Brokerages Set Essent Group Ltd. (NYSE:ESNT) Target Price at $71.86

Essent Group Ltd. (NYSE:ESNT) has earned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the nine research firms that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat.com reports. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and three have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1 year price target among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $71.8571.

Several equities analysts have issued reports on the company. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their price objective on Essent Group from $74.00 to $78.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, August 10th. Weiss Ratings restated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Essent Group in a research note on Friday, September 18th. Roth Capital lifted their price target on Essent Group from $65.00 to $80.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, August 10th. Barclays lifted their price target on Essent Group from $62.00 to $65.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Monday, August 10th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on shares of Essent Group from $65.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, July 13th.

Essent Group Stock Down 0.4%

NYSE ESNT opened at $65.41 on Thursday. Essent Group has a twelve month low of $55.34 and a twelve month high of $70.37. The stock has a market cap of $5.88 billion, a PE ratio of 9.12, a PEG ratio of 1.65 and a beta of 0.76. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $67.68 and a 200 day simple moving average of $63.03. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09, a quick ratio of 1.18 and a current ratio of 1.18.

Essent Group (NYSE:ESNT) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, June 30th. The financial services provider reported $2.08 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. The firm had revenue of $362.69 million for the quarter. Essent Group had a net margin of 51.45% and a return on equity of 11.91%. On average, research analysts forecast that Essent Group will post 7.6 EPS for the current year.

Essent Group Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 10th. Stockholders of record on Monday, August 31st were paid a dividend of $0.35 per share. This represents a $1.40 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 31st. Essent Group’s dividend payout ratio is 19.53%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Essent Group news, SVP Vijay Bhasin sold 14,175 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $70.00, for a total value of $992,250.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president directly owned 184,274 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,899,180. This trade represents a 7.14% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Roy Kasmar sold 4,837 shares of Essent Group stock in a transaction on Monday, September 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $68.71, for a total value of $332,350.27. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 21,361 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,467,714.31. This trade represents a 18.46% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold a total of 109,983 shares of company stock valued at $7,491,977 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 3.60% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Essent Group

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in ESNT. BlackRock Inc. bought a new position in shares of Essent Group in the 2nd quarter worth $798,836,000. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Essent Group in the fourth quarter valued at about $155,516,000. Renaissancere Holdings Ltd. acquired a new position in Essent Group in the second quarter valued at about $107,114,521. Deutsche Bank AG acquired a new position in Essent Group in the second quarter valued at about $43,068,000. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new position in Essent Group during the second quarter worth about $41,041,000. Institutional investors own 93.00% of the company’s stock.

Essent Group Company Profile

Essent Group Ltd. (NYSE: ESNT) is a Bermuda-based holding company that provides private mortgage insurance and related risk-management services for the U.S. residential housing market. Through its operating subsidiaries, the company helps mortgage lenders manage the credit risk associated with low-down-payment home loans.

Essent’s principal business is mortgage insurance, which protects lenders and other mortgage investors against losses if a borrower defaults. Its products are generally used with conventional residential mortgages that have loan-to-value ratios above the levels traditionally eligible for uninsured financing.