BNP Paribas Financial Markets Has $34.53 Million Stock Holdings in Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO)

BNP Paribas Financial Markets raised its stake in shares of Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) by 50.7% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 434,173 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 146,107 shares during the period. BNP Paribas Financial Markets’ holdings in Assured Guaranty were worth $34,525,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its stake in shares of Assured Guaranty by 1.0% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 31,310 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $2,732,000 after acquiring an additional 302 shares during the last quarter. Tidal Investments LLC grew its stake in shares of Assured Guaranty by 9.0% in the first quarter. Tidal Investments LLC now owns 7,367 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $643,000 after acquiring an additional 606 shares during the last quarter. Virtu Financial LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Assured Guaranty in the first quarter worth $422,000. GAMMA Investing LLC grew its stake in shares of Assured Guaranty by 14.5% in the second quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 1,164 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $90,000 after acquiring an additional 147 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Versant Capital Management Inc grew its stake in shares of Assured Guaranty by 55.7% in the second quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 1,054 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $81,000 after acquiring an additional 377 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.22% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of Assured Guaranty from $87.00 to $95.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, November 18th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Assured Guaranty from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their price objective on shares of Assured Guaranty from $92.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, November 18th.

Insider Buying and Selling at Assured Guaranty

In other Assured Guaranty news, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 31,000 shares of Assured Guaranty stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $80.01, for a total transaction of $2,480,310.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,380,119 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $110,423,321.19. This trade represents a 2.20 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Yukiko Omura sold 3,599 shares of Assured Guaranty stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $79.73, for a total value of $286,948.27. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 19,285 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,537,593.05. The trade was a 15.73 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 5.10% of the company’s stock.

Assured Guaranty Stock Down 0.1 %

AGO opened at $93.28 on Friday. Assured Guaranty Ltd. has a fifty-two week low of $67.25 and a fifty-two week high of $96.60. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.91. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $85.86 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $80.73. The company has a market capitalization of $4.75 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.25 and a beta of 1.10.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Monday, November 11th. The financial services provider reported $2.42 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.42 by $1.00. Assured Guaranty had a net margin of 70.37% and a return on equity of 11.58%. The firm had revenue of $269.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $202.57 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $3.42 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was down 33.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts anticipate that Assured Guaranty Ltd. will post 7.3 EPS for the current year.

Assured Guaranty Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 6th. Shareholders of record on Friday, November 22nd will be paid a dividend of $0.31 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, November 22nd. This represents a $1.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.33%. Assured Guaranty’s dividend payout ratio is currently 9.63%.

Assured Guaranty Company Profile

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.