SouthState Co. (NASDAQ:SSB) Shares Sold by Swiss National Bank

Swiss National Bank reduced its position in shares of SouthState Co. (NASDAQ:SSB) by 0.9% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 148,837 shares of the bank’s stock after selling 1,300 shares during the period. Swiss National Bank owned about 0.20% of SouthState worth $14,464,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in SSB. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its position in shares of SouthState by 12.6% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 3,328,984 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $254,394,000 after acquiring an additional 371,987 shares in the last quarter. F M Investments LLC bought a new position in SouthState during the 2nd quarter worth $7,303,000. Stieven Capital Advisors L.P. bought a new position in SouthState during the 3rd quarter worth $9,086,000. Renaissance Technologies LLC bought a new position in SouthState during the 2nd quarter worth $4,829,000. Finally, Victory Capital Management Inc. grew its stake in SouthState by 1.6% during the 2nd quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 2,802,373 shares of the bank’s stock worth $214,157,000 after buying an additional 45,176 shares during the last quarter. 89.76% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity at SouthState

In other news, CFO William E. V. Matthews sold 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, September 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $100.00, for a total transaction of $500,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 36,964 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,696,400. This represents a 11.91 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Daniel E. Bockhorst sold 2,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $100.00, for a total value of $250,000.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 33,328 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,332,800. This represents a 6.98 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 1.26% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently commented on SSB. Truist Financial lowered their price objective on SouthState from $111.00 to $103.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, October 28th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods restated an “outperform” rating and set a $120.00 price objective (up from $115.00) on shares of SouthState in a research note on Thursday, November 7th. Stephens upped their price objective on SouthState from $101.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. DA Davidson upped their price objective on SouthState from $102.00 to $112.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, July 26th. Finally, Piper Sandler increased their price target on SouthState from $110.00 to $112.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, October 25th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, SouthState has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $105.11.

SouthState Trading Up 2.1 %

Shares of SSB stock opened at $109.08 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $99.96 and a 200 day simple moving average of $89.65. SouthState Co. has a fifty-two week low of $70.68 and a fifty-two week high of $113.14. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.83 and a beta of 0.66. The company has a quick ratio of 0.91, a current ratio of 0.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10.

SouthState (NASDAQ:SSB) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, October 23rd. The bank reported $1.90 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.64 by $0.26. SouthState had a return on equity of 9.41% and a net margin of 21.24%. The business had revenue of $426.41 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $429.47 million. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $1.62 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was down .4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts expect that SouthState Co. will post 6.94 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

SouthState Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Friday, November 8th were paid a dividend of $0.54 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, November 8th. This represents a $2.16 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.98%. SouthState’s dividend payout ratio is currently 33.33%.

About SouthState

SouthState Corporation operates as the bank holding company for SouthState Bank, National Association that provides a range of banking services and products to individuals and companies. It offers checking accounts, savings deposits, interest-bearing transaction accounts, certificates of deposits, money market accounts, and other time deposits, as well as bond accounting, asset/liability consulting related activities, and other clearing and corporate checking account services.