Assured Guaranty Ltd. (AGO) Stock Price & How to Invest
Last updated October 2026
Short answer
You can invest in Assured Guaranty (AGO) by buying shares or fractional shares at any major US broker, through a financials or small-cap value ETF that holds it, or as one holding in a thematic basket. AGO is the dominant surviving municipal bond insurer, wrapping roughly ~$279 billion of net par outstanding with AA-rated guarantees, and the thing to understand first is that it is a book-value story: the stock trades near ~$71 (October 16, 2026), only about 0.56 times GAAP book value, against ~$124 of GAAP shareholders' equity per share and ~$189 of adjusted book value per share at the end of Q1 2026, so what matters is whether management keeps compounding that book through underwriting, investment income and a very aggressive share count reduction.
AGO stock price
As of 2026-11-04, Assured Guaranty Ltd. (AGO) last closed at $72.51, down 11.5% over the past year. Over the past 52 weeks it has traded between $67.72 and $92.18.
Prices are daily closing prices from Yahoo Finance and may be delayed. For the live quote, check your broker or Assured Guaranty Ltd.'s investor relations page. Walnut is informational, not investment advice.
What does Assured Guaranty Ltd. (AGO) do?
Assured Guaranty Ltd. is a Bermuda-domiciled financial guaranty holding company whose operating subsidiaries insure the timely payment of principal and interest on municipal bonds, infrastructure financings and structured credit. When an issuer buys a wrap from Assured, the bond carries Assured's AA financial strength rating instead of the issuer's own, which lowers the issuer's borrowing cost and gives investors a second source of payment. The company collects an upfront or installment premium, earns it into income over the life of the bond, and invests the proceeds. It also owns roughly 30% of Sound Point Capital Management, a large CLO and alternative credit manager formed in 2023 when Assured contributed its asset management arm, and in January 2026 it added Assured Life Reinsurance Ltd., a life and annuity reinsurance platform bought for about ~$158 million that writes UK pension risk transfer and US multi-year guaranteed annuity business.
The investment picture is unusual for an insurer. Assured is one of only two meaningful writers of new municipal bond insurance left (Build America Mutual is the mutual competitor; Ambac and MBIA's legacy books are in runoff), so competition for new issues is thin, but the addressable market is small: bond insurance penetration of the muni market runs in the single digits to low teens as a share of new issuance, and it rises when credit spreads widen and falls when rates are calm. Reported revenue is lumpy because it mixes earned premium, investment income, equity in Sound Point's earnings, fair-value marks and loss reserve releases, which is why trailing revenue of ~$813 million and a P/E near ~9.4x understate how bumpy the quarter-to-quarter line is. Management has leaned on that discount by buying back stock relentlessly, cutting shares outstanding to roughly ~44 million, which is why adjusted book value per share keeps setting records even in years when total book value shrinks.
The second half of 2026 has tested that patience. Second-quarter results, reported in August, showed revenue of about $195 million, GAAP net income of about $39 million and adjusted operating EPS of $1.23, well short of the ~$1.60 consensus after three straight quarters of large beats. Then in late September Brightline Florida, the privately financed passenger railroad, restructured: holding companies filed Chapter 11 while the operating company that owes Assured-insured bonds did not. Assured insures slightly over 50% of the operating company's senior tax-exempt bonds, which gives it the majority voting position, and it committed $70 million of new senior debt plus up to $178 million of post-petition funding (about $248 million in total) to the deal, which brings $490 million of new capital and lets bondholders defer some interest, with Assured guaranteeing timely payment of deferred interest on insured bonds. No loss or reserve figure has been disclosed. UBS described the restructuring as improving Assured's recovery prospects. AGO closed at $70.77 on October 16, 2026, down about 20% year to date and about 11% over twelve months, near the bottom of its 52-week range of roughly $67 to $92, for a market value of about $3.1 billion. Third-quarter results are due November 5, 2026, with consensus near $1.70 of adjusted operating EPS.
