AGNC Investment (NASDAQ:AGNC) Shares Up 0.7%

AGNC Investment Corp. (NASDAQ:AGNC) shot up 0.7% on Thursday . The company traded as high as $9.91 and last traded at $9.86. 3,653,217 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 69% from the average session volume of 11,921,353 shares. The stock had previously closed at $9.79.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on the company. UBS Group reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $9.00 price target on shares of AGNC Investment in a research note on Wednesday, December 6th. Jonestrading assumed coverage on shares of AGNC Investment in a report on Friday, March 22nd. They set a “buy” rating and a $10.75 price target for the company. Compass Point started coverage on AGNC Investment in a report on Tuesday, February 20th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $10.25 price objective for the company. StockNews.com raised shares of AGNC Investment from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 12th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price target on shares of AGNC Investment from $11.00 to $10.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, January 25th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $10.06.

AGNC Investment Trading Up 1.1 %

The stock’s 50 day moving average is $9.61 and its 200-day moving average is $9.28. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01, a current ratio of 0.26 and a quick ratio of 0.26. The company has a market capitalization of $6.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 989.99 and a beta of 1.45.

AGNC Investment (NASDAQ:AGNC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, January 29th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.60 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.49 by $0.11. AGNC Investment had a net margin of 7.59% and a return on equity of 28.02%. The company had revenue of $640.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $570.42 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.74 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that AGNC Investment Corp. will post 2.16 earnings per share for the current year.

AGNC Investment Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a mar 24 dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 9th. Investors of record on Friday, March 29th will be paid a dividend of $0.12 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, March 27th. This represents a dividend yield of 14.8%. AGNC Investment’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 14,414.41%.

Insider Activity

In other AGNC Investment news, CFO Bernice Bell sold 10,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $9.85, for a total transaction of $98,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 287,282 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,829,727.70. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Insiders own 0.52% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Quadrature Capital Ltd purchased a new position in AGNC Investment in the fourth quarter worth approximately $1,670,000. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. raised its holdings in AGNC Investment by 43.5% during the fourth quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 21,021 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $206,000 after purchasing an additional 6,369 shares in the last quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in AGNC Investment by 339.7% during the fourth quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 133,230 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,323,000 after purchasing an additional 102,933 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in AGNC Investment by 10.5% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 63,366,808 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $621,628,000 after purchasing an additional 6,019,268 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC acquired a new stake in AGNC Investment during the fourth quarter worth approximately $123,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 38.28% of the company’s stock.

AGNC Investment Company Profile

AGNC Investment Corp., formerly American Capital Agency Corp., is a real estate investment trust. The Company invests in agency residential mortgage-backed securities on a leveraged basis. Its investments consist of residential mortgage pass-through securities and collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs) for which the principal and interest payments are guaranteed by a government-sponsored enterprise, such as the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), or by the United States Government agency, such as the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae) (collectively, GSEs).