Dime Community Bancshares, Inc. Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.25 (NASDAQ:DCOM)

Dime Community Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:DCOM) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, December 17th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, January 17th will be given a dividend of 0.25 per share by the savings and loans company on Friday, January 24th. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.94%.

Dime Community Bancshares has increased its dividend payment by an average of 1.0% annually over the last three years. Dime Community Bancshares has a dividend payout ratio of 36.1% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research 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 Performance

DCOM stock traded down $0.84 during trading hours on Tuesday, hitting $33.96. 232,858 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 237,121. Dime Community Bancshares has a 12 month low of $17.29 and a 12 month high of $37.60. The company has a current ratio of 1.01, a quick ratio of 1.01 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.29 and a beta of 1.03. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $32.88 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $26.57.

Dime Community Bancshares (NASDAQ:DCOM) last released its quarterly earnings results 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). 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 period in the prior year, the business posted $0.56 earnings per share. On average, analysts forecast that Dime Community Bancshares will post 1.49 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

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

Insider Transactions at Dime Community Bancshares

In other news, Director Basswood Capital Management, L purchased 29,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 12th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $32.00 per share, with a total value 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 position. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CTO Michael Fegan sold 2,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $35.76, for a total value of $71,520.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief technology officer now directly owns 20,155 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $720,742.80. This represents a 9.03 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 9.10% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.