Sierra Bancorp (NASDAQ:BSRR) Director Sells $292,600.00 in Stock

Sierra Bancorp (NASDAQ:BSRR) Director Morris A. Tharp sold 10,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $29.26, for a total transaction of $292,600.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 475,060 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $13,900,255.60. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link.

Sierra Bancorp Trading Down 3.7 %

BSRR stock opened at $27.35 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $23.40 and a 200 day moving average price of $21.01. Sierra Bancorp has a fifty-two week low of $16.75 and a fifty-two week high of $31.85. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a current ratio of 0.74. The firm has a market cap of $399.31 million, a PE ratio of 11.30 and a beta of 0.91.

Sierra Bancorp (NASDAQ:BSRR) last posted its earnings results on Monday, July 22nd. The financial services provider reported $0.71 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.60 by $0.11. Sierra Bancorp had a net margin of 17.77% and a return on equity of 10.82%. The firm had revenue of $51.13 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $36.30 million. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Sierra Bancorp will post 2.76 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Sierra Bancorp Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, August 15th. Investors of record on Wednesday, July 31st will be issued a $0.24 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, July 31st. This is a positive change from Sierra Bancorp’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.23. This represents a $0.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.51%. Sierra Bancorp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 38.02%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have issued reports on BSRR. StockNews.com raised shares of Sierra Bancorp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their price objective on shares of Sierra Bancorp from $23.00 to $29.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Finally, Janney Montgomery Scott lowered shares of Sierra Bancorp from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 15th.

Institutional Trading of Sierra Bancorp

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Panagora Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in Sierra Bancorp by 8.2% in the second quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. now owns 11,957 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $268,000 after buying an additional 904 shares during the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its position in Sierra Bancorp by 3.0% in the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 119,520 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $2,675,000 after buying an additional 3,531 shares during the last quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC lifted its position in Sierra Bancorp by 45.7% in the first quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 3,051 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $61,000 after buying an additional 957 shares during the last quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC bought a new stake in Sierra Bancorp in the first quarter worth $94,000. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Sierra Bancorp by 0.9% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 680,053 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $13,737,000 after buying an additional 5,830 shares during the last quarter. 55.40% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Sierra Bancorp

Sierra Bancorp operates as the bank holding company for Bank of the Sierra that provides retail and commercial banking services to individuals and businesses in California. It accepts various deposit products, such as checking accounts, savings accounts, money market demand accounts, time deposits, retirement accounts, and sweep accounts.