News coverage about W.R. Berkley Corporation (NYSE:WRB) has trended somewhat positive on Tuesday, Accern Sentiment Analysis reports. Accern identifies positive and negative press coverage by reviewing more than 20 million news and blog sources in real time. Accern ranks coverage of public companies on a scale of -1 to 1, with scores closest to one being the most favorable. W.R. Berkley Corporation earned a daily sentiment score of 0.12 on Accern’s scale. Accern also assigned media coverage about the insurance provider an impact score of 46.6090661945825 out of 100, indicating that recent press coverage is somewhat unlikely to have an impact on the stock’s share price in the near future.
Several research analysts have recently commented on WRB shares. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods restated a “hold” rating and set a $67.00 price target on shares of W.R. Berkley Corporation in a research note on Wednesday, May 17th. Zacks Investment Research upgraded shares of W.R. Berkley Corporation from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 30th. BidaskClub lowered shares of W.R. Berkley Corporation from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, June 9th. Morgan Stanley restated an “equal weight” rating and set a $70.00 price target (up previously from $68.00) on shares of W.R. Berkley Corporation in a research note on Friday, July 7th. Finally, Boenning Scattergood reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of W.R. Berkley Corporation in a report on Wednesday, July 26th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. The stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $63.83.
Shares of W.R. Berkley Corporation (NYSE WRB) opened at 66.97 on Tuesday. The company’s 50 day moving average is $69.02 and its 200 day moving average is $69.18. W.R. Berkley Corporation has a 12-month low of $55.55 and a 12-month high of $73.17. The company has a market capitalization of $8.12 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.22 and a beta of 0.87.
W.R. Berkley Corporation (NYSE:WRB) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, July 25th. The insurance provider reported $0.65 EPS for the quarter, missing the Thomson Reuters’ consensus estimate of $0.75 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $1.57 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.61 billion. W.R. Berkley Corporation had a return on equity of 7.58% and a net margin of 7.86%. The firm’s revenue was up .6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.82 EPS. Analysts expect that W.R. Berkley Corporation will post $2.93 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.
W.R. Berkley Corporation declared that its board has initiated a stock buyback plan on Tuesday, August 8th that permits the company to repurchase 10,000,000 shares. This repurchase authorization permits the insurance provider to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are typically a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.
The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, October 4th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, September 20th will be paid a dividend of $0.14 per share. This represents a $0.56 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.84%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, September 19th. W.R. Berkley Corporation’s payout ratio is 11.84%.
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About W.R. Berkley Corporation
W. R. Berkley Corporation is an insurance holding company. It operates through two segments: Insurance and Reinsurance-Global. The Insurance segment consists of its commercial insurance business operations, comprising excess and surplus lines, and admitted lines, throughout the United States, as well as its insurance business operations in the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, South America, Canada, Mexico, Scandinavia, Asia and Australia.
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