Short Interest in Brown & Brown, Inc. (NYSE:BRO) Drops By 13.3%

Brown & Brown, Inc. (NYSE:BRO) saw a significant decrease in short interest in the month of November. As of November 15th, there was short interest totalling 3,910,000 shares, a decrease of 13.3% from the October 31st total of 4,510,000 shares. Currently, 1.7% of the shares of the stock are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 1,490,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 2.6 days.

Institutional Trading of Brown & Brown

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Brooklyn Investment Group bought a new stake in Brown & Brown in the third quarter valued at about $26,000. Crewe Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of Brown & Brown by 330.4% during the second quarter. Crewe Advisors LLC now owns 297 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 228 shares during the last quarter. ST Germain D J Co. Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Brown & Brown by 298.5% during the third quarter. ST Germain D J Co. Inc. now owns 267 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 200 shares during the last quarter. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC bought a new position in shares of Brown & Brown during the third quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Brown & Brown by 142.3% during the second quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 550 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $48,000 after purchasing an additional 323 shares during the last quarter. 71.01% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms recently issued reports on BRO. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on Brown & Brown from $112.00 to $114.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. Barclays increased their price objective on Brown & Brown from $108.00 to $119.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 21st. Truist Financial boosted their target price on shares of Brown & Brown from $116.00 to $118.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Bank of America raised their price target on shares of Brown & Brown from $108.00 to $117.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Brown & Brown from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, November 2nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $107.42.

Brown & Brown Stock Down 0.2 %

Shares of NYSE:BRO traded down $0.27 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $111.36. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 381,878 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,305,971. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a quick ratio of 1.73 and a current ratio of 1.73. Brown & Brown has a fifty-two week low of $69.13 and a fifty-two week high of $114.15. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $107.39 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $100.07. The company has a market capitalization of $31.84 billion, a PE ratio of 30.41, a PEG ratio of 2.60 and a beta of 0.84.

Brown & Brown (NYSE:BRO) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The financial services provider reported $0.91 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.88 by $0.03. Brown & Brown had a return on equity of 17.12% and a net margin of 22.65%. The business had revenue of $1.19 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.16 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.71 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Brown & Brown will post 3.74 EPS for the current year.

Brown & Brown Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, November 13th. Investors of record on Wednesday, November 6th were issued a $0.15 dividend. This is a positive change from Brown & Brown’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.13. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.54%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, November 6th. Brown & Brown’s payout ratio is currently 16.35%.

About Brown & Brown

Brown & Brown, Inc markets and sells insurance products and services in the United States, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Retail, National Programs, Wholesale Brokerage, and Services. The Retail segment provides property and casualty, employee benefits insurance products, personal insurance products, specialties insurance products, risk management strategies, loss control survey and analysis, consultancy, and claims processing services.