StockNews.com Upgrades Berkshire Hills Bancorp (NYSE:BHLB) to “Hold”

StockNews.com upgraded shares of Berkshire Hills Bancorp (NYSE:BHLB) from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research note released on Wednesday morning.

A number of other brokerages also recently weighed in on BHLB. Janney Montgomery Scott downgraded shares of Berkshire Hills Bancorp from a buy rating to a neutral rating and set a $28.00 target price for the company. in a research note on Monday, July 22nd. Hovde Group lifted their target price on shares of Berkshire Hills Bancorp from $28.00 to $31.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Friday, July 19th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Berkshire Hills Bancorp has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $26.80.

Berkshire Hills Bancorp Price Performance

Shares of NYSE BHLB opened at $28.04 on Wednesday. Berkshire Hills Bancorp has a twelve month low of $18.31 and a twelve month high of $28.51. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $22.99 and a 200 day simple moving average of $22.68. The company has a market capitalization of $1.21 billion, a PE ratio of 56.08 and a beta of 0.88. The company has a quick ratio of 1.06, a current ratio of 1.07 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.80.

Berkshire Hills Bancorp (NYSE:BHLB) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, July 18th. The savings and loans company reported $0.55 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.52 by $0.03. Berkshire Hills Bancorp had a net margin of 3.37% and a return on equity of 8.61%. The business had revenue of $174.24 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $108.46 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.55 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Berkshire Hills Bancorp will post 2.1 EPS for the current year.

Berkshire Hills Bancorp Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, June 28th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 20th were paid a $0.18 dividend. This represents a $0.72 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.57%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 20th. Berkshire Hills Bancorp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 144.00%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in BHLB. LSV Asset Management grew its holdings in shares of Berkshire Hills Bancorp by 116.2% during the first quarter. LSV Asset Management now owns 680,903 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $15,606,000 after buying an additional 365,952 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Berkshire Hills Bancorp during the fourth quarter valued at about $7,963,000. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. acquired a new position in shares of Berkshire Hills Bancorp during the second quarter valued at about $6,330,000. Hsbc Holdings PLC grew its holdings in shares of Berkshire Hills Bancorp by 272.6% during the fourth quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 83,050 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $2,074,000 after buying an additional 60,762 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP grew its holdings in shares of Berkshire Hills Bancorp by 3.2% during the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,426,599 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $35,422,000 after buying an additional 43,822 shares during the last quarter. 83.07% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Berkshire Hills Bancorp

Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc operates as the bank holding company for Berkshire Bank that provides various banking products and services in the United States. The company provides various deposit accounts, including demand deposit, interest-bearing checking, regular savings, money market savings, time certificates of deposit, and retirement deposit accounts.