Analysts Set Dime Community Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:DCOM) Price Target at $29.50

Shares of Dime Community Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:DCOM) have earned an average recommendation of “Buy” from the five research firms that are presently covering the stock, Marketbeat reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. The average 1-year target price among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $31.40.

DCOM has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Raymond James lifted their target price on Dime Community Bancshares from $35.00 to $36.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. StockNews.com cut shares of Dime Community Bancshares from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Saturday, September 21st. Stephens upgraded shares of Dime Community Bancshares from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $30.00 to $39.00 in a report on Monday. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their price objective on Dime Community Bancshares from $25.50 to $28.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 25th.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Basswood Capital Management, L acquired 29,000 shares of Dime Community Bancshares stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 12th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $32.00 per share, with a total value of $928,000.00. Following the purchase, the director now directly owns 1,044,221 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $33,415,072. This trade represents a 2.86 % increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. 9.10% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Dime Community Bancshares

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Dime Community Bancshares by 0.8% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 2,479,855 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $47,762,000 after purchasing an additional 19,999 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its stake in shares of Dime Community Bancshares by 0.6% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,173,003 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock worth $44,328,000 after acquiring an additional 13,650 shares during the period. Systematic Financial Management LP lifted its holdings in shares of Dime Community Bancshares by 15.1% during the 3rd quarter. Systematic Financial Management LP now owns 1,090,834 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $31,416,000 after purchasing an additional 143,402 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Dime Community Bancshares by 1.2% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 860,009 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock worth $24,773,000 after acquiring an additional 9,978 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Boston Partners increased its holdings in shares of Dime Community Bancshares by 4.8% in the first quarter. Boston Partners now owns 693,457 shares of the savings and loans company’s stock valued at $13,334,000 after purchasing an additional 31,853 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.27% of the company’s stock.

Dime Community Bancshares Stock Down 0.3 %

Dime Community Bancshares stock opened at $34.69 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68, a quick ratio of 1.01 and a current ratio of 1.01. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $29.88 and a 200 day moving average price of $24.42. The company has a market capitalization of $1.36 billion, a PE ratio of 23.20 and a beta of 0.99. Dime Community Bancshares has a fifty-two week low of $17.29 and a fifty-two week high of $36.05.

Dime Community Bancshares (NASDAQ:DCOM) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 22nd. The savings and loans company reported $0.29 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.41 by ($0.12). The company had revenue of $171.87 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $86.65 million. Dime Community Bancshares had a net margin of 9.65% and a return on equity of 5.58%. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.56 EPS. Research analysts expect that Dime Community Bancshares will post 1.48 earnings per share for the current year.

Dime Community Bancshares Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 24th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 17th were paid a $0.25 dividend. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.88%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 17th. Dime Community Bancshares’s dividend payout ratio is currently 66.67%.

About Dime Community Bancshares

Dime Community Bancshares, Inc operates as the holding company for Dime Community Bank that engages in the provision of various commercial banking and financial services. The company accepts time, savings, and demand deposits from the businesses, consumers, and local municipalities. It also offers commercial real estate loans; multi-family mortgage loans; residential mortgage loans; letters of credit; secured and unsecured commercial and consumer loans; lines of credit; home equity loans; and construction and land loans.