Mercury General (NYSE:MCY) Releases Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.84 EPS

Mercury General (NYSE:MCY) posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday. The insurance provider reported $2.78 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.94 by $0.84, Zacks reports. Mercury General had a return on equity of 18.04% and a net margin of 10.18%.

Mercury General Trading Down 1.1 %

Shares of NYSE MCY opened at $50.13 on Wednesday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $60.25 and a 200 day simple moving average of $63.84. Mercury General has a 52 week low of $39.56 and a 52 week high of $80.72. The stock has a market cap of $2.78 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.97 and a beta of 0.85. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a quick ratio of 0.33 and a current ratio of 0.33.

Mercury General Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 27th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 13th will be paid a $0.3175 dividend. This represents a $1.27 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.53%. This is an increase from Mercury General’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.32. Mercury General’s payout ratio is 12.59%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on MCY. StockNews.com downgraded Mercury General from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, December 26th. Raymond James upgraded shares of Mercury General from an “outperform” rating to a “strong-buy” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $70.00 to $80.00 in a research note on Wednesday.

Insider Activity at Mercury General

In other Mercury General news, VP Heidi C. Sullivan sold 1,076 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $77.28, for a total transaction of $83,153.28. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Insiders own 35.50% of the company’s stock.

Mercury General Company Profile

Mercury General Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, engages in writing personal automobile insurance in the United States. The company also writes homeowners, commercial automobile, commercial property, mechanical protection, and umbrella insurance products. Its automobile insurance products include collision, property damage, bodily injury, comprehensive, personal injury protection, underinsured and uninsured motorist, and other hazards; and homeowners insurance products comprise dwelling, liability, personal property, and other coverages.