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

OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, April 18th, Zacks reports. Stockholders 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 is Friday, May 3rd.

OceanFirst Financial has increased its dividend by an average of 5.6% per year over the last three years. OceanFirst Financial has a dividend payout ratio of 37.9% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. 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 Stock Performance

NASDAQ OCFC opened at $15.18 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.98, a current ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64. OceanFirst Financial has a 52-week low of $12.01 and a 52-week high of $19.58. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $15.34 and its 200 day moving average price is $15.37. The firm has a market cap of $903.67 million, a P/E ratio of 8.88 and a beta of 1.00.

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

Institutional Investors Weigh In On OceanFirst Financial

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

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