OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC) Receives $21.80 Consensus Target Price from Analysts

Shares of OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC) have received an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the seven analysts that are currently covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, two have given a hold recommendation, three have given a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year target price among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $21.60.

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on OCFC shares. Zacks Research lowered OceanFirst Financial from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Monday, September 1st. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of OceanFirst Financial in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded OceanFirst Financial from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and lifted their target price for the stock from $20.00 to $22.00 in a research note on Friday, October 10th. Raymond James Financial reiterated a “strong-buy” rating and set a $23.00 target price (up from $21.00) on shares of OceanFirst Financial in a research note on Monday. Finally, DA Davidson initiated coverage on OceanFirst Financial in a research note on Monday. They set a “buy” rating and a $19.00 target price on the stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On OceanFirst Financial

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in OCFC. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. raised its stake in OceanFirst Financial by 61.6% in the 1st quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 31,441 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $535,000 after acquiring an additional 11,987 shares during the period. Cerity Partners LLC raised its stake in OceanFirst Financial by 7.9% in the 1st quarter. Cerity Partners LLC now owns 41,609 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $708,000 after acquiring an additional 3,033 shares during the period. New York State Common Retirement Fund raised its stake in OceanFirst Financial by 40.8% in the 1st quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund now owns 21,744 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $370,000 after acquiring an additional 6,300 shares during the period. Denali Advisors LLC bought a new stake in OceanFirst Financial in the 1st quarter valued at about $403,000. Finally, Choreo LLC bought a new stake in OceanFirst Financial in the 1st quarter valued at about $363,000. 70.98% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

OceanFirst Financial Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:OCFC opened at $18.59 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.01, a quick ratio of 1.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $18.10 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $17.47. OceanFirst Financial has a 1-year low of $14.29 and a 1-year high of $21.87. The stock has a market cap of $1.07 billion, a PE ratio of 14.41 and a beta of 1.02.

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

OceanFirst Financial Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 3rd will be paid a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.3%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, November 3rd. OceanFirst Financial’s payout ratio is presently 62.02%.

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.