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

OceanFirst Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:OCFC - Get Free Report) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, October 17th, Zacks reports. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 4th will be given a dividend of 0.20 per share by the savings and loans company on Friday, November 15th. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.19%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, November 4th.

OceanFirst Financial has increased its dividend payment by an average of 5.6% per year over the last three years. OceanFirst Financial has a dividend payout ratio of 47.6% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect OceanFirst Financial to earn $1.67 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 47.9%.

OceanFirst Financial Stock Performance

OCFC traded down $0.36 on Friday, reaching $19.10. The company had a trading volume of 290,075 shares, compared to its average volume of 303,186. The company's fifty day moving average is $17.61 and its 200 day moving average is $16.35. The stock has a market cap of $1.12 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.17 and a beta of 1.01. OceanFirst Financial has a fifty-two week low of $12.01 and a fifty-two week high of $19.49. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 1.01 and a current ratio of 1.01.

OceanFirst Financial (NASDAQ:OCFC - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 18th. The savings and loans company reported $0.39 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of $0.42 by ($0.03). OceanFirst Financial had a net margin of 14.78% and a return on equity of 5.85%. The firm had revenue of $170.41 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $94.93 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.46 earnings per share. As a group, analysts predict that OceanFirst Financial will post 1.58 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Hovde Group upped their price objective on shares of OceanFirst Financial from $19.50 to $21.50 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a report on Friday, September 20th. Piper Sandler set a $17.00 target price on shares of OceanFirst Financial and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research report on Friday. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $19.30.

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.