Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) Shares Acquired by Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd.

Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. lifted its position in Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) by 1.3% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 11,426 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 144 shares during the quarter. Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd.’s holdings in Assured Guaranty were worth $909,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Royce & Associates LP grew its stake in Assured Guaranty by 13.2% during the 3rd quarter. Royce & Associates LP now owns 981,131 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $78,020,000 after buying an additional 114,308 shares during the last quarter. Reinhart Partners LLC. grew its stake in Assured Guaranty by 7.8% during the 3rd quarter. Reinhart Partners LLC. now owns 977,758 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $77,751,000 after buying an additional 71,114 shares during the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its stake in Assured Guaranty by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 926,415 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $73,670,000 after buying an additional 2,953 shares during the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. grew its stake in Assured Guaranty by 37.4% during the 2nd quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 678,182 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $52,322,000 after buying an additional 184,621 shares during the last quarter. Finally, River Road Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in Assured Guaranty during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $53,026,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.22% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms recently issued reports on AGO. StockNews.com upgraded Assured Guaranty from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their price objective on Assured Guaranty from $92.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, November 18th. Finally, UBS Group increased their price objective on Assured Guaranty from $87.00 to $95.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, November 18th.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 31,000 shares of Assured Guaranty stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 4th. The stock was 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 directly owns 1,380,119 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $110,423,321.19. The trade was a 2.20 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Yukiko Omura sold 3,599 shares of Assured Guaranty 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 transaction, the director now directly owns 19,285 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,537,593.05. This represents a 15.73 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 5.10% of the company’s stock.

Assured Guaranty Stock Down 0.1 %

Assured Guaranty stock opened at $93.28 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $85.86 and a two-hundred day moving average of $80.77. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.75 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.25 and a beta of 1.10. Assured Guaranty Ltd. has a twelve month low of $67.25 and a twelve month high of $96.60.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Monday, November 11th. The financial services provider reported $2.42 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.42 by $1.00. The business had revenue of $269.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $202.57 million. Assured Guaranty had a return on equity of 11.58% and a net margin of 70.37%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 33.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $3.42 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Assured Guaranty Ltd. will post 7.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Assured Guaranty Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 6th. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 22nd will be issued a $0.31 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, November 22nd. This represents a $1.24 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.33%. Assured Guaranty’s dividend payout ratio is currently 9.63%.

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.