Empirical Finance LLC Grows Stock Holdings in Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ:HBAN)

Empirical Finance LLC boosted its stake in shares of Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ:HBAN) by 2.6% in the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 46,555 shares of the bank’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,189 shares during the period. Empirical Finance LLC’s holdings in Huntington Bancshares were worth $684,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in HBAN. Boston Partners increased its holdings in shares of Huntington Bancshares by 20.4% during the first quarter. Boston Partners now owns 56,175,987 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $783,215,000 after acquiring an additional 9,533,511 shares in the last quarter. National Bank of Canada FI grew its position in Huntington Bancshares by 832.7% during the 1st quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 3,337,625 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $46,927,000 after purchasing an additional 2,979,768 shares during the last quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. increased its stake in Huntington Bancshares by 13.2% during the 3rd quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 20,318,486 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $298,682,000 after purchasing an additional 2,363,988 shares in the last quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. lifted its stake in shares of Huntington Bancshares by 194.8% in the second quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. now owns 3,203,789 shares of the bank’s stock worth $42,226,000 after buying an additional 2,116,839 shares in the last quarter. Finally, SG Americas Securities LLC grew its holdings in shares of Huntington Bancshares by 531.0% during the second quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 1,150,690 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $15,166,000 after buying an additional 968,331 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.72% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently issued reports on HBAN. Robert W. Baird cut Huntington Bancshares from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $15.00 price objective on the stock. in a research report on Friday, July 26th. StockNews.com raised shares of Huntington Bancshares from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, October 18th. Royal Bank of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $17.00 target price on shares of Huntington Bancshares in a report on Friday, October 18th. Bank of America boosted their target price on shares of Huntington Bancshares from $15.00 to $17.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, July 22nd. Finally, Baird R W downgraded Huntington Bancshares from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, July 26th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating, twelve have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $16.09.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, insider Helga Houston sold 6,455 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.43, for a total value of $99,600.65. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 558,342 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,615,217.06. The trade was a 1.14 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Zachary Jacob Wasserman sold 8,644 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $17.63, for a total value of $152,393.72. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 259,943 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,582,795.09. The trade was a 3.22 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 43,699 shares of company stock worth $757,356 in the last three months. 0.89% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Huntington Bancshares Stock Performance

HBAN opened at $17.69 on Friday. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $15.38 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $14.33. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.86, a current ratio of 0.88 and a quick ratio of 0.87. The firm has a market cap of $25.70 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.01, a PEG ratio of 3.55 and a beta of 1.03. Huntington Bancshares Incorporated has a 1-year low of $10.73 and a 1-year high of $17.97.

Huntington Bancshares (NASDAQ:HBAN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 17th. The bank reported $0.33 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.30 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $1.89 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.86 billion. Huntington Bancshares had a return on equity of 10.72% and a net margin of 14.19%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.36 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Huntington Bancshares Incorporated will post 1.21 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Huntington Bancshares Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 18th will be paid a dividend of $0.155 per share. This represents a $0.62 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.50%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, December 18th. Huntington Bancshares’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 59.62%.

About Huntington Bancshares

Huntington Bancshares Incorporated operates as the bank holding company for The Huntington National Bank that provides commercial, consumer, and mortgage banking services in the United States. The company offers financial products and services to consumer and business customers, including deposits, lending, payments, mortgage banking, dealer financing, investment management, trust, brokerage, insurance, and other financial products and services.