Assured Guaranty (AGO) to Release Earnings on Tuesday

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) will post its quarterly earnings results after the market closes on Tuesday, May 7th. Analysts expect Assured Guaranty to post earnings of $1.41 per share for the quarter. Parties that wish to listen to the company’s conference call can do so using this link.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, February 28th. The financial services provider reported $5.75 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.18 by $4.57. Assured Guaranty had a net margin of 53.82% and a return on equity of 11.82%. The company had revenue of $233.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $196.15 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.22 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 20.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts expect Assured Guaranty to post $6 EPS for the current fiscal year and $7 EPS for the next fiscal year.

Assured Guaranty Price Performance

AGO opened at $77.87 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29, a current ratio of 0.88 and a quick ratio of 0.88. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 6.28 and a beta of 1.14. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $85.01 and its 200-day simple moving average is $77.15. Assured Guaranty has a one year low of $49.84 and a one year high of $96.60.

Assured Guaranty Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 29th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, May 15th will be given a $0.31 dividend. This represents a $1.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.59%. This is a positive change from Assured Guaranty’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, May 14th. Assured Guaranty’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 10.00%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 55,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $92.43, for a total value of $5,083,650.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,450,824 shares in the company, valued at approximately $134,099,662.32. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Company insiders own 5.10% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on AGO. UBS Group upped their price target on Assured Guaranty from $64.00 to $102.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods restated a “market perform” rating and set a $92.00 target price (up from $75.00) on shares of Assured Guaranty in a research report on Monday, April 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.