Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. Takes $216,000 Position in OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC)

Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC) in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 13,140 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock, valued at approximately $216,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of OCFC. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of OceanFirst Financial by 143.3% in the third quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 380,529 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $5,506,000 after purchasing an additional 224,146 shares in the last quarter. Alps Advisors Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of OceanFirst Financial by 33.0% in the third quarter. Alps Advisors Inc. now owns 20,178 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $292,000 after purchasing an additional 5,008 shares in the last quarter. GSA Capital Partners LLP purchased a new stake in shares of OceanFirst Financial in the third quarter valued at $1,015,000. American Century Companies Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of OceanFirst Financial by 17.3% in the third quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 517,771 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $7,492,000 after purchasing an additional 76,317 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of OceanFirst Financial by 1.8% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,295,098 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $47,680,000 after purchasing an additional 57,423 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 70.98% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

OCFC has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Raymond James reduced their target price on OceanFirst Financial from $22.00 to $20.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Monday, April 22nd. StockNews.com upgraded OceanFirst Financial from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, April 22nd. Stephens reiterated an “equal weight” rating and set a $20.00 price objective on shares of OceanFirst Financial in a report on Friday, April 19th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reiterated a “market perform” rating and set a $18.00 price objective (down from $19.00) on shares of OceanFirst Financial in a report on Friday, May 31st. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $18.00.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, EVP Brian Schaeffer sold 3,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.49, for a total value of $54,215.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 41,868 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $648,535.32. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Company insiders own 5.00% of the company’s stock.

OceanFirst Financial Trading Down 1.3 %

OceanFirst Financial stock opened at $15.54 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67, a current ratio of 1.00 and a quick ratio of 0.99. The company has a market capitalization of $912.35 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.09 and a beta of 1.03. OceanFirst Financial Corp. has a one year low of $12.01 and a one year high of $19.58. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $15.12 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $15.76.

OceanFirst Financial (NASDAQ:OCFC) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, April 18th. The savings and loans company reported $0.44 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.42 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $98.51 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $95.45 million. OceanFirst Financial had a net margin of 15.54% and a return on equity of 6.17%. On average, analysts forecast that OceanFirst Financial Corp. will post 1.69 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

OceanFirst Financial Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 17th. Shareholders of record on Monday, May 6th were given a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.15%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, May 3rd. OceanFirst Financial’s payout ratio is 46.78%.

OceanFirst Financial Company Profile

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.