OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC) Receives Average Recommendation of “Hold” from Analysts

OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC) has earned a consensus rating of “Hold” from the five ratings firms that are covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and two have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year price objective among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $18.90.

Separately, Hovde Group lifted their price objective on shares of OceanFirst Financial from $19.50 to $21.50 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 20th.

OceanFirst Financial Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ OCFC opened at $18.43 on Tuesday. OceanFirst Financial has a 52-week low of $12.01 and a 52-week high of $18.98. The company has a market cap of $1.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 10.78 and a beta of 1.01. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $17.34 and its two-hundred day moving average is $16.26. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 1.01 and a current ratio of 1.01.

OceanFirst Financial (NASDAQ:OCFC) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 18th. The savings and loans company reported $0.39 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.42 by ($0.03). OceanFirst Financial had a return on equity of 5.85% and a net margin of 14.78%. The business had revenue of $170.41 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $94.93 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.46 earnings per share. As a group, analysts anticipate that OceanFirst Financial will post 1.58 EPS for the current fiscal year.

OceanFirst Financial Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 16th. Investors of record on Monday, August 5th were paid a dividend of $0.20 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 5th. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.34%. OceanFirst Financial’s dividend payout ratio is presently 46.78%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On OceanFirst Financial

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Innealta Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of OceanFirst Financial during the 2nd quarter worth about $25,000. Acadian Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of OceanFirst Financial during the 1st quarter worth about $39,000. Meeder Asset Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of OceanFirst Financial during the 2nd quarter worth about $62,000. EMC Capital Management purchased a new stake in OceanFirst Financial in the 1st quarter valued at about $150,000. Finally, CWM LLC boosted its position in OceanFirst Financial by 437.0% in the 2nd quarter. CWM LLC now owns 10,525 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $167,000 after buying an additional 8,565 shares during the period. 70.98% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.