Abich Financial Wealth Management LLC Takes $159,000 Position in W. R. Berkley Co. (NYSE:WRB)

Abich Financial Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in shares of W. R. Berkley Co. (NYSE:WRB) during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor bought 2,807 shares of the insurance provider’s stock, valued at approximately $159,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of W. R. Berkley by 0.8% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 24,439,361 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $2,161,417,000 after purchasing an additional 195,763 shares in the last quarter. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC increased its stake in W. R. Berkley by 0.7% during the 2nd quarter. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC now owns 7,553,875 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $593,584,000 after buying an additional 54,530 shares during the period. APG Asset Management N.V. lifted its holdings in W. R. Berkley by 3.5% during the 2nd quarter. APG Asset Management N.V. now owns 2,698,311 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $197,838,000 after buying an additional 92,242 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in W. R. Berkley by 7.4% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,037,599 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $160,128,000 after buying an additional 139,588 shares during the period. Finally, 1832 Asset Management L.P. increased its position in shares of W. R. Berkley by 1.4% during the second quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 1,929,931 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $151,654,000 after acquiring an additional 26,464 shares during the period. 68.82% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently issued reports on WRB. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on W. R. Berkley from $63.00 to $68.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 22nd. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lowered their price objective on W. R. Berkley from $59.00 to $58.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, October 22nd. StockNews.com cut shares of W. R. Berkley from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, October 3rd. Evercore ISI raised their price target on W. R. Berkley from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 22nd. Finally, Barclays initiated coverage on shares of W. R. Berkley in a report on Wednesday, September 4th. They set an “underweight” rating and a $56.00 price objective on the stock. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, W. R. Berkley presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $63.08.

W. R. Berkley Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE WRB traded up $0.02 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $58.43. 115,906 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,801,630. The firm has a market cap of $22.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.53, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.07 and a beta of 0.62. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $58.39 and a 200-day simple moving average of $55.62. The company has a quick ratio of 0.38, a current ratio of 0.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36. W. R. Berkley Co. has a 1-year low of $43.58 and a 1-year high of $61.96.

W. R. Berkley (NYSE:WRB) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 21st. The insurance provider reported $0.93 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.92 by $0.01. W. R. Berkley had a return on equity of 21.34% and a net margin of 12.05%. The firm had revenue of $2.93 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.93 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.90 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that W. R. Berkley Co. will post 4.02 EPS for the current fiscal year.

W. R. Berkley Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 30th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 23rd were given a $0.08 dividend. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.55%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, September 23rd. W. R. Berkley’s dividend payout ratio is currently 8.51%.

W. R. Berkley Company Profile

W. R. Berkley Corporation, an insurance holding company, operates as a commercial lines writers worldwide. It operates in two segments, Insurance and Reinsurance & Monoline Excess. The Insurance segment underwrites commercial insurance business, including excess and surplus lines, admitted lines, and specialty personal lines.