Romano Brothers AND Company Sells 792 Shares of W. R. Berkley Co. (NYSE:WRB)

Romano Brothers AND Company trimmed its position in shares of W. R. Berkley Co. (NYSE:WRB) by 11.8% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 5,920 shares of the insurance provider’s stock after selling 792 shares during the quarter. Romano Brothers AND Company’s holdings in W. R. Berkley were worth $346,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. State Street Corp grew its holdings in shares of W. R. Berkley by 48.6% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 15,121,001 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $857,814,000 after purchasing an additional 4,947,830 shares during the last quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC boosted its position in W. R. Berkley by 51.0% in the 3rd quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 11,321,958 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $642,294,000 after buying an additional 3,825,238 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in W. R. Berkley by 47.9% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 7,591,353 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $429,266,000 after acquiring an additional 2,459,073 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its position in shares of W. R. Berkley by 55.1% during the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 7,366,424 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $417,897,000 after acquiring an additional 2,616,227 shares during the period. Finally, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company raised its stake in shares of W. R. Berkley by 104.1% during the third quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 4,154,783 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $235,701,000 after acquiring an additional 2,118,641 shares in the last quarter. 68.82% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts recently issued reports on the company. StockNews.com downgraded W. R. Berkley from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price target on W. R. Berkley from $68.00 to $67.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of W. R. Berkley from $67.00 to $69.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 22nd. Truist Financial raised their target price on shares of W. R. Berkley from $64.00 to $68.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group increased their price objective on shares of W. R. Berkley from $53.00 to $57.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $63.74.

W. R. Berkley Stock Performance

Shares of WRB stock opened at $59.57 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 0.36, a quick ratio of 0.36 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. The company has a market cap of $22.70 billion, a PE ratio of 15.26, a PEG ratio of 1.00 and a beta of 0.67. W. R. Berkley Co. has a 12-month low of $48.69 and a 12-month high of $65.49. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $60.28 and its 200-day simple moving average is $58.56.

W. R. Berkley (NYSE:WRB) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 21st. The insurance provider reported $0.93 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.92 by $0.01. W. R. Berkley had a return on equity of 20.41% and a net margin of 11.96%. The company had revenue of $2.93 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.93 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.90 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that W. R. Berkley Co. will post 3.95 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

W. R. Berkley Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 27th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 16th were given a dividend of $0.08 per share. This represents a $0.32 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.54%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 16th. W. R. Berkley’s dividend payout ratio is presently 8.20%.

About W. R. Berkley

W. R. Berkley Corporation, an insurance holding company, operates as a commercial lines writers worldwide. It operates in two segments, Insurance and Reinsurance & Monoline Excess. The Insurance segment underwrites commercial insurance business, including excess and surplus lines, admitted lines, and specialty personal lines.