5 Best Value Stocks to Invest In

3. The Progressive Corporation (NYSE: PGR)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 45
PE Ratio: 10.20 

The Progressive Corporation (NYSE: PGR) is an insurance holding firm headquartered in Ohio. It is placed third on our list of 15 best value stocks to invest in. The company’s shares have returned 8% to investors over the past twelve months. The company recently missed market estimates on earnings per share and revenue for the second quarter. However, on June 1, the firm announced that it had completed the purchase of Protective Insurance in a deal worth $338 million, outlining further growth plans. 

On July 16, investment advisory Barclays maintained an Underweight rating on The Progressive Corporation (NYSE: PGR) stock with a price target of $84. The ratings update was issued following earnings results posted by the firm for the second quarter. 

At the end of the first quarter of 2021, 45 hedge funds in the database of Insider Monkey held stakes worth $1.2 billion in The Progressive Corporation (NYSE: PGR), down from 48 in the previous quarter worth $1.7 billion.

In its Q1 2021 investor letter, Wedgewood Partners, an asset management firm, highlighted a few stocks and The Progressive Corporation (NYSE: PGR) was one of them. Here is what the fund said:

“Progressive continues to report double-digit growth in policies in force (PIF), having added nearly 750,000 personal automobile and commercial PIFs in the first quarter of 2021, compared to the Company’s closest competitor, GEICO (a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway), which added just 124,000 PIFs. However, Progressive’s loss ratio has been elevated over the past few months due to a large, unseasonal ice storm that affected the southwestern U.S. We expect the financial effects of this to be short-lived and that the Company’s core earnings power should continue compounding in-line with its growth in PIFs. Traditional financial businesses are historically and relatively out of favor, if only evidenced by their slim weightings in major U.S. benchmarks, but there are pockets of exceptional growth businesses, such as Progressive, where we are happy to be contrarians.”