Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Issues Positive Forecast for Peoples Bancorp (NASDAQ:PEBO) Stock Price

Peoples Bancorp (NASDAQ:PEBO) had its price objective raised by Keefe, Bruyette & Woods from $32.00 to $36.00 in a research report released on Wednesday morning,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a market perform rating on the bank’s stock.

Separately, Piper Sandler dropped their price target on shares of Peoples Bancorp from $39.00 to $36.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Peoples Bancorp has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $34.25.

Peoples Bancorp Trading Up 1.4 %

NASDAQ:PEBO opened at $35.30 on Wednesday. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $32.35 and its 200-day moving average price is $31.06. Peoples Bancorp has a 52 week low of $26.74 and a 52 week high of $37.07. The company has a quick ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21. The stock has a market cap of $1.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.90 and a beta of 0.77.

Peoples Bancorp (NASDAQ:PEBO) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The bank reported $0.89 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.82 by $0.07. Peoples Bancorp had a net margin of 20.16% and a return on equity of 11.84%. The business had revenue of $158.41 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $112.30 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.06 EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Peoples Bancorp will post 3.31 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Peoples Bancorp Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, November 18th. Shareholders of record on Monday, November 4th were paid a $0.40 dividend. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.53%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, November 4th. Peoples Bancorp’s payout ratio is currently 45.58%.

Insider Transactions at Peoples Bancorp

In other Peoples Bancorp news, Director S Craig Beam sold 4,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $34.31, for a total value of $137,240.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 23,760 shares in the company, valued at $815,205.60. This represents a 14.41 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director David F. Dierker sold 2,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $35.36, for a total transaction of $70,720.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 1,214 shares in the company, valued at $42,927.04. This represents a 62.23 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 12,445 shares of company stock worth $419,676 in the last three months. Insiders own 3.46% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Peoples Bancorp

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in shares of Peoples Bancorp by 0.3% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,465,385 shares of the bank’s stock worth $73,960,000 after purchasing an additional 6,712 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Peoples Bancorp by 1.0% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 1,904,357 shares of the bank’s stock worth $56,388,000 after purchasing an additional 18,272 shares during the period. State Street Corp lifted its position in shares of Peoples Bancorp by 1.4% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,027,413 shares of the bank’s stock worth $30,915,000 after purchasing an additional 14,426 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Peoples Bancorp by 2.7% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 850,654 shares of the bank’s stock worth $25,601,000 after purchasing an additional 22,285 shares during the period. Finally, American Century Companies Inc. lifted its position in shares of Peoples Bancorp by 26.7% in the 2nd quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 586,015 shares of the bank’s stock worth $17,580,000 after purchasing an additional 123,423 shares during the period. 60.68% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Peoples Bancorp Company Profile

Peoples Bancorp Inc operates as the holding company for Peoples Bank that provides commercial and consumer banking products and services. The company accepts various deposit products, including demand deposit accounts, savings accounts, money market accounts, certificates of deposit, and governmental deposits; and provides commercial and industrial, commercial real estate, construction, finance, residential real estate, and consumer indirect and direct loans, as well as home equity lines of credit and overdrafts.