Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) Stock Price Crosses Above Two Hundred Day Moving Average – Time to Sell?

Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO)’s share price crossed above its two hundred day moving average during trading on Thursday . The stock has a two hundred day moving average of $82.69 and traded as high as $83.38. Assured Guaranty shares last traded at $82.2940, with a volume of 282,680 shares trading hands.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have weighed in on AGO. Roth Capital downgraded Assured Guaranty from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $80.00 target price for the company. in a report on Friday, May 8th. Wall Street Zen upgraded Assured Guaranty from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, May 2nd. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of Assured Guaranty from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 3rd. UBS Group upgraded shares of Assured Guaranty from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $94.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Monday, May 18th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods dropped their target price on shares of Assured Guaranty from $108.00 to $103.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, March 19th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Assured Guaranty currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $92.33.

Assured Guaranty Stock Down 0.6%

The stock has a market cap of $3.64 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.45 and a beta of 0.75. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $77.91 and a 200 day simple moving average of $82.69. The company has a quick ratio of 0.63, a current ratio of 0.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, May 7th. The financial services provider reported $2.50 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.50 by $1.00. Assured Guaranty had a return on equity of 6.98% and a net margin of 40.45%.The company had revenue of $261.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $208.63 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $3.18 earnings per share. Assured Guaranty’s revenue for the quarter was down 24.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts expect that Assured Guaranty Ltd. will post 7.08 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Assured Guaranty Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 29th. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 15th were given a dividend of $0.38 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, May 15th. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.8%. Assured Guaranty’s payout ratio is presently 17.45%.

Insider Transactions at Assured Guaranty

In related news, COO Robert Bailenson sold 50,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $78.62, for a total value of $3,931,000.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer owned 256,251 shares in the company, valued at $20,146,453.62. This represents a 16.33% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, major shareholder Guaranty Ltd Assured purchased 242,718 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, April 30th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $24.72 per share, for a total transaction of $5,999,988.96. Following the transaction, the insider owned 1,002,718 shares in the company, valued at $24,787,188.96. This represents a 31.94% increase in their position. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. 5.70% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of AGO. Farther Finance Advisors LLC grew its holdings in Assured Guaranty by 5.1% during the fourth quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 2,800 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $252,000 after buying an additional 135 shares in the last quarter. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI boosted its holdings in Assured Guaranty by 4.9% during the 4th quarter. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI now owns 3,441 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $309,000 after acquiring an additional 160 shares during the last quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Assured Guaranty by 3.7% during the 4th quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 5,111 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $459,000 after acquiring an additional 184 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Assured Guaranty by 3.4% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 6,030 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $542,000 after acquiring an additional 198 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Prelude Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Assured Guaranty by 6.3% in the 3rd quarter. Prelude Capital Management LLC now owns 3,357 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $284,000 after acquiring an additional 199 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.22% of the company’s stock.

Assured Guaranty Company Profile

Assured Guaranty Ltd is a Bermuda-domiciled provider of financial guaranty insurance and reinsurance products serving public finance, infrastructure and structured finance markets. The company’s primary business activity is credit enhancement, whereby it guarantees the timely payment of principal and interest on debt obligations issued by municipal and infrastructure entities. By combining rigorous risk assessment with active portfolio management, Assured Guaranty helps issuers access capital at more attractive rates while protecting investors against credit events.

In its public finance segment, the company underwrites municipal bond insurance for state and local governments, public-private partnerships and essential infrastructure projects.