Inscription Capital LLC Acquires New Position in Assured Guaranty Ltd. $AGO

Inscription Capital LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) in the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 7,579 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $642,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in AGO. Teacher Retirement System of Texas increased its position in shares of Assured Guaranty by 1.9% during the second quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas now owns 7,219 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $629,000 after acquiring an additional 134 shares in the last quarter. MAI Capital Management boosted its stake in Assured Guaranty by 17.8% during the 2nd quarter. MAI Capital Management now owns 927 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $81,000 after purchasing an additional 140 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Assured Guaranty by 2.7% in the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 5,742 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $500,000 after purchasing an additional 150 shares in the last quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Assured Guaranty by 2.6% in the third quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 5,856 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $496,000 after purchasing an additional 150 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Voya Investment Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Assured Guaranty by 2.1% in the first quarter. Voya Investment Management LLC now owns 7,717 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $680,000 after purchasing an additional 158 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 92.22% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms recently commented on AGO. Wall Street Zen raised Assured Guaranty from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, November 8th. Zacks Research upgraded shares of Assured Guaranty from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 7th. UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of Assured Guaranty from $92.00 to $94.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, November 17th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their price objective on shares of Assured Guaranty from $105.00 to $108.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 19th. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Assured Guaranty in a report on Monday, December 29th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $101.00.

Assured Guaranty Price Performance

NYSE AGO opened at $84.87 on Thursday. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $89.07 and a 200-day moving average price of $85.02. Assured Guaranty Ltd. has a 52 week low of $74.09 and a 52 week high of $96.50. The company has a quick ratio of 0.88, a current ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.91 billion, a P/E ratio of 10.53 and a beta of 0.91.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, November 6th. The financial services provider reported $2.57 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.54 by $1.03. Assured Guaranty had a net margin of 40.65% and a return on equity of 7.09%. The company had revenue of $207.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $196.76 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $2.42 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 23.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts anticipate that Assured Guaranty Ltd. will post 7.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Assured Guaranty Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 3rd. Investors of record on Wednesday, November 19th were issued a $0.34 dividend. This represents a $1.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.6%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, November 19th. Assured Guaranty’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 16.87%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, major shareholder Guaranty Ltd Assured sold 3,782 shares of Assured Guaranty stock in a transaction on Monday, January 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $14.72, for a total transaction of $55,671.04. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 5,276,372 shares in the company, valued at approximately $77,668,195.84. The trade was a 0.07% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 8,437 shares of company stock valued at $129,237. 5.10% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Assured Guaranty Profile

Assured Guaranty Ltd is a Bermuda-domiciled provider of financial guaranty insurance and reinsurance products serving public finance, infrastructure and structured finance markets. The company’s primary business activity is credit enhancement, whereby it guarantees the timely payment of principal and interest on debt obligations issued by municipal and infrastructure entities. By combining rigorous risk assessment with active portfolio management, Assured Guaranty helps issuers access capital at more attractive rates while protecting investors against credit events.

In its public finance segment, the company underwrites municipal bond insurance for state and local governments, public-private partnerships and essential infrastructure projects.