Dime Community Bancshares, Inc. (DCOM) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.25 on January 24th

Dime Community Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:DCOM) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, December 17th,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 17th will be paid a dividend of 0.25 per share by the savings and loans company on Friday, January 24th. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.20%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 17th.

Dime Community Bancshares has raised its dividend by an average of 1.4% per year over the last three years. Dime Community Bancshares has a payout ratio of 25.4% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Dime Community Bancshares to earn $2.78 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.00 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 36.0%.

Dime Community Bancshares Stock Up 4.5 %

Shares of DCOM opened at $31.25 on Wednesday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $33.37 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $28.43. The company has a market cap of $1.22 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.83 and a beta of 1.05. Dime Community Bancshares has a one year low of $17.29 and a one year high of $37.60. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68, a current ratio of 1.01 and a quick ratio of 1.01.

Dime Community Bancshares (NASDAQ:DCOM) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 22nd. The savings and loans company reported $0.29 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.41 by ($0.12). Dime Community Bancshares had a return on equity of 5.58% and a net margin of 9.65%. The business had revenue of $171.87 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $86.65 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.56 earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that Dime Community Bancshares will post 1.49 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on DCOM. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Dime Community Bancshares from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Saturday, September 21st. Raymond James boosted their target price on shares of Dime Community Bancshares from $35.00 to $36.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their price target on Dime Community Bancshares from $38.00 to $42.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 4th. Finally, Stephens upgraded Dime Community Bancshares from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $30.00 to $39.00 in a research report on Monday, November 18th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has assigned a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Dime Community Bancshares has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $34.20.

Insider Activity

In other news, CTO Michael Fegan sold 2,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $35.76, for a total transaction of $71,520.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief technology officer now directly owns 20,155 shares in the company, valued at $720,742.80. This trade represents a 9.03 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Basswood Capital Management, L acquired 29,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 12th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $32.00 per share, for a total transaction of $928,000.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now owns 1,044,221 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $33,415,072. This trade represents a 2.86 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Insiders own 9.10% of the company’s stock.

Dime Community Bancshares Company Profile

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.