Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd Makes New $730,000 Investment in Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL)

Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd purchased a new position in shares of Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL) in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor purchased 6,531 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $730,000.

Several other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in Aflac by 6.3% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 4,807,079 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $429,319,000 after purchasing an additional 285,576 shares during the last quarter. APG Asset Management N.V. lifted its stake in Aflac by 1.3% during the second quarter. APG Asset Management N.V. now owns 2,429,316 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $202,437,000 after purchasing an additional 31,752 shares during the last quarter. Guinness Asset Management LTD lifted its stake in Aflac by 3.8% during the third quarter. Guinness Asset Management LTD now owns 2,276,325 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $254,382,000 after purchasing an additional 83,289 shares during the last quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Aflac by 5.6% during the second quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 2,220,125 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $198,279,000 after purchasing an additional 117,504 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Truist Financial Corp lifted its stake in Aflac by 26.6% during the second quarter. Truist Financial Corp now owns 1,929,662 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $172,338,000 after purchasing an additional 405,847 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 67.44% of the company’s stock.

Aflac Stock Up 0.7 %

AFL stock opened at $113.20 on Tuesday. Aflac Incorporated has a fifty-two week low of $75.07 and a fifty-two week high of $115.50. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $110.80 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $100.85. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a quick ratio of 0.08 and a current ratio of 0.08. The company has a market capitalization of $62.89 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.05, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.17 and a beta of 0.96.

Aflac (NYSE:AFL) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The financial services provider reported $2.16 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.69 by $0.47. Aflac had a return on equity of 16.34% and a net margin of 22.02%. The firm had revenue of $2.95 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.30 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.84 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 40.4% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts forecast that Aflac Incorporated will post 7.22 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Aflac Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, November 20th will be issued a dividend of $0.50 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, November 20th. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.77%. Aflac’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 30.12%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

AFL has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Piper Sandler boosted their target price on Aflac from $114.00 to $122.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. Truist Financial boosted their target price on Aflac from $100.00 to $105.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Barclays initiated coverage on Aflac in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. They issued an “underweight” rating and a $96.00 target price for the company. Evercore ISI boosted their target price on Aflac from $84.00 to $90.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on Aflac from $91.00 to $98.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday, August 19th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $97.93.

Aflac Profile

Aflac Incorporated, through its subsidiaries, provides supplemental health and life insurance products. The company operates through Aflac Japan and Aflac U.S. segments. The Aflac Japan segment offers cancer, medical, nursing care, work leave, GIFT, and whole and term life insurance products, as well as WAYS and child endowment plans under saving type insurance products in Japan.