Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors LLC Reduces Holdings in OceanFirst Financial Corp. $OCFC

Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors LLC trimmed its position in shares of OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC) by 3.1% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 64,873 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock after selling 2,042 shares during the quarter. Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors LLC owned approximately 0.11% of OceanFirst Financial worth $1,142,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. SG Americas Securities LLC purchased a new stake in shares of OceanFirst Financial during the first quarter worth approximately $632,000. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its position in shares of OceanFirst Financial by 3,306.1% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 14,578 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock worth $248,000 after purchasing an additional 14,150 shares in the last quarter. Strs Ohio purchased a new stake in OceanFirst Financial in the 1st quarter valued at $624,000. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in OceanFirst Financial by 1.8% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,516,177 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $59,810,000 after buying an additional 61,515 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Envestnet Asset Management Inc. grew its holdings in OceanFirst Financial by 61.6% in the 1st quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 31,441 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $535,000 after buying an additional 11,987 shares in the last quarter. 70.98% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have issued reports on OCFC. Zacks Research cut OceanFirst Financial from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a report on Monday, September 1st. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of OceanFirst Financial in a report on Saturday, September 27th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has issued a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $20.67.

OceanFirst Financial Stock Performance

NASDAQ OCFC opened at $18.13 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $1.04 billion, a PE ratio of 12.86 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. OceanFirst Financial Corp. has a twelve month low of $14.29 and a twelve month high of $21.87. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $17.67 and a 200-day simple moving average of $17.26.

OceanFirst Financial (NASDAQ:OCFC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 24th. The savings and loans company reported $0.31 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.33 by ($0.02). The business had revenue of $99.37 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $101.26 million. OceanFirst Financial had a return on equity of 5.22% and a net margin of 12.89%. Equities analysts anticipate that OceanFirst Financial Corp. will post 1.6 earnings per share for the current year.

OceanFirst Financial Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, August 4th were issued a dividend of $0.20 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, August 4th. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.4%. OceanFirst Financial’s dividend payout ratio is currently 56.74%.

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.