What's driving Assured Guaranty Ltd. (AGO)?
1. Buybacks as the core compounding engine
With the stock trading at roughly 0.56 times GAAP book value and an even deeper discount to adjusted book value in October 2026, every dollar of repurchase is accretive to per-share value, and management has treated that arithmetic as the primary capital allocation tool for years. Q1 2026 alone saw ~$75 million of repurchases at an average price near ~$85, plus ~$18 million of dividends. Management did signal a slowdown to roughly ~$30 million per quarter to preserve capital for the annuity reinsurance build, which changes the pace of that engine without turning it off.
2. New business production and a wider credit-spread market
Q1 2026 gross written premium of ~$70 million and present value of new business production of ~$73 million roughly doubled year over year, on ~$7.5 billion of gross par written. Demand for a wrap is counter-cyclical: it rises when investors get nervous about municipal credit, when rate volatility widens spreads, or when large infrastructure and public-private deals need a rating lift. Non-US public finance and structured finance, where pricing is better than plain US municipal work, have been a growing share of that production.
3. Diversification into annuity reinsurance and asset management
Assured Life Re contributed ~$14 million of revenue and ~$2 million of adjusted operating income in its first quarter, writing UK pension risk transfer and US MYGA business off the group's AA rating. Management has guided to roughly ~$50 million to ~$150 million of capital deployed there over about 18 months. Alongside the ~30% stake in Sound Point, this is the attempt to build fee and spread income that does not depend on municipal issuance volume.
4. Legacy portfolio runoff and reserve releases
The insured book of ~$279 billion of net par outstanding amortizes every year, releasing both earned premium and capital. Below investment grade exposure has fallen to ~$8.6 billion, about 3.1% of net par, and Puerto Rico settlements consummated in 2026 cut that exposure by a further ~$1.3 billion. Each resolved troubled credit can free reserves into income, which is a real source of earnings but an inherently finite and irregular one. The reverse also applies: a new troubled credit, such as Brightline Florida in 2026, can absorb capital and require Assured to lend into a restructuring to protect its insured position.
5. Brightline Florida restructuring
Brightline Florida's September 2026 restructuring is the largest new credit event in the insured book in years. Assured insures slightly over half of the operating company's senior bonds and has committed about $248 million of senior funding ($70 million of new debt and up to $178 million of post-petition funding repaid on exit), ranking alongside existing senior debt. The plan, which needs bankruptcy court approval, adds $490 million of new capital and allows a limited interest deferral that Assured guarantees for insured holders. How the railroad performs after it exits will decide whether this ends as a modest cost or a reserve charge.
What are the risks to Assured Guaranty Ltd. (AGO)?
The largest structural risk is that the insured portfolio runs off faster than new business replaces it, so earned premium shrinks even when underwriting is good. Municipal bond insurance demand is cyclical and small: in calm rate environments with tight credit spreads, issuers see little reason to pay for a wrap, and Assured cannot manufacture demand. Brightline Florida shows the point in practice: Assured has committed about $248 million of funding to protect its position in the railroad's 2026 restructuring, and no loss estimate has been published. A severe municipal credit event, a large city or state default, a public utility failure, or renewed distress in a territory like Puerto Rico, would hit both reserves and the stock, because a monoline's whole business is concentrated tail risk with leverage far above a normal insurer's. Reported results also swing on marks: fair-value changes on credit derivatives and the investment portfolio, plus equity in Sound Point's earnings, can turn a quiet operating quarter into a large GAAP gain or loss, and unrealized investment losses have already pushed GAAP book value per share down even as adjusted book value rose. Finally, the buyback has been doing much of the heavy lifting for per-share growth, so any redirection of capital toward the annuity reinsurance build, a ratings requirement, or a loss event removes the main mechanism the market has been paying for.
