Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) Raises Dividend to $0.31 Per Share

Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, May 2nd, Zacks reports. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, May 15th will be given a dividend of 0.31 per share by the financial services provider on Wednesday, May 29th. This represents a $1.24 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.59%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, May 14th. This is an increase from Assured Guaranty’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28.

Assured Guaranty has raised its dividend payment by an average of 11.9% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend annually for the last 6 consecutive years. Assured Guaranty has a payout ratio of 18.4% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Assured Guaranty to earn $7.20 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 17.2%.

Assured Guaranty Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE AGO traded up $0.43 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $77.87. The company had a trading volume of 498,032 shares, compared to its average volume of 385,555. The stock has a market cap of $4.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 6.28 and a beta of 1.14. The company has a current ratio of 0.88, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29. Assured Guaranty has a 1 year low of $49.84 and a 1 year high of $96.60. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $85.01 and its 200 day simple moving average is $77.05.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 28th. The financial services provider reported $5.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.18 by $4.57. The company had revenue of $233.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $196.15 million. Assured Guaranty had a return on equity of 11.82% and a net margin of 53.82%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 20.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.22 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Assured Guaranty will post 6 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

AGO has been the subject of a number of research reports. UBS Group lifted their target price on Assured Guaranty from $64.00 to $102.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods restated a “market perform” rating and set a $92.00 price objective (up from $75.00) on shares of Assured Guaranty in a research note on Monday, April 1st.

Insider Buying and Selling at Assured Guaranty

In other news, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 55,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $92.43, for a total value of $5,083,650.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 1,450,824 shares in the company, valued at $134,099,662.32. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. 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.