Eastern Bank Purchases New Shares in W. R. Berkley Co. (NYSE:WRB)

Eastern Bank purchased a new stake in W. R. Berkley Co. (NYSE:WRB) in the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm purchased 1,626 shares of the insurance provider’s stock, valued at approximately $92,000.

Other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Armstrong Advisory Group Inc. raised its holdings in W. R. Berkley by 51.0% during the 3rd quarter. Armstrong Advisory Group Inc. now owns 619 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $35,000 after purchasing an additional 209 shares during the last quarter. Quarry LP bought a new stake in shares of W. R. Berkley in the 2nd quarter valued at about $42,000. Kiely Wealth Advisory Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of W. R. Berkley by 49.9% in the 2nd quarter. Kiely Wealth Advisory Group Inc. now owns 580 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $46,000 after acquiring an additional 193 shares during the last quarter. Covestor Ltd increased its stake in shares of W. R. Berkley by 173.0% in the 1st quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 546 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $48,000 after acquiring an additional 346 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Raleigh Capital Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of W. R. Berkley by 45.6% in the 3rd quarter. Raleigh Capital Management Inc. now owns 843 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $48,000 after acquiring an additional 264 shares during the last quarter. 68.82% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently commented on WRB. Evercore ISI upped 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. Bank of America boosted their price objective on W. R. Berkley from $73.00 to $76.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price objective on W. R. Berkley from $53.00 to $57.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th. Barclays initiated coverage on W. R. Berkley in a research report on Wednesday, September 4th. They issued an “underweight” rating and a $56.00 price objective for the company. Finally, StockNews.com lowered W. R. Berkley from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 3rd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, W. R. Berkley has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $63.08.

W. R. Berkley Trading Down 1.9 %

Shares of WRB stock opened at $58.16 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36, a quick ratio of 0.38 and a current ratio of 0.38. W. R. Berkley Co. has a fifty-two week low of $43.20 and a fifty-two week high of $61.96. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $58.37 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $55.60. The company has a market cap of $22.30 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.47, a PEG ratio of 1.07 and a beta of 0.62.

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

W. R. Berkley Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 30th. Investors of record on Monday, September 23rd were given a dividend of $0.08 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, September 23rd. This represents a $0.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.55%. W. R. Berkley’s payout ratio is 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.