Progressive price target lowered to $281 from $286 at BofA

BofA analyst Joshua Shanker lowered the firm’s price target on Progressive to $281 from $286 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares. In May 2024, Progressive net added 427k personal auto customers, exceeding the firm’s forecast of an expected 291k. Most notably, it exceeded 377k net new customers in April, despite what has seasonally been a slowdown in the pace of growth as April has transitioned into May. Homeowners’ policies were up a healthy 45k, tending to indicate improving customer quality. May 2024 EPS of just 19c/share was well below BofA’s forecast of 88c/share, driven entirely by catastrophe losses of $724M being much worse than the firm’s forecast of $228M. BofA expects that the strong policy growth will be a greater focus for investors than volatile catastrophe losses.