W. R. Berkley (NYSE:WRB) Stock Rating Lowered by StockNews.com

StockNews.com cut shares of W. R. Berkley (NYSE:WRB) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note released on Wednesday.

A number of other analysts have also recently weighed in on WRB. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price objective on shares of W. R. Berkley from $57.00 to $63.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 22nd. Evercore ISI boosted their price target on shares of W. R. Berkley from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 22nd. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on W. R. Berkley from $63.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 22nd. UBS Group boosted their target price on W. R. Berkley from $67.00 to $69.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 22nd. Finally, Truist Financial lifted their price target on W. R. Berkley from $64.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, W. R. Berkley has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $64.28.

W. R. Berkley Price Performance

W. R. Berkley stock opened at $58.97 on Wednesday. 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 fifty day simple moving average of $60.42 and a 200-day simple moving average of $57.93. The stock has a market cap of $22.47 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.11, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.17 and a beta of 0.65. W. R. Berkley has a 12-month low of $46.74 and a 12-month high of $65.49.

W. R. Berkley (NYSE:WRB) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 21st. The insurance provider reported $0.93 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping 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 the consensus estimate of $2.93 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.90 EPS. W. R. Berkley’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts expect that W. R. Berkley will post 3.96 EPS for the current fiscal year.

W. R. Berkley Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed 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. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 16th. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.54%. W. R. Berkley’s payout ratio is currently 8.21%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On W. R. Berkley

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in WRB. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its stake in shares of W. R. Berkley by 55.1% during the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 7,366,424 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $417,897,000 after buying an additional 2,616,227 shares in the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its holdings in W. R. Berkley by 211.3% during the third quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 3,674,171 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $208,436,000 after acquiring an additional 2,493,758 shares during the period. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. raised its position in W. R. Berkley by 50.8% in the third quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 4,646 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $264,000 after acquiring an additional 1,566 shares in the last quarter. Garden State Investment Advisory Services LLC acquired a new stake in W. R. Berkley in the third quarter valued at $233,000. Finally, Retirement Systems of Alabama grew its stake in shares of W. R. Berkley by 46.5% during the 3rd quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 65,267 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $3,703,000 after purchasing an additional 20,715 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 68.82% of the company’s stock.

W. R. Berkley Company Profile

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.