Short Interest in Assurant, Inc. (NYSE:AIZ) Rises By 10.1%

Assurant, Inc. (NYSE:AIZ) was the target of a significant growth in short interest in March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 744,900 shares, a growth of 10.1% from the March 15th total of 676,600 shares. Approximately 1.5% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average trading volume of 369,900 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 2.0 days.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Assurant

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Assurant during the 4th quarter valued at $108,253,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp raised its holdings in shares of Assurant by 21.5% during the 3rd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 3,238,477 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $464,981,000 after purchasing an additional 573,309 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. raised its holdings in shares of Assurant by 53.7% during the 1st quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,622,996 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $295,111,000 after purchasing an additional 566,763 shares in the last quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Assurant by 4.3% during the 4th quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. now owns 5,694,084 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $712,103,000 after purchasing an additional 237,239 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised its holdings in shares of Assurant by 33.5% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 906,647 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $113,385,000 after purchasing an additional 227,315 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.65% of the company’s stock.

Assurant Stock Down 0.9 %

Shares of NYSE:AIZ opened at $171.06 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a quick ratio of 0.41 and a current ratio of 0.41. The company has a market cap of $8.89 billion, a PE ratio of 14.28, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 0.50. Assurant has a 52 week low of $115.41 and a 52 week high of $189.48. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $178.76 and a 200 day simple moving average of $167.69.

Assurant (NYSE:AIZ) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 6th. The financial services provider reported $4.58 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.70 by $0.88. Assurant had a net margin of 5.77% and a return on equity of 18.36%. The business had revenue of $3 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.78 billion. As a group, research analysts expect that Assurant will post 15.67 earnings per share for the current year.

Assurant Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 25th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 5th were given a $0.72 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, February 2nd. This represents a $2.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.68%. Assurant’s payout ratio is 24.04%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts recently weighed in on AIZ shares. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods cut shares of Assurant from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $170.00 to $182.00 in a report on Monday, February 12th. UBS Group raised their target price on shares of Assurant from $191.00 to $205.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, February 12th. Finally, Piper Sandler raised their target price on shares of Assurant from $195.00 to $205.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, April 5th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $192.20.

About Assurant

Assurant, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides business services that supports, protects, and connects consumer purchases in North America, Latin America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. The company operates through two segments: Global Lifestyle and Global Housing. The Global Lifestyle segment offers mobile device solutions, and extended service contracts and related services for consumer electronics and appliances, and credit and other insurance products; and vehicle protection, commercial equipment, and other related services.