Truist Financial Corp Buys 405,847 Shares of Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL)

Truist Financial Corp raised its stake in Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL) by 26.6% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 1,929,662 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 405,847 shares during the period. Truist Financial Corp owned approximately 0.34% of Aflac worth $172,338,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its holdings in shares of Aflac by 6.3% in 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. increased its stake in Aflac by 1.3% in the 2nd quarter. APG Asset Management N.V. now owns 2,429,316 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $202,437,000 after acquiring an additional 31,752 shares during the last quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC increased its stake in Aflac by 5.6% in the 2nd quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 2,220,125 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $198,279,000 after acquiring an additional 117,504 shares during the last quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB raised its holdings in shares of Aflac by 6.7% during the 1st quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 1,806,475 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $155,140,000 after acquiring an additional 113,226 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Envestnet Asset Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Aflac by 27.6% during the 2nd quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,243,189 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $111,029,000 after acquiring an additional 268,694 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 67.44% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Thomas J. Kenny sold 2,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $98.94, for a total transaction of $197,880.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 18,158 shares in the company, valued at $1,796,552.52. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Company insiders own 0.90% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently issued reports on AFL. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on shares of Aflac from $81.00 to $90.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday, August 12th. Piper Sandler increased their price target on shares of Aflac from $95.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, June 28th. Citigroup boosted their price objective on Aflac from $84.00 to $93.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 23rd. Evercore ISI raised their price objective on Aflac from $84.00 to $90.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on Aflac from $80.00 to $83.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 2nd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $93.36.

Aflac Trading Up 1.1 %

AFL stock opened at $111.80 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $63.53 billion, a PE ratio of 12.34, a P/E/G ratio of 2.60 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29, a current ratio of 0.10 and a quick ratio of 0.10. Aflac Incorporated has a 12 month low of $74.89 and a 12 month high of $112.10. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $104.85 and its 200 day moving average is $93.18.

Aflac (NYSE:AFL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The financial services provider reported $1.83 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.60 by $0.23. The firm had revenue of $5.14 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.10 billion. Aflac had a return on equity of 16.22% and a net margin of 28.35%. Aflac’s quarterly revenue was down .7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.58 earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate that Aflac Incorporated will post 6.75 EPS for the current year.

Aflac Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 2nd. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, August 21st were given a dividend of $0.50 per share. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.79%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, August 21st. Aflac’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 22.08%.

Aflac Company 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.