Progressive (NYSE:PGR) Downgraded by StockNews.com to “Hold”

StockNews.com downgraded shares of Progressive (NYSE:PGR) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note published on Friday morning.

Several other brokerages have also issued reports on PGR. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on Progressive from $300.00 to $307.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Roth Mkm raised their target price on Progressive from $290.00 to $315.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 25th. Hsbc Global Res lowered Progressive from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 10th. HSBC lowered Progressive from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $267.00 target price for the company. in a research report on Tuesday, December 10th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on Progressive from $251.00 to $256.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $281.76.

Progressive Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:PGR opened at $283.87 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.31, a quick ratio of 0.30 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $258.14 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $253.97. Progressive has a 1-year low of $199.57 and a 1-year high of $287.49. The stock has a market cap of $166.41 billion, a PE ratio of 19.71, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.70 and a beta of 0.35.

Progressive (NYSE:PGR) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 29th. The insurance provider reported $4.08 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.44 by $0.64. Progressive had a return on equity of 33.79% and a net margin of 11.25%. As a group, analysts forecast that Progressive will post 14.68 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Progressive Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, April 11th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 3rd will be issued a dividend of $0.10 per share. This represents a $0.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.14%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 3rd. Progressive’s payout ratio is presently 2.78%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Progressive

In other news, CIO Jonathan S. Bauer sold 1,227 shares of Progressive stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.00, for a total transaction of $344,787.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive now owns 28,393 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,978,433. This trade represents a 4.14 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Andrew J. Quigg sold 681 shares of Progressive stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $242.10, for a total value of $164,870.10. Following the sale, the insider now owns 33,612 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,137,465.20. This trade represents a 1.99 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 62,257 shares of company stock valued at $15,752,781 in the last quarter. 0.34% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Progressive

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of PGR. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Progressive during the 4th quarter valued at about $1,843,045,000. GQG Partners LLC lifted its position in Progressive by 67.6% in the 4th quarter. GQG Partners LLC now owns 5,171,501 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $1,239,143,000 after buying an additional 2,085,833 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new stake in Progressive in the 4th quarter worth approximately $408,416,000. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Progressive by 13.2% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 14,425,792 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $3,652,235,000 after buying an additional 1,682,213 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors lifted its position in Progressive by 34.3% in the 4th quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 6,058,187 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $1,451,602,000 after buying an additional 1,547,677 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 85.34% of the company’s stock.

About Progressive

The Progressive Corporation, an insurance holding company, provides personal and commercial auto, personal residential and commercial property, business related general liability, and other specialty property-casualty insurance products and related services in the United States. It operates in three segments: Personal Lines, Commercial Lines, and Property.