OceanFirst Financial (NASDAQ:OCFC) Hits New 12-Month High – Time to Buy?

Shares of OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC) hit a new 52-week high on Monday . The stock traded as high as $21.76 and last traded at $21.76, with a volume of 11297 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $20.88.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have weighed in on OCFC. Piper Sandler set a $17.00 price target on OceanFirst Financial and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, October 18th. Hovde Group boosted their target price on OceanFirst Financial from $19.50 to $21.50 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 20th. Finally, DA Davidson raised their price target on shares of OceanFirst Financial from $20.00 to $22.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, November 18th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, OceanFirst Financial has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $19.75.

OceanFirst Financial Stock Up 2.7 %

The stock has a market capitalization of $1.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.93 and a beta of 1.01. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $18.76 and a 200 day moving average of $17.09. The company has a current ratio of 1.01, a quick ratio of 1.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79.

OceanFirst Financial (NASDAQ:OCFC) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, October 17th. The savings and loans company reported $0.39 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.38 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $96.90 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $92.79 million. OceanFirst Financial had a net margin of 15.28% and a return on equity of 6.08%. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that OceanFirst Financial Corp. will post 1.59 earnings per share for the current year.

OceanFirst Financial Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, November 4th were issued a dividend of $0.20 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, November 4th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.73%. OceanFirst Financial’s dividend payout ratio is presently 45.71%.

Insider Activity at OceanFirst Financial

In other OceanFirst Financial news, Director Joseph M. Jr. Murphy sold 1,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, November 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $20.03, for a total transaction of $30,045.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 177,417 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,553,662.51. This represents a 0.84 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 5.00% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On OceanFirst Financial

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Capital Performance Advisors LLP bought a new position in shares of OceanFirst Financial during the third quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Innealta Capital LLC bought a new position in OceanFirst Financial during the 2nd quarter worth $25,000. Point72 DIFC Ltd acquired a new stake in OceanFirst Financial in the third quarter worth $41,000. Acadian Asset Management LLC bought a new stake in OceanFirst Financial in the first quarter valued at $39,000. Finally, Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. boosted its holdings in shares of OceanFirst Financial by 82.3% during the third quarter. Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. now owns 3,055 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $57,000 after acquiring an additional 1,379 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.