LaSalle St. Investment Advisors LLC Grows Stock Position in The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR)

LaSalle St. Investment Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR) by 4.9% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 1,813 shares of the insurance provider’s stock after buying an additional 85 shares during the quarter. LaSalle St. Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Progressive were worth $513,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in PGR. Wambolt & Associates LLC boosted its position in shares of Progressive by 0.6% during the 1st quarter. Wambolt & Associates LLC now owns 16,701 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $4,748,000 after acquiring an additional 102 shares during the last quarter. AlphaCore Capital LLC lifted its position in Progressive by 3.3% in the first quarter. AlphaCore Capital LLC now owns 2,395 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $678,000 after buying an additional 77 shares during the last quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. lifted its position in Progressive by 12.0% in the first quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 1,045,618 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $295,920,000 after buying an additional 112,176 shares during the last quarter. Y.D. More Investments Ltd lifted its position in Progressive by 41.1% in the first quarter. Y.D. More Investments Ltd now owns 1,010 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $286,000 after buying an additional 294 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC lifted its position in Progressive by 7.8% in the first quarter. Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC now owns 1,586 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $454,000 after buying an additional 115 shares during the last quarter. 85.34% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

PGR has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price target on Progressive from $327.00 to $319.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, April 11th. Wall Street Zen downgraded Progressive from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, July 18th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods cut their price target on Progressive from $290.00 to $268.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, July 17th. Morgan Stanley cut their price target on Progressive from $290.00 to $280.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, July 14th. Finally, Evercore ISI lowered Progressive from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and set a $275.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Thursday, July 17th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $286.88.

Progressive Trading Up 0.5%

PGR opened at $246.49 on Friday. The Progressive Corporation has a one year low of $217.91 and a one year high of $292.99. The company has a market cap of $144.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.89, a PEG ratio of 1.45 and a beta of 0.33. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21, a quick ratio of 0.29 and a current ratio of 0.31. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $256.79 and its 200-day simple moving average is $266.07.

Progressive (NYSE:PGR) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 16th. The insurance provider reported $4.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.43 by $0.45. The firm had revenue of $20.08 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $20.39 billion. Progressive had a return on equity of 35.37% and a net margin of 12.66%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 12.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.48 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that The Progressive Corporation will post 14.68 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Progressive Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a dividend, which was paid on Friday, July 11th. Stockholders of record on Friday, July 4th were paid a dividend of $0.10 per share. This represents a dividend yield of 15.0%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, July 3rd. Progressive’s dividend payout ratio is 2.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Progressive

In other news, insider John Jo Murphy sold 2,218 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $249.24, for a total transaction of $552,814.32. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 47,942 shares in the company, valued at $11,949,064.08. This represents a 4.42% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, insider Patrick K. Callahan sold 6,232 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $242.16, for a total value of $1,509,141.12. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 27,844 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,742,703.04. This represents a 18.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 104,250 shares of company stock valued at $26,332,348. Corporate insiders own 0.34% of the company’s stock.

About Progressive

The Progressive Corporation, an insurance holding company, provides personal and commercial auto, personal residential and commercial property, business related general liability, and other specialty property-casualty insurance products and related services in the United States. It operates in three segments: Personal Lines, Commercial Lines, and Property.