Claro Advisors LLC Purchases New Holdings in Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL)

Claro Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL) during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor acquired 1,935 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $216,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its stake in shares of Aflac by 6.3% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 4,807,079 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $429,319,000 after buying an additional 285,576 shares during the last quarter. APG Asset Management N.V. boosted its holdings in Aflac by 1.3% in the second quarter. APG Asset Management N.V. now owns 2,429,316 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $202,437,000 after acquiring an additional 31,752 shares in the last quarter. Guinness Asset Management LTD grew its stake in shares of Aflac by 3.8% in the third quarter. Guinness Asset Management LTD now owns 2,276,325 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $254,382,000 after acquiring an additional 83,289 shares during the last quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Aflac by 5.6% during the second quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 2,220,125 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $198,279,000 after acquiring an additional 117,504 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Truist Financial Corp raised its position in shares of Aflac by 26.6% in the 2nd quarter. Truist Financial Corp now owns 1,929,662 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $172,338,000 after purchasing an additional 405,847 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 67.44% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages recently commented on AFL. Truist Financial increased their price objective on shares of Aflac from $100.00 to $105.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. TD Cowen assumed coverage on shares of Aflac in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th. They set a “hold” rating and a $102.00 price target for the company. UBS Group upped their price objective on Aflac from $84.00 to $109.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 14th. Evercore ISI lifted their target price on Aflac from $84.00 to $90.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Thursday, September 26th. Finally, Citigroup upped their price target on Aflac from $84.00 to $93.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Aflac has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $97.93.

Aflac Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE AFL opened at $111.12 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 0.08, a quick ratio of 0.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32. Aflac Incorporated has a 12-month low of $75.07 and a 12-month high of $115.50. The firm has a market capitalization of $61.73 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.15 and a beta of 0.96. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $110.52 and a 200 day moving average of $100.09.

Aflac (NYSE:AFL) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 30th. The financial services provider reported $2.16 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.69 by $0.47. Aflac had a net margin of 22.02% and a return on equity of 16.34%. The firm had revenue of $2.95 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.30 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.84 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 40.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that Aflac Incorporated will post 7.22 earnings per share for the current year.

Aflac Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, November 20th will be paid a $0.50 dividend. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.80%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, November 20th. Aflac’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 30.12%.

Aflac Company Profile

Aflac Incorporated, through its subsidiaries, provides supplemental health and life insurance products. The company operates through Aflac Japan and Aflac U.S. segments. The Aflac Japan segment offers cancer, medical, nursing care, work leave, GIFT, and whole and term life insurance products, as well as WAYS and child endowment plans under saving type insurance products in Japan.