Mraz Amerine & Associates Inc. Has $940,000 Stock Holdings in Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO)

Mraz Amerine & Associates Inc. lessened its holdings in Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) by 2.3% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 12,558 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 292 shares during the quarter. Mraz Amerine & Associates Inc.’s holdings in Assured Guaranty were worth $940,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Raymond James & Associates boosted its holdings in shares of Assured Guaranty by 10.2% in the 4th quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 226,309 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $16,935,000 after purchasing an additional 21,025 shares in the last quarter. Reinhart Partners LLC. boosted its holdings in shares of Assured Guaranty by 8.2% in the 4th quarter. Reinhart Partners LLC. now owns 893,788 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $66,882,000 after purchasing an additional 67,613 shares in the last quarter. Cambria Investment Management L.P. boosted its holdings in shares of Assured Guaranty by 8.5% during the 3rd quarter. Cambria Investment Management L.P. now owns 161,669 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $9,784,000 after acquiring an additional 12,621 shares in the last quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale acquired a new stake in shares of Assured Guaranty during the 3rd quarter valued at $174,000. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Assured Guaranty by 27.4% during the 3rd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 273,395 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $16,546,000 after acquiring an additional 58,873 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.22% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Assured Guaranty news, CEO Dominic Frederico sold 55,000 shares of Assured Guaranty stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $92.43, for a total transaction of $5,083,650.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,450,824 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $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 Price Performance

Shares of NYSE AGO traded down $1.32 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $77.10. 402,596 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 376,704. The company has a market cap of $4.28 billion, a PE ratio of 6.22 and a beta of 1.12. Assured Guaranty Ltd. has a twelve month low of $49.84 and a twelve month high of $96.60. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $86.52 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $75.71. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29, a current ratio of 0.88 and a quick ratio of 0.88.

Assured Guaranty (NYSE:AGO) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, February 28th. The financial services provider reported $5.75 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.18 by $4.57. The firm had revenue of $233.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $196.15 million. Assured Guaranty had a return on equity of 11.82% and a net margin of 53.82%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 20.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.22 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Assured Guaranty Ltd. will post 6 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Assured Guaranty Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 20th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, March 6th were issued a dividend of $0.28 per share. This represents a $1.12 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.45%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, March 5th. Assured Guaranty’s payout ratio is presently 10.00%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

AGO has been the topic of several recent research reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reissued a “market perform” rating and set a $92.00 price objective (up previously from $75.00) on shares of Assured Guaranty in a report on Monday, April 1st. UBS Group raised their price objective on Assured Guaranty from $64.00 to $102.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, March 1st.

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.