What is the Assured Guaranty Ltd. (AGO) forecast?
3 analysts publish price targets on AGO, averaging $91.00 against a $71.62 price as of November 2026, or +27.1%. The published targets run from $85.00 to $97.00, a narrow spread, and the ratings split 3 buy, 0 hold, 0 sell. Over the last six months there has been 1 raise and 2 cuts among the published actions. A price target is what an analyst published on a date, not a prediction, and sell-side ratings skew positive across the whole market.
Read the full AGO forecast and price target for the target table, the recent rating actions by firm, and how the consensus has shifted.
Is AGO a buy or a sell?
We give no verdict on Assured Guaranty Ltd.. Both cases are real, which is why the question is contested at all, so here is the strongest version of each.
The case for buying. Buybacks as the core compounding engine. With the stock trading at roughly 0.56 times GAAP book value and an even deeper discount to adjusted book value in October 2026, every dollar of repurchase is accretive to per-share value, and management has treated that arithmetic as the primary capital allocation tool for years. The most optimistic published target, $97.00, assumes this works close to its best case.
The case against. The largest structural risk is that the insured portfolio runs off faster than new business replaces it, so earned premium shrinks even when underwriting is good. The most pessimistic target, $85.00, is roughly what AGO is worth if this bites instead.
Read the full bull and bear case on AGO, including what would have to change to break either one. Walnut is not an investment adviser.
Has Assured Guaranty Ltd. (AGO) split its stock?
No. Assured Guaranty Ltd. (AGO) has not split its stock in the last 10 years. That is a statement about the window we check rather than about the company’s entire history, so an older split is possible. It also matters less than it once did: fractional shares mean a high price per share no longer keeps smaller investors out, which removed most of the practical reason to split.
How is Assured Guaranty Ltd. (AGO) valued? (approximate, October 2026)
A simple financial snapshot. These are approximations and refresh quarterly; for current figures see Assured Guaranty Ltd.'s investor relations page or your broker.
- Share price: ~$71 (Oct 16, 2026)
- Market cap: ~$3.1B
- Revenue (TTM): ~$813M; Q2 2026 ~$195M
- Net income (TTM) / EPS: ~$348M, ~$7.51 per share
- Q2 2026 adjusted operating EPS: ~$1.23 vs ~$1.60 expected
- P/E: ~9.4x trailing, ~10x forward
- Price / GAAP book: ~0.56x
- Dividend yield: ~2.2% (~$1.52 annualized)
At about $71, AGO trades at roughly 0.56 times GAAP book value and about 9.4 times trailing earnings, a deeper discount than earlier in 2026, as the second-quarter miss and the Brightline Florida restructuring weighed on the shares. Analysts expect adjusted EPS of about $7.02 for 2026 and $7.04 for 2027, down from the 2025 level, with about $1.70 for the third quarter reported November 5. Buybacks below book remain accretive, but management has slowed them to fund annuity reinsurance, and the dividend of about $1.52 is the smaller part of capital return.
Who competes with Assured Guaranty Ltd. (AGO)?
Financial guaranty and bond insurance peers
Build America Mutual is the only other active writer of new US municipal bond insurance and, as a mutual, competes on price rather than shareholder returns; it holds a large share of insured new issues by par count. Ambac (AMBC) and MBIA (MBI) are the historical monolines whose legacy books never recovered from the 2008 structured finance losses; MBIA is essentially in runoff, and Ambac has pivoted toward specialty property and casualty distribution. None of them offer a comparable AA-rated new-issue wrap at Assured's scale, which is why Assured's competitive position is unusually strong inside an unusually small market.
Credit and specialty insurers with similar economics
Mortgage insurers such as MGIC (MTG), Radian (RDN), Essent (ESNT) and Enact (ACT) share the profile of a credit-risk underwriter that trades near or below book value, earns premium over long durations, and returns most of its capital through buybacks. Title insurers and specialty guarantors face the same investor skepticism about long-tail credit exposure. They are not direct competitors for municipal wraps, but they are the closest comparables when judging whether AGO's multiple is cheap or simply typical for the category.
