Heritage Financial Co. (NASDAQ:HFWA) Short Interest Update

Heritage Financial Co. (NASDAQ:HFWA) was the recipient of a significant decline in short interest in the month of August. As of August 31st, there was short interest totalling 517,000 shares, a decline of 9.3% from the August 15th total of 569,900 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 206,500 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.5 days. Currently, 1.5% of the shares of the company are sold short.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Heritage Financial

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its position in Heritage Financial by 4.3% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,934,852 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $34,884,000 after acquiring an additional 80,044 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in Heritage Financial by 2.6% during the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,008,656 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $21,575,000 after acquiring an additional 25,971 shares during the last quarter. Jennison Associates LLC bought a new stake in Heritage Financial during the 1st quarter worth approximately $14,612,000. Renaissance Technologies LLC grew its position in Heritage Financial by 5.6% during the 2nd quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 321,089 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $5,789,000 after acquiring an additional 17,100 shares during the last quarter. Finally, American Century Companies Inc. grew its position in Heritage Financial by 3.0% during the 2nd quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 278,017 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $5,013,000 after acquiring an additional 8,112 shares during the last quarter. 78.30% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their price target on Heritage Financial from $20.00 to $23.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, July 26th. Piper Sandler boosted their price target on Heritage Financial from $23.00 to $26.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, July 29th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $23.50.

Heritage Financial Price Performance

Shares of HFWA stock traded up $0.07 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $22.07. The company had a trading volume of 136,129 shares, compared to its average volume of 185,490. Heritage Financial has a 12 month low of $15.50 and a 12 month high of $23.82. The firm has a market capitalization of $765.61 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.43 and a beta of 0.53. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $21.72 and its 200 day moving average is $19.36. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 0.81 and a current ratio of 0.81.

Heritage Financial (NASDAQ:HFWA) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 25th. The financial services provider reported $0.45 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.41 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $56.36 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $58.27 million. Heritage Financial had a return on equity of 7.95% and a net margin of 14.59%. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Heritage Financial will post 1.66 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Heritage Financial Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, August 21st. Investors of record on Wednesday, August 7th were given a dividend of $0.23 per share. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, August 7th. This represents a $0.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.17%. Heritage Financial’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 69.17%.

About Heritage Financial

Heritage Financial Corporation operates as the bank holding company for Heritage Bank that provides various financial services to small and medium sized businesses and individuals in the United States. It accepts various deposit products, such as noninterest demand deposits, interest bearing demand deposits, money market accounts, savings accounts, personal checking accounts, and certificates of deposit.