Piper Sandler Reiterates Overweight Rating on Hartford Financial Services (HiG)

Piper Sandler analyst Paul Newsome reiterated an Overweight rating and $145.00 price target on Hartford Financial Services (NYSE: HiG).

The analyst commented: "Our meeting with management reinforced our view that HIG’s recent history of consistently high ROEs will continue. We think the stock is inexpensive at 9.6 times forward earnings versus its peers at 13.1 times. This is particularly true given its recent ROE of almost 20% versus peers that are typically in the mid to high teens.

Management is confident that the industry will remain reasonably disciplined. The recent years have been challenging with inflation spikes, global uncertainty and other issues and it is understandable that generally managements will respond with care. • HIG is largely committed to its own knitting. It feels it has ample opportunities to expand within its existing businesses by broadening its product line. While willing to look at M&A if the price and business is right, it has the businesses and platforms it feels it needs. We think it is normal to see increased M&A as pricing softens. • We think HIG is relatively protected from recent sources of competition. Investors have questions about aggressive MGA and other sources of competition but HIG had little to comment because in many cases it is not in those businesses. • The main pushback we have recently gotten from investors is that the slowing economy will have a negative effect on its group insurance business (employee benefits). This business is tied to employment growth over the long term. But management appeared confident that the business would continue to perform well given its long successful history."

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on Hartford Financial Services click here. For more ratings news on Hartford Financial Services click here.

Shares of Hartford Financial Services closed at $124.39 yesterday.

You May Also Be Interested In

• JD.com (JD) Reiterated at Buy by Benchmark Amid Earnings Recovery
• Jefferies on Five Below (FIVE): 'Our latest channel checks reinforce our view that FIVE's momentum extends well beyond viral Squish trends'
• Movano (MOVE) Misses Q2 EPS by 195c