Proficio Capital Partners LLC Invests $525,000 in The Progressive Corporation $PGR

Proficio Capital Partners LLC acquired a new stake in The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR) in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 2,401 shares of the insurance provider’s stock, valued at approximately $525,000.

Other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Nwam LLC grew its stake in shares of Progressive by 2.4% in the second quarter. Nwam LLC now owns 3,335 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $729,000 after acquiring an additional 77 shares in the last quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. raised its stake in shares of Progressive by 3.1% in the second quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 65,951 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $14,409,000 after acquiring an additional 1,958 shares in the last quarter. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. purchased a new position in Progressive in the second quarter valued at $692,000. Flputnam Investment Management Co. boosted its holdings in Progressive by 14.2% in the second quarter. Flputnam Investment Management Co. now owns 3,298 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $720,000 after purchasing an additional 409 shares during the period. Finally, Thornburg Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in Progressive by 858.3% during the 2nd quarter. Thornburg Investment Management Inc. now owns 54,336 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $11,870,000 after purchasing an additional 48,666 shares in the last quarter. 85.34% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

PGR has been the topic of several recent research reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded Progressive from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $226.00 to $250.00 in a report on Thursday, August 20th. Morgan Stanley raised Progressive from an “underweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $190.00 to $210.00 in a research report on Friday, July 24th. HSBC upped their target price on shares of Progressive from $214.00 to $221.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, July 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price target on shares of Progressive from $250.00 to $241.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, August 4th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of Progressive in a report on Wednesday, August 19th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $236.26.

Progressive Trading Up 0.4%

NYSE:PGR opened at $221.38 on Thursday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $217.51 and a 200-day simple moving average of $207.58. The stock has a market cap of $128.70 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.10, a P/E/G ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 0.27. The Progressive Corporation has a 1 year low of $189.20 and a 1 year high of $249.83. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a quick ratio of 0.29 and a current ratio of 0.29.

Progressive (NYSE:PGR) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, July 15th. The insurance provider reported $5.67 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.64 by $1.03. The business had revenue of $23.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $19.49 billion. Progressive had a return on equity of 32.92% and a net margin of 12.84%.The business’s quarterly revenue was up 5.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $5.40 EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that The Progressive Corporation will post 17.74 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Progressive Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, October 9th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 1st will be issued a dividend of $0.10 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 1st. This represents a $0.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.2%. Progressive’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 2.01%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Progressive

In related news, insider Karen Bailo sold 8,452 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, July 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $212.71, for a total value of $1,797,824.92. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 32,348 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,880,743.08. The trade was a 20.72% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CFO Andrew J. Quigg sold 3,499 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, July 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $220.00, for a total transaction of $769,780.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 42,595 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $9,370,900. This represents a 7.59% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 120,787 shares of company stock worth $25,880,894. 0.32% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Progressive Company Profile

Progressive Corporation is a large U.S.-based property and casualty insurer that primarily underwrites personal auto insurance along with a broad suite of related products. Its offerings include coverage for private passenger automobiles, commercial auto fleets, motorcycles, boats and recreational vehicles, as well as homeowners, renters, umbrella and other specialty P&C products. Progressive also provides claims handling, risk management and related services to individual and commercial policyholders.

The company distributes its products through a mix of direct channels—online and by phone—and an extensive independent agent network.