Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.31

Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, November 8th,NASDAQ Dividends reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 22nd will be given a dividend of 0.31 per share by the financial services provider on Friday, December 6th. This represents a $1.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.35%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, November 22nd.

Assured Guaranty has increased its dividend by an average of 11.9% annually over the last three years. Assured Guaranty has a payout ratio of 19.8% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Assured Guaranty to earn $6.50 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.24 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 19.1%.

Assured Guaranty Stock Down 0.4 %

AGO stock opened at $91.55 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.91. Assured Guaranty has a 52-week low of $65.39 and a 52-week high of $96.60. The company has a 50-day moving average of $83.44 and a two-hundred day moving average of $79.88. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.11 and a beta of 1.10.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) last released its earnings results on Monday, November 11th. The financial services provider reported $2.42 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.42 by $1.00. The business had revenue of $269.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $202.57 million. Assured Guaranty had a net margin of 70.37% and a return on equity of 11.58%. The firm’s revenue was down 33.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $3.42 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Assured Guaranty will post 7.3 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have commented on AGO. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Assured Guaranty from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. 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 report on Monday. 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 report on Monday.

Insider Transactions at Assured Guaranty

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

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.