OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC) Receives $18.90 Consensus Target Price from Analysts

Shares of OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC) have earned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the five analysts that are currently covering the stock, Marketbeat reports. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. The average 1-year target price among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $19.30.

OCFC has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Piper Sandler set a $17.00 target price on OceanFirst Financial and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday. Hovde Group increased their price objective on OceanFirst Financial from $19.50 to $21.50 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 20th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On OceanFirst Financial

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of OCFC. American Century Companies Inc. lifted its holdings in OceanFirst Financial by 20.8% in the 2nd quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 956,320 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock worth $15,196,000 after buying an additional 164,626 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in OceanFirst Financial by 24.4% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 807,280 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock worth $12,828,000 after buying an additional 158,590 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in OceanFirst Financial by 3.1% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,475,107 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock worth $57,027,000 after buying an additional 105,764 shares during the period. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans lifted its holdings in OceanFirst Financial by 32.6% in the 2nd quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 272,243 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock worth $4,326,000 after buying an additional 66,918 shares during the period. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its holdings in OceanFirst Financial by 6.8% in the 4th quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 1,046,061 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock worth $18,160,000 after buying an additional 66,868 shares during the period. 70.98% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

OceanFirst Financial Stock Performance

Shares of OCFC opened at $19.10 on Tuesday. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $17.61 and its 200 day simple moving average is $16.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.17 and a beta of 1.01. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 1.01 and a current ratio of 1.01. OceanFirst Financial has a 52-week low of $12.01 and a 52-week high of $19.49.

OceanFirst Financial (NASDAQ:OCFC) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, July 18th. The savings and loans company reported $0.39 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.42 by ($0.03). The business had revenue of $170.41 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $94.93 million. OceanFirst Financial had a return on equity of 5.85% and a net margin of 14.78%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.46 earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that OceanFirst Financial will post 1.58 EPS for the current fiscal year.

OceanFirst Financial Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Monday, November 4th will be issued a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.19%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, November 4th. OceanFirst Financial’s dividend payout ratio is presently 46.78%.

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.