Substitutes for the product itself
Assured's real competition is often the decision not to buy insurance at all. Issuers can go uninsured, use a bank letter of credit, buy a state credit enhancement program, or rely on their own rating; investors can substitute a diversified municipal bond fund or ETF for the credit protection a wrap provides. Credit rating agencies and the general level of municipal credit spreads therefore set demand for the entire product, which is why penetration rates move with market stress rather than with anything Assured does.
What stocks are similar to Assured Guaranty Ltd. (AGO)?
Other names that sit close to AGO: same theme, named as a direct competitor, or held beside it in the same funds. Each entry says which. Worth a look if you are thinking about diversification within a thesis rather than concentration on one ticker.
How to invest in Assured Guaranty Ltd. (AGO)
There are three common ways to get AGO exposure. Buy shares (or fractional shares) directly at any major broker. Hold an ETF that includes it, which spreads the position across many companies. Or build it into a focused thematic portfolio, so AGO sits alongside other stocks that express the same thesis.
Walnut takes the portfolio route. Describe a thesis where AGO fits (for example “AI infrastructure” or “dividend-growth large-caps”) and the AI proposes 5 to 6 constituents with target weights. You review the plan and fund it through your own broker when you're ready.
New to this? Start with how to invest in stocks, see how to analyze a stock with AI, or compare the best AI stock analyzers.
The bottom line on Assured Guaranty Ltd. (AGO)
Assured Guaranty is a small, heavily capitalized monoline that has spent a decade shrinking its share count and growing book value per share faster than its stock price, and the central question is whether new-business volume and the new annuity reinsurance arm can grow earnings before the legacy insured portfolio runs off. In the fall of 2026 the near-term question is narrower: how much the Brightline Florida restructuring, where Assured insures just over half of the senior bonds, costs the company after a second-quarter earnings miss and a roughly 20% drop in the shares this year.
More on Assured Guaranty Ltd. (AGO)
Whether AGO is worth buying today depends more on your time horizon and what you already hold than on any single call. We walk through valuation, what would have to go right, and the risks in is AGO a buy or a sell?, and where the stock could go from here in the AGO stock forecast.
For income investors, whether AGO pays a dividend and how the payout looks is covered in does AGO pay a dividend? And to weigh AGO against a peer, read the full side-by-side comparisons: AGO vs AA and AGO vs MTG.
Wondering how AGO fits the portfolio you already own? Walnut is an AI investing app that connects your brokerage read-only and answers questions like that about your actual holdings: overlap, concentration, and how each position tracks the S&P 500. Compare the best AI portfolio analyzers or see the best AI investing apps in 2026.
Investing in Assured Guaranty Ltd. with AI
Connect the broker you already use and ask Walnut's AI how AGO fits what you actually hold: whether you own it already through a fund, what it would do to your concentration, and how it has tracked the S&P 500. Read-only by default, and you approve anything before it reaches your broker.
FAQ
What does Assured Guaranty actually do?
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It sells financial guaranty insurance. If a municipality, utility, infrastructure project or structured finance vehicle issues a bond, Assured can insure the timely payment of principal and interest for a premium. The bond then carries Assured's AA rating, which lowers the issuer's interest cost and gives investors a second payer if the issuer defaults.
Is AGO a value stock or a growth stock?
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Descriptively, it screens as value: a P/E near ~9.4x, a share price of ~$71 in October 2026 at about 0.56 times GAAP book value, and a shrinking share count. The growth elements are new business production, which roughly doubled year over year in Q1 2026, and the new annuity reinsurance and asset management businesses. Most of the historical per-share value creation has come from buying back stock below book value rather than from revenue growth.
Why does the stock trade below book value?
