Assured Guaranty Ltd. (AGO) To Go Ex-Dividend on May 14th

Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, May 2nd, Zacks reports. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, May 15th will be paid a dividend of 0.31 per share by the financial services provider on Wednesday, May 29th. This represents a $1.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.59%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, May 14th. This is an increase from Assured Guaranty’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28.

Assured Guaranty has raised its dividend payment by an average of 11.9% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 6 consecutive years. Assured Guaranty has a payout ratio of 18.4% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Assured Guaranty to earn $7.20 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.24 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 17.2%.

Assured Guaranty Stock Up 0.6 %

AGO stock opened at $77.87 on Friday. Assured Guaranty has a 52 week low of $49.84 and a 52 week high of $96.60. The company has a current ratio of 0.88, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29. The company has a market cap of $4.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 6.28 and a beta of 1.14. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $85.01 and its 200 day moving average price is $77.05.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, February 28th. The financial services provider reported $5.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.18 by $4.57. Assured Guaranty had a return on equity of 11.82% and a net margin of 53.82%. The firm had revenue of $233.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $196.15 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.22 EPS. Assured Guaranty’s revenue was up 20.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts expect that Assured Guaranty will post 6 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Assured Guaranty

In other Assured Guaranty news, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 55,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $92.43, for a total value of $5,083,650.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,450,824 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $134,099,662.32. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. 5.10% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

AGO has been the topic of several analyst reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods restated a “market perform” rating and set a $92.00 price objective (up previously from $75.00) on shares of Assured Guaranty in a report on Monday, April 1st. UBS Group lifted their price target on Assured Guaranty from $64.00 to $102.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, March 1st.

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.