OceanFirst Financial Corp. to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.20 (NASDAQ:OCFC)

OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, April 18th, Zacks reports. Investors of record on Monday, May 6th will be given a dividend of 0.20 per share by the savings and loans company on Friday, May 17th. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.27%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 3rd.

OceanFirst Financial has raised its dividend payment by an average of 5.6% per year over the last three years. OceanFirst Financial has a payout ratio of 37.9% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect OceanFirst Financial to earn $2.09 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 38.3%.

OceanFirst Financial Trading Up 4.0 %

OceanFirst Financial stock opened at $15.18 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64, a quick ratio of 0.98 and a current ratio of 0.98. The firm has a market cap of $903.67 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.88 and a beta of 1.00. OceanFirst Financial has a 1 year low of $12.01 and a 1 year high of $19.58. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $15.34 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $15.37.

OceanFirst Financial (NASDAQ:OCFC) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 18th. The savings and loans company reported $0.45 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.43 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $99.69 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $97.26 million. OceanFirst Financial had a net margin of 15.54% and a return on equity of 6.19%. On average, research analysts predict that OceanFirst Financial will post 1.76 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On OceanFirst Financial

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of OceanFirst Financial by 115,464.3% in the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 16,677,082 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $354,388,000 after purchasing an additional 16,662,651 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. lifted its stake in shares of OceanFirst Financial by 11.0% in the 2nd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 8,449,389 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $131,979,000 after purchasing an additional 835,052 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in shares of OceanFirst Financial by 6.5% in the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 3,603,798 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $66,598,000 after purchasing an additional 220,219 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of OceanFirst Financial by 2.3% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,369,343 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $58,492,000 after purchasing an additional 74,245 shares during the last quarter. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its stake in shares of OceanFirst Financial by 13.1% in the 1st quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 2,660,685 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $49,170,000 after purchasing an additional 308,240 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 70.98% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently commented on OCFC. Raymond James raised their price objective on shares of OceanFirst Financial from $21.00 to $22.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, January 22nd. StockNews.com lowered shares of OceanFirst Financial from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 28th. TheStreet raised shares of OceanFirst Financial from a “c+” rating to a “b-” rating in a research note on Monday, January 8th. Finally, Stephens reissued an “equal weight” rating and set a $20.00 target price on shares of OceanFirst Financial in a research note on Friday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $18.50.

About OceanFirst Financial

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.