OceanFirst Financial (NASDAQ:OCFC) Coverage Initiated by Analysts at DA Davidson

DA Davidson started coverage on shares of OceanFirst Financial (NASDAQ:OCFC) in a research note released on Monday morning, Marketbeat.com reports. The firm issued a buy rating and a $19.00 target price on the savings and loans company’s stock.

OCFC has been the subject of several other reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded shares of OceanFirst Financial from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $20.00 to $22.00 in a research report on Friday, October 10th. Zacks Research lowered shares of OceanFirst Financial from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Monday, September 1st. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of OceanFirst Financial in a research report on Wednesday, October 8th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have issued a Buy rating, two have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $21.60.

OceanFirst Financial Stock Performance

Shares of OCFC stock opened at $18.59 on Monday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $18.10 and a 200-day moving average price of $17.47. OceanFirst Financial has a 52 week low of $14.29 and a 52 week high of $21.87. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.07 billion, a PE ratio of 14.41 and a beta of 1.02. The company has a quick ratio of 1.00, a current ratio of 1.01 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70.

OceanFirst Financial (NASDAQ:OCFC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, June 14th. The savings and loans company reported $0.49 EPS for the quarter. OceanFirst Financial had a net margin of 11.77% and a return on equity of 5.00%. The firm had revenue of $93.08 million during the quarter. As a group, equities research analysts expect that OceanFirst Financial will post 1.6 earnings per share for the current year.

OceanFirst Financial Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, November 3rd will be issued a dividend of $0.20 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, November 3rd. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.3%. OceanFirst Financial’s payout ratio is currently 62.02%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On OceanFirst Financial

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. State of Alaska Department of Revenue purchased a new position in OceanFirst Financial during the third quarter valued at approximately $40,000. SG Americas Securities LLC lifted its holdings in OceanFirst Financial by 490.4% during the third quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 34,154 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $600,000 after purchasing an additional 28,369 shares in the last quarter. KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS lifted its holdings in OceanFirst Financial by 12.7% during the third quarter. KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS now owns 31,100 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $546,000 after purchasing an additional 3,500 shares in the last quarter. Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. lifted its holdings in OceanFirst Financial by 5.0% during the third quarter. Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. now owns 39,407 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $692,000 after purchasing an additional 1,870 shares in the last quarter. Finally, CWM LLC lifted its holdings in shares of OceanFirst Financial by 8.1% in the third quarter. CWM LLC now owns 23,306 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock worth $409,000 after buying an additional 1,742 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.98% of the company’s stock.

OceanFirst Financial Company Profile

OceanFirst Financial Corp. operates as the bank holding company for OceanFirst Bank N.A. that provides community banking services to retail and commercial customers. It accepts money market accounts, savings accounts, interest-bearing checking accounts, non-interest-bearing accounts, and time deposits, that includes brokered deposits to retail, government, and business customers.