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

Key Points

• OceanFirst Financial Corp. announced a quarterly dividend of $0.20 per share, with a dividend yield of 4.1%, to be paid on November 14th to shareholders recorded by November 3rd.
• The company has a payout ratio of 41.7%, indicating strong earnings coverage for the dividend, with analysts predicting $2.05 earnings per share for next year.
• Recent analyst ratings show a mix of upgrades and downgrades, with an average price target of $21.80 and one analyst recommending a Strong Buy on the stock.

OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC - Get Free Report) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, October 23rd. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 3rd will be paid a dividend of 0.20 per share by the savings and loans company on Friday, November 14th. This represents a c) dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.1%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, November 3rd.

OceanFirst Financial has a payout ratio of 41.7% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect OceanFirst Financial to earn $2.05 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 39.0%.

OceanFirst Financial Stock Performance

Shares of OCFC opened at $19.33 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $1.11 billion, a PE ratio of 13.71 and a beta of 1.02. The company has a current ratio of 1.01, a quick ratio of 1.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $18.02 and a 200-day moving average price of $17.38. OceanFirst Financial has a 12-month low of $14.29 and a 12-month high of $21.87.

OceanFirst Financial (NASDAQ:OCFC - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, June 14th. The savings and loans company reported $0.49 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. The firm had revenue of $93.08 million during the quarter. OceanFirst Financial had a return on equity of 5.22% and a net margin of 12.89%. As a group, equities analysts forecast that OceanFirst Financial will post 1.6 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently weighed in on OCFC. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded OceanFirst Financial from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $20.00 to $22.00 in a research report on Friday, October 10th. DA Davidson upgraded OceanFirst Financial to a "hold" rating in a research report on Monday. Zacks Research downgraded OceanFirst Financial from a "hold" rating to a "strong sell" rating in a research report on Monday, September 1st. Finally, Weiss Ratings reiterated a "hold (c)" rating on shares of OceanFirst Financial in a research report on Wednesday, October 8th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have issued a Buy rating, three have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $21.80.

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.

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