BofA gives Hartford a tiny vote of confidence

BofA says “nice quarter” — not “go wild”

Bank of America lifted its price target on The Hartford Insurance Group to $138 while keeping a Neutral rating. Translation: the analyst sees a little more room to run, but not enough to start throwing confetti from the roof.

The numbers are doing some of the talking

The call lands after Hartford posted a pretty solid quarter, with EPS of $4.06 versus $3.22 expected and revenue of $7.31 billion. That’s the kind of beat that makes Wall Street sit up in its chair, even if it doesn’t exactly send the stock to the moon.

What investors may be watching next

A few other bits make this one worth a glance:

• The stock is trading around a 10.4 P/E, which is not exactly priced like a high-flying tech rocket
• Analysts are modeling $11.11 in EPS for the full year
• Insiders have been net sellers recently, including CEO Christopher Swift selling about 100,970 shares on February 4
• Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold roughly 349,282 shares, or about $48.2 million

Big picture

So yes, Hartford is getting some love — just the carefully measured kind. For investors, the real question is whether the company can keep turning solid underwriting and earnings momentum into something more than a polite price-target bump.