Definity Financial (TSE:DFY) Rating Lowered to “Hold” at Scotiabank

Scotiabank cut shares of Definity Financial (TSE:DFY) from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a research report released on Monday morning,Zacks.com reports.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently commented on the stock. TD Securities lifted their price target on shares of Definity Financial from C$58.00 to C$59.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, November 8th. National Bankshares upped their target price on shares of Definity Financial from C$62.00 to C$65.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Cormark lowered shares of Definity Financial from a “moderate buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on shares of Definity Financial from C$58.00 to C$61.00 in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. Finally, CIBC downgraded shares of Definity Financial from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their price target for the stock from C$47.00 to C$51.00 in a research note on Tuesday, August 6th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Definity Financial has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of C$54.70.

Definity Financial Trading Down 1.2 %

Shares of DFY stock traded down C$0.68 during mid-day trading on Monday, hitting C$55.60. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 20,268 shares, compared to its average volume of 106,168. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is C$53.50 and its 200-day simple moving average is C$48.65. Definity Financial has a 52 week low of C$35.48 and a 52 week high of C$58.73. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 6.38, a quick ratio of 0.31 and a current ratio of 7.68. The company has a market cap of C$6.39 billion, a PE ratio of 17.00, a P/E/G ratio of 2.63 and a beta of 0.04.

Definity Financial (TSE:DFY) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 7th. The company reported C$0.13 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of C($0.04) by C$0.17. The firm had revenue of C$1.10 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of C$1.10 billion. Definity Financial had a return on equity of 13.00% and a net margin of 9.60%. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Definity Financial will post 3.1263962 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Definity Financial Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 27th. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 13th will be issued a dividend of $0.16 per share. This represents a $0.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.15%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, December 13th. Definity Financial’s payout ratio is 19.34%.

About Definity Financial

Definity Financial Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, offers property and casualty insurance products in Canada. It provides personal insurance products, including auto, property, general and umbrella liability, and pet insurance products to individuals under the Economical, Sonnet, Family, Petsecure, and Peppermint brands; and commercial insurance products, which include fleet, commercial auto, property, liability, and specialty insurance products to businesses under the Definity Insurance and Economical brand name.