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

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday. The financial services provider reported $1.96 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.41 by $0.55, Briefing.com reports. Assured Guaranty had a return on equity of 11.82% and a net margin of 53.82%. The firm had revenue of $245.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $194.78 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.12 earnings per share. Assured Guaranty’s revenue for the quarter was down 13.4% on a year-over-year basis.

Assured Guaranty Trading Up 5.1 %

NYSE:AGO traded up $4.01 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $82.43. The company had a trading volume of 151,372 shares, compared to its average volume of 388,671. The firm has a market cap of $4.57 billion, a P/E ratio of 6.66 and a beta of 1.14. The business’s fifty day moving average is $84.73 and its two-hundred day moving average is $77.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a current ratio of 0.88. Assured Guaranty has a fifty-two week low of $49.84 and a fifty-two week high of $96.60.

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 issued a $0.31 dividend. This is a positive change from Assured Guaranty’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. This represents a $1.24 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.50%. 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 topic of several research reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reiterated a “market perform” rating and set a $92.00 price objective (up previously from $75.00) on shares of Assured Guaranty in a research note on Monday, April 1st. UBS Group increased their target price on shares of Assured Guaranty from $64.00 to $102.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Assured Guaranty news, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 55,000 shares of the firm’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 sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,450,824 shares in the company, valued at approximately $134,099,662.32. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. 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.