $79.73, for a total value of $286,948.27. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 19,285 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,537,593.05. The trade was 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.

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.