Essent Group (ESNT) Stock Price, News & Analysis

Company Overview

Essent Group Ltd. is a Bermuda-based holding company focused on private mortgage insurance and related risk-management solutions for the U.S. residential mortgage market. Through its subsidiaries, the company helps protect mortgage lenders and investors against losses when borrowers default on home loans.

Essent’s primary business is conducted through Essent Guaranty, Inc., which provides mortgage insurance for conventional residential mortgages, generally supporting loans made to borrowers with down payments below traditional thresholds. The company also uses reinsurance and other risk-transfer arrangements to manage its exposure and provide capital solutions to mortgage market participants.

Essent Group was founded in 2008 and completed its initial public offering in 2013. Its operations are principally focused on the United States, serving mortgage lenders, originators and other participants in the housing finance system. The company is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda, with U.S. operations supporting its mortgage insurance business.

Key Stats

• Today's Range: $58.92 to $60.68
• 50-Day Range: $58.02 to $69.69
• 52-Week Range: $55.34 to $70.37
• Volume: 863,878 shs
• Average Volume: 852,000 shs
• Market Capitalization: $5.41 billion
• P/E Ratio: 8.39
• Dividend Yield: 2.33%
• Price Target: $71.86
• Consensus Rating: Hold

Essent Group Stock Analysis - MarketRank™

Essent Group scored higher than 83% of companies evaluated by MarketBeat, and ranked 254th out of 839 stocks in the finance sector. Scores are calculated by averaging available category scores, with extra weight given to analysis and valuation.

Analyst's Opinion

• Score: 3.7 / 5
• Analyst Rating: Hold

Consensus Rating

Essent Group has received a consensus rating of Hold. The company's average rating score is 2.33, and is based on no strong buy ratings, 3 buy ratings, 6 hold ratings, and no sell ratings.

Upside Potential

Essent Group has a consensus price target of $71.86, representing about 19.4% upside from its current price of $60.18.

Amount of Analyst Coverage

Essent Group has been the subject of 7 research reports in the past 90 days, demonstrating strong analyst interest in this stock.

Earnings and Valuation

• Score: 1.9 / 5
• Proj. Earnings Growth: 3.55%

Earnings Growth

Earnings for Essent Group are expected to grow by 3.55% in the coming year, from $7.60 to $7.87 per share.

Price to Earnings Ratio vs. the Market

The P/E ratio of Essent Group is 8.39, which means that it is trading at a less expensive P/E ratio than the market average P/E ratio of about 44.66.

Price to Earnings Ratio vs. Sector

The P/E ratio of Essent Group is 8.39, which means that it is trading at a less expensive P/E ratio than the Finance sector average P/E ratio of about 24.40.

Price to Earnings Growth Ratio

Essent Group has a PEG Ratio of 1.51. PEG Ratios above 1 indicate that a company could be overvalued.

Price to Book Value per Share Ratio

Essent Group has a P/B Ratio of 1.01. P/B Ratios below 3 indicates that a company is reasonably valued with respect to its assets and liabilities.

Short Interest

• Score: 2.0 / 5
• Short Interest Level: Bearish

Percentage of Shares Shorted

3.33% of the float of Essent Group has been sold short.

Short Interest Ratio / Days to Cover

Essent Group has a short interest ratio ("days to cover") of 4.55.

Change versus previous month

Short interest in Essent Group has recently increased by 20.55%, indicating that investor sentiment is decreasing significantly.

Dividend

• Score: 3.3 / 5
• Dividend Strength: Strong

Dividend Yield

Essent Group pays a meaningful dividend of 2.32%, higher than the bottom 25% of all stocks that pay dividends.

Dividend Growth

Essent Group has been increasing its dividend for 6 years.

Dividend Coverage

The dividend payout ratio of Essent Group is 19.53%. This payout ratio is at a healthy, sustainable level, below 75%.

Dividend Sustainability

Based on earnings estimates, Essent Group will have a dividend payout ratio of 17.79% next year. This indicates that Essent Group will be able to sustain or increase its dividend.

News and Social Media

• Score: 1.8 / 5
• News Sentiment: -0.04

News Sentiment

Essent Group has a news sentiment score of -0.04. This score is calculated as an average of sentiment of articles about the company over the last seven days and ranges from 2 (good news) to -2 (bad news). This is a lower news sentiment than the 0.61 average news sentiment score of Finance companies.

News Coverage This Week

MarketBeat has tracked 4 news articles for Essent Group this week, compared to 3 articles on an average week.

MarketBeat Follows

1 people have added Essent Group to their MarketBeat watchlist in the last 30 days.

Company Ownership

• Score: 1.6 / 5
• Insider Trading: Selling Shares

Insider Buying vs. Insider Selling

In the past three months, Essent Group insiders have sold more of their company's stock than they have bought. Specifically, they have bought $0.00 in company stock and sold $6,898,040.00 in company stock.

Percentage Held by Insiders

3.60% of the stock of Essent Group is held by insiders.

Percentage Held by Institutions

93.00% of the stock of Essent Group is held by institutions. High institutional ownership can be a signal of strong market trust in this company.

Company Calendar

• Last Earnings: 6/30/2026
• Record date for 9/10 Dividend: 8/31/2026
• Ex-Dividend for 9/10 Dividend: 8/31/2026
• Dividend Payable: 9/10/2026
• Today: 10/05/2026
• Next Earnings (Estimated): 11/06/2026
• Fiscal Year End: 12/31/2026

Industry, Sector and Symbol

• Stock Exchange: NYSE
• Sector: Finance
• Industry: Financial Services
• Sub-Industry: Commercial & Residential Mortgage Finance
• Current Symbol: NYSE:ESNT
• CIK: 1448893
• Web: ir.essentgroup.com
• Phone: (441) 297-9901
• Fax: N/A
• Employees: 518
• Year Founded: 2008

Price Target and Rating

• Average Price Target for Essent Group: $71.86
• High Price Target: $80.00
• Low Price Target: $63.00
• Potential Upside/Downside: +19.4%
• Consensus Rating: Hold
• Rating Score (0-4): 2.33
• Research Coverage: 9 Analysts

Profitability

• EPS (Trailing Twelve Months): $7.17
• Trailing P/E Ratio: 8.39
• Forward P/E Ratio: 7.92
• P/E Growth: 1.51
• Net Income: $689.97 million
• Net Margins: 51.45%
• Pretax Margin: 62.04%
• Return on Equity: 11.91%
• Return on Assets: 9.09%

Debt

• Debt-to-Equity Ratio: 0.09
• Current Ratio: 1.18
• Quick Ratio: 1.18

Sales & Book Value

• Annual Sales: $1.26 billion
• Price / Sales: 4.29
• Cash Flow: $7.34 per share
• Price / Cash Flow: 8.20
• Book Value: $59.55 per share
• Price / Book: 1.01

Miscellaneous

• Outstanding Shares: 89,880,000
• Free Float: 86,640,000
• Market Cap: $5.41 billion
• Optionable: Optionable
• Beta: 0.76