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Monoline insurers carry long-dated, concentrated credit liabilities that are difficult for outside investors to model, and the industry's 2008 collapse left a lasting discount on the category. Assured also reports lumpy GAAP results because fair-value marks, reserve releases and equity in Sound Point's earnings all flow through the income statement. The market prices in both the modeling uncertainty and the possibility that the insured book runs off faster than it is replaced. In 2026 the discount widened further after a second-quarter earnings miss and Assured's role in the Brightline Florida restructuring.
What is the difference between book value and adjusted book value here?
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GAAP shareholders' equity per share was ~$124 at the end of Q1 2026. Adjusted book value per share, at ~$189, adds the net present value of premiums already contracted on the existing insured portfolio that have not yet been earned into income, plus other non-GAAP adjustments. Management emphasizes the adjusted figure because much of the future earnings stream is already locked in by contracts written years ago.
How exposed is Assured Guaranty to Puerto Rico?
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Far less than it once was. Settlements consummated in 2026 reduced Puerto Rico insured exposure by a further ~$1.3 billion, and total below investment grade exposure across the whole book is now ~$8.6 billion, about 3.1% of ~$279 billion of net par outstanding. Puerto Rico was the defining stress test of the past decade and is now largely worked through, though residual exposure and future municipal credit events remain part of the risk profile.
Does AGO pay a dividend?
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Yes, roughly ~$1.52 per share annually, a yield near ~2.2% at the ~$71 share price of mid-October 2026. The dividend has been raised steadily but is deliberately the smaller half of the capital return program. Share repurchases have been the larger channel, with ~$75 million bought back in Q1 2026 alone, though management guided to roughly ~$30 million per quarter to fund the annuity reinsurance expansion.
What is the Sound Point stake worth to Assured?
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Assured contributed its asset management arm to Sound Point Capital Management in 2023 in exchange for roughly 30% of the combined business, which became one of the largest global CLO managers. That stake shows up as equity in earnings rather than as consolidated revenue, so it adds fee-based income diversification but also introduces another source of quarter-to-quarter volatility tied to credit markets and CLO fee flows.
What should someone watch in upcoming results?
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New business production (gross written premium and present value of new business production) shows whether the wrap market is expanding; net par outstanding shows whether the insured book is growing or running off; adjusted book value per share tracks the compounding; the repurchase run rate shows whether capital is being redirected; and the ramp at Assured Life Re, which contributed ~$14 million of revenue in its first quarter, shows whether the diversification is working. In the November 5, 2026 report, any reserve or loss figure tied to Brightline Florida will also be closely read.
What is Assured Guaranty's exposure to Brightline?
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Assured insures slightly over 50% of the senior tax-exempt bonds of Brightline Trains Florida, the operating company of the Florida passenger railroad. In September 2026 Brightline's holding companies filed Chapter 11 while the operating company did not, and Assured committed $70 million of new senior debt plus up to $178 million of post-petition funding as part of a restructuring that brings $490 million of new capital. The plan needs court approval, and Assured has not published an expected loss.
How did Assured Guaranty do in its latest quarter?
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In the second quarter of 2026 Assured reported adjusted operating EPS of $1.23, below the ~$1.60 consensus, on revenue of about $195 million and GAAP net income of about $39 million. That broke a run of large beats in the prior three quarters. Third-quarter results are scheduled for November 5, 2026, with analysts expecting about $1.70 per share.
How has AGO stock performed in 2026?
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As of the October 16, 2026 close of $70.77, AGO was down about 20% year to date and about 11% over the past year, with a 52-week range of roughly $67 to $92. Most of the decline came over the summer and early fall, around the second-quarter miss and the Brightline news. Past performance does not predict future results, and Walnut is not an investment adviser.
Walnut is informational, not investment advice. Financial figures on this page are approximations; always verify current numbers with Assured Guaranty Ltd.'s investor relations page or your broker before making investment decisions.