WesBanco, Inc. (NASDAQ:WSBC) Short Interest Up 23.1% in March

WesBanco, Inc. (NASDAQ:WSBC) was the target of a significant increase in short interest during the month of March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 1,760,000 shares, an increase of 23.1% from the March 15th total of 1,430,000 shares. Approximately 1.9% of the shares of the company are short sold. Based on an average trading volume of 665,600 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 2.6 days.

Institutional Trading of WesBanco

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of WesBanco by 11.7% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 6,710,539 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $218,361,000 after buying an additional 705,483 shares in the last quarter. Earnest Partners LLC raised its stake in WesBanco by 27.1% in the fourth quarter. Earnest Partners LLC now owns 1,777,002 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $57,824,000 after purchasing an additional 379,386 shares in the last quarter. Barclays PLC lifted its holdings in shares of WesBanco by 104.8% during the 4th quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 371,347 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $12,084,000 after acquiring an additional 190,022 shares during the last quarter. MCF Advisors LLC increased its stake in WesBanco by 17,801.0% in the fourth quarter. MCF Advisors LLC now owns 170,955 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $5,626,000 after acquiring an additional 170,000 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new position in shares of WesBanco during the 4th quarter valued at about $5,345,000. 61.41% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have weighed in on WSBC. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded WesBanco from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their price target for the company from $40.00 to $44.00 in a research report on Monday, February 10th. DA Davidson boosted their target price on WesBanco from $44.00 to $45.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 27th. Stephens reaffirmed an “equal weight” rating and issued a $39.00 price objective on shares of WesBanco in a research note on Thursday, January 23rd. Raymond James dropped their price objective on WesBanco from $44.00 to $38.00 and set a “strong-buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, April 2nd. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of WesBanco from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 4th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, four have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, WesBanco currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $39.43.

WesBanco Stock Performance

NASDAQ WSBC opened at $28.30 on Friday. WesBanco has a fifty-two week low of $25.56 and a fifty-two week high of $37.36. The stock has a market cap of $1.89 billion, a PE ratio of 12.63 and a beta of 0.76. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 0.93 and a current ratio of 0.93. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $31.78 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $32.77.

WesBanco (NASDAQ:WSBC) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 22nd. The financial services provider reported $0.71 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.54 by $0.17. WesBanco had a return on equity of 6.30% and a net margin of 15.89%. On average, equities analysts expect that WesBanco will post 3.24 EPS for the current fiscal year.

WesBanco Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, April 1st. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 10th were paid a $0.37 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 10th. This represents a $1.48 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.23%. WesBanco’s payout ratio is 66.07%.

About WesBanco

WesBanco, Inc operates as the bank holding company for WesBanco Bank, Inc that provides retail banking, corporate banking, personal and corporate trust, brokerage, mortgage banking, and insurance services to individuals and businesses in the United States. The company operates through two segments, Community Banking, and Trust and Investment Services.