MGIC Investment Corp. (MTG) Tops Wall Streets’ Earnings Expectations, Shares Dip

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MGIC Investment Corp. (NYSE:MTG) has beaten the market’s earnings expectations with its second quarter financial results, posting earnings per share of $0.28. However, its quarterly revenues of $243.1 million were below the markets’ estimates. The market had an earnings estimate of $0.23 for the second quarter of fiscal 2015 over revenues of $247.16 million. It is important to note that the investment company did miss the revenue expectations in the second quarter fiscal 2014 as well, with revenues of $231.2 million against estimates of $237.1 million. It was an excellent quarter for MGIC Investment Corp. (NYSE:MTG) in terms of new insurance as the company wrote insurance worth $11.8 billion for the quarter against the prior year figure of $8.3 billion. The insurance firm reported growth of 5.9% in its net insurance in force at $168.8 billion at the end of the second quarter compared to the end of the second quarter one year prior.

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Patrick Sinks, CEO of MGIC Investment Corp. (NYSE:MTG), said, “I am pleased to report that in the second quarter of 2015 the company continued to grow our insurance in force by adding another $11.8 billion of high quality new insurance.” He further added, ” The combination of profitable new business, the continued runoff of the older books, and a strengthened housing market, positions us well to provide credit enhancement solutions to our customers now and in the future.”

It has been a good year so far for MGIC Investment Corp. (NYSE:MTG)’s shareholders, as its shares have grown by 21.57% year-to-date, though shares have fallen by 1.66% in morning trading today following the results. The investment firm found a place in Barclays Americas Top Picks list under the financial sector earlier this year. Smart money however was slightly bearish towards the stock of the company during the first quarter, as 54 hedge fund investors held positions worth $1.78 billion against prior quarter investments of $1.77 billion made by 57 hedge fund managers. The marginal growth in aggregate holdings while the stock gained 14.64% during the first quarter indicates fund managers also collectively sold off shares.

We don’t just track the latest moves of funds. We are, in fact, more interested in their 13F filings, which we use to determine the top 15 small-cap stocks held by the funds we track. We gather and share this information based on 16 years of research, with backtests for the period between 1999 and 2012 and forward testing for the last 2.5 years. The results of our analysis show that these 15 most popular small-cap picks have a great potential to outperform the market, beating the S&P 500 Total Return Index by nearly one percentage point per month in backtests. Moreover, since the beginning of forward testing in August 2012, the strategy worked brilliantly, outperforming the market every year and returning 139%, which is more than 80 percentage points higher than the returns of the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) (see more details).

Despite bearish hedge fund sentiment, insiders at MGIC Investment Corp. (NYSE:MTG) were bullish on the stock and rightly so. Daniel Arrigoni, Director at MGIC Investment, purchased 10,000 shares of the company on March 10 at a price of $9.19 per share. The shares have appreciated by 23% since then.

 With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a look at the key smart money action surrounding MGIC Investment Corp. (NYSE:MTG).

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