Veritex Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:VBTX) Given Consensus Rating of “Moderate Buy” by Brokerages

Shares of Veritex Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:VBTX) have earned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the five research firms that are covering the firm, Marketbeat.com reports. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, two have assigned a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year price target among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $29.40.

VBTX has been the topic of several analyst reports. DA Davidson lifted their price objective on Veritex from $30.00 to $33.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 24th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods downgraded shares of Veritex from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 24th. Piper Sandler increased their price target on shares of Veritex from $27.00 to $30.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 24th. Raymond James upgraded Veritex from a “market perform” rating to a “strong-buy” rating and set a $30.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, September 17th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Veritex from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th.

Veritex Price Performance

Shares of VBTX stock opened at $30.41 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $27.69 and a 200-day simple moving average of $24.22. The company has a market capitalization of $1.66 billion, a PE ratio of 19.49 and a beta of 1.36. Veritex has a twelve month low of $18.08 and a twelve month high of $31.62. The company has a current ratio of 0.95, a quick ratio of 0.95 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14.

Veritex (NASDAQ:VBTX) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 22nd. The financial services provider reported $0.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.55 by $0.04. Veritex had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 7.79%. The company had revenue of $113.17 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $110.22 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.60 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.8% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts anticipate that Veritex will post 2.17 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Veritex Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, November 8th were issued a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.63%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, November 8th. Veritex’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 51.28%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director John Sughrue sold 16,820 shares of Veritex stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $30.25, for a total transaction of $508,805.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 62,643 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,894,950.75. The trade was a 21.17 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO C Malcolm Holland III sold 12,777 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $27.69, for a total value of $353,795.13. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 224,132 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,206,215.08. This represents a 5.39 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 4.60% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of VBTX. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in Veritex by 0.6% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,795,336 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $77,766,000 after purchasing an additional 23,222 shares in the last quarter. Cornercap Investment Counsel Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Veritex in the 2nd quarter worth $566,000. Renaissance Technologies LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Veritex in the second quarter valued at $730,000. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Veritex by 66.5% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 424,106 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $8,944,000 after buying an additional 169,448 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Raymond James & Associates acquired a new position in Veritex during the third quarter worth about $3,971,000. Institutional investors own 88.31% of the company’s stock.

About Veritex

Veritex Holdings, Inc operates as the bank holding company for Veritex Community Bank that provides various commercial banking products and services to small and medium-sized businesses, and professionals. The company accepts deposit products include demand, savings, money market, and time accounts. Its loan products include commercial real estate and general commercial, mortgage warehouse loans, residential real estate, construction and land, farmland, paycheck protection program, 1-4 family residential, agricultural, multi-family residential, and consumer loans, as well as purchased receivables financing.