Short Interest in Assurant, Inc. (NYSE:AIZ) Rises By 10.1%

Assurant, Inc. (NYSE:AIZ) was the recipient of a significant growth in short interest in March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 744,900 shares, a growth of 10.1% from the March 15th total of 676,600 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 369,900 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 2.0 days. Approximately 1.5% of the shares of the company are sold short.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Assurant

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. BlackRock Inc. raised its holdings in Assurant by 1.0% in the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 5,721,116 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $686,934,000 after buying an additional 58,354 shares during the last quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in Assurant by 4.3% during the 4th quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. now owns 5,694,084 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $712,103,000 after acquiring an additional 237,239 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its stake in Assurant by 21.5% during the 3rd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 3,238,477 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $464,981,000 after acquiring an additional 573,309 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its stake in Assurant by 7.5% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 2,748,162 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $394,581,000 after acquiring an additional 191,750 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA raised its stake in shares of Assurant by 6.2% during the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 1,865,496 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $267,848,000 after purchasing an additional 109,123 shares during the period. 92.65% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have commented on AIZ shares. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of Assurant from $191.00 to $205.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, February 12th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods downgraded shares of Assurant from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $170.00 to $182.00 in a report on Monday, February 12th. Finally, Piper Sandler upped their price objective on shares of Assurant from $195.00 to $205.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, April 5th. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $192.20.

Assurant Trading Down 0.9 %

AIZ stock opened at $171.06 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a quick ratio of 0.41 and a current ratio of 0.41. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $178.76 and its 200 day simple moving average is $167.69. Assurant has a 52 week low of $115.41 and a 52 week high of $189.48. The company has a market capitalization of $8.89 billion, a PE ratio of 14.28, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.19 and a beta of 0.50.

Assurant (NYSE:AIZ) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 6th. The financial services provider reported $4.58 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.70 by $0.88. Assurant had a net margin of 5.77% and a return on equity of 18.36%. The business had revenue of $3 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.78 billion. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Assurant will post 15.67 earnings per share for the current year.

Assurant Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 25th. Investors of record on Monday, February 5th were paid a $0.72 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, February 2nd. This represents a $2.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.68%. Assurant’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 24.04%.

Assurant Company Profile

Assurant, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides business services that supports, protects, and connects consumer purchases in North America, Latin America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. The company operates through two segments: Global Lifestyle and Global Housing. The Global Lifestyle segment offers mobile device solutions, and extended service contracts and related services for consumer electronics and appliances, and credit and other insurance products; and vehicle protection, commercial equipment, and other related services.