Eastern Bankshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBC) Short Interest Down 12.3% in March

Eastern Bankshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBC) was the recipient of a large decline in short interest during the month of March. As of March 15th, there was short interest totalling 4,560,000 shares, a decline of 12.3% from the February 28th total of 5,200,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 1,140,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 4.0 days. Approximately 2.1% of the company’s shares are short sold.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods restated an “outperform” rating and set a $22.00 target price (up from $21.00) on shares of Eastern Bankshares in a research report on Monday, January 27th.

Eastern Bankshares Stock Performance

EBC traded down $1.33 during trading on Thursday, reaching $15.17. 212,567 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,035,513. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $17.45 and its 200-day moving average price is $17.37. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.23 billion, a PE ratio of 22.71 and a beta of 0.95. Eastern Bankshares has a fifty-two week low of $12.22 and a fifty-two week high of $19.40.

Eastern Bankshares (NASDAQ:EBC) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 23rd. The company reported $0.34 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.29 by $0.05. Eastern Bankshares had a return on equity of 6.02% and a net margin of 11.07%. Research analysts forecast that Eastern Bankshares will post 1.49 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Eastern Bankshares Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 3rd were paid a $0.12 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, March 3rd. This represents a $0.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.16%. Eastern Bankshares’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 71.64%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CFO R David Rosato purchased 10,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 11th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $15.40 per share, for a total transaction of $154,000.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the chief financial officer now directly owns 20,000 shares in the company, valued at approximately $308,000. The trade was a 100.00 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. 1.15% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. State Street Corp raised its holdings in Eastern Bankshares by 20.3% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 6,940,433 shares of the company’s stock worth $113,754,000 after purchasing an additional 1,170,276 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its position in shares of Eastern Bankshares by 5.8% in the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 1,591,712 shares of the company’s stock valued at $26,088,000 after buying an additional 86,810 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of Eastern Bankshares by 23.0% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,587,497 shares of the company’s stock valued at $75,203,000 after buying an additional 859,136 shares in the last quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC raised its stake in Eastern Bankshares by 57.5% during the 4th quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 59,206 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,021,000 after buying an additional 21,621 shares during the period. Finally, M&T Bank Corp bought a new position in Eastern Bankshares during the third quarter worth about $511,000. Institutional investors own 71.68% of the company’s stock.

Eastern Bankshares Company Profile

Eastern Bankshares, Inc operates as the bank holding company for Eastern Bank that provides banking products and services primarily to retail, commercial, and small business customers. The company provides deposit accounts, interest checking accounts, money market accounts, savings accounts, and time certificates of deposit accounts.