ING Group, N.V. (NYSE:ING) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

ING Group, N.V. (NYSE:ING) has been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the seven ratings firms that are covering the company, MarketBeat reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company.

ING has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Zacks Research upgraded shares of ING Group from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, July 27th. Weiss Ratings lowered shares of ING Group from a “buy (a-)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 13th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised shares of ING Group from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 2nd.

ING Group Stock Down 1.4%

Shares of NYSE ING opened at $33.44 on Friday. ING Group has a 12 month low of $23.64 and a 12 month high of $37.52. The company has a market cap of $95.65 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.48, a P/E/G ratio of 0.89 and a beta of 0.87. The business’s 50 day moving average is $35.75 and its two-hundred day moving average is $32.05.

ING Group (NYSE:ING) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 30th. The financial services provider reported $0.79 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.75 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $4.76 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $6.99 billion. ING Group had a return on equity of 12.59% and a net margin of 28.15%. Sell-side analysts expect that ING Group will post 2.8 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

ING Group Cuts Dividend

The company also recently declared a dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 17th. Investors of record on Monday, August 10th were paid a dividend of $0.4580 per share. This is a negative change from ING Group’s previous dividend of $0.8796. This represents a yield of 260.0%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, August 10th. ING Group’s dividend payout ratio is presently 29.10%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On ING Group

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of ING Group by 2.5% in the fourth quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 7,804,829 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $218,535,000 after purchasing an additional 191,101 shares in the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE increased its holdings in ING Group by 1.0% in the 1st quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 6,451,137 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $168,052,000 after buying an additional 61,919 shares during the period. Quantinno Capital Management LP increased its holdings in ING Group by 9.5% in the 1st quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP now owns 1,803,670 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $46,986,000 after buying an additional 156,461 shares during the period. Thornburg Investment Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of ING Group by 15.8% in the 4th quarter. Thornburg Investment Management Inc. now owns 632,753 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $17,717,000 after buying an additional 86,364 shares in the last quarter. Finally, O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC raised its stake in shares of ING Group by 6.5% in the 4th quarter. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC now owns 542,264 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $15,183,000 after buying an additional 32,866 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 4.49% of the company’s stock.

ING Group Company Profile

ING Group N.V. is a Netherlands-based international banking and financial services company headquartered in Amsterdam. Through its banking operations, ING provides services to individuals, businesses and institutions, including current and savings accounts, consumer and residential lending, commercial loans, payments, investment products and other financial solutions.

ING serves customers across Europe and has a presence in selected markets in Asia and the Americas. Its retail banking business emphasizes digital platforms and mobile banking, while its wholesale banking division provides corporate and institutional clients with lending, financial markets, transaction services and other banking solutions.

The modern ING Group was formed in 1991 through the merger of Nationale-Nederlanden, an insurer, and NMB Postbank, a banking group.