Stephens Reaffirms Overweight Rating for SouthState (NASDAQ:SSB)

Stephens restated their overweight rating on shares of SouthState (NASDAQ:SSB) in a research note published on Friday,Benzinga reports. Stephens currently has a $130.00 price objective on the bank’s stock.

SSB has been the subject of a number of other reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $120.00 target price (up from $115.00) on shares of SouthState in a research note on Thursday, November 7th. Piper Sandler raised their price objective on shares of SouthState from $110.00 to $112.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, October 25th. Truist Financial dropped their price target on shares of SouthState from $111.00 to $103.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, October 28th. UBS Group began coverage on SouthState in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. They set a “buy” rating and a $132.00 price objective on the stock. Finally, Citigroup started coverage on SouthState in a report on Thursday, October 10th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $102.00 target price for the company. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, SouthState has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $112.56.

SouthState Price Performance

Shares of SouthState stock opened at $103.29 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $103.32 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $98.21. SouthState has a fifty-two week low of $70.68 and a fifty-two week high of $114.26. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a current ratio of 0.92 and a quick ratio of 0.91. The company has a market cap of $7.88 billion, a PE ratio of 14.33 and a beta of 0.70.

SouthState (NASDAQ:SSB) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 23rd. The bank reported $1.90 earnings per share (EPS) 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 firm had revenue of $426.41 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $429.47 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.62 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was down .4% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that SouthState will post 6.99 EPS for the current year.

SouthState Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Friday, February 7th will be issued a $0.54 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 7th. This represents a $2.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.09%. SouthState’s dividend payout ratio is 33.33%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On SouthState

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Waldron Private Wealth LLC bought a new stake in shares of SouthState during the third quarter valued at approximately $35,000. UMB Bank n.a. boosted its position in SouthState by 53.9% in the 3rd quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 548 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $53,000 after buying an additional 192 shares during the last quarter. Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. acquired a new stake in shares of SouthState in the 2nd quarter valued at $97,000. Blue Trust Inc. lifted its stake in shares of SouthState by 16.8% during the fourth quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,161 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $113,000 after acquiring an additional 167 shares during the period. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in SouthState by 9,620.0% in the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 1,458 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $142,000 after acquiring an additional 1,443 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.76% of the company’s stock.

SouthState Company Profile

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.