Soros Fund Management LLC Purchases New Stake in Valley National Bancorp (NASDAQ:VLY)

Soros Fund Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Valley National Bancorp (NASDAQ:VLY) in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 3,000,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $27,180,000.

Several other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. R Squared Ltd purchased a new stake in shares of Valley National Bancorp in the fourth quarter worth about $25,000. Optiver Holding B.V. lifted its holdings in shares of Valley National Bancorp by 80.9% in the fourth quarter. Optiver Holding B.V. now owns 5,079 shares of the company’s stock worth $46,000 after buying an additional 2,271 shares in the last quarter. CreativeOne Wealth LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Valley National Bancorp in the fourth quarter worth about $102,000. Sapient Capital LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Valley National Bancorp in the fourth quarter worth about $103,000. Finally, Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. lifted its holdings in shares of Valley National Bancorp by 9.5% in the fourth quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. now owns 11,527 shares of the company’s stock worth $104,000 after buying an additional 1,002 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 61.00% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

VLY has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. StockNews.com raised shares of Valley National Bancorp from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday. Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on shares of Valley National Bancorp from $11.00 to $12.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 24th. Barclays lowered their target price on shares of Valley National Bancorp from $11.00 to $10.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, April 8th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of Valley National Bancorp from $10.50 to $11.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 24th. Finally, Stephens reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $12.50 target price on shares of Valley National Bancorp in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $10.67.

Valley National Bancorp Stock Up 0.5 %

Shares of NASDAQ VLY opened at $8.63 on Tuesday. Valley National Bancorp has a one year low of $6.47 and a one year high of $11.10. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46, a current ratio of 0.98 and a quick ratio of 0.98. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $8.76 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $9.44. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.83 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.51 and a beta of 1.06.

Valley National Bancorp (NASDAQ:VLY) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The company reported $0.18 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.19 by ($0.01). Valley National Bancorp had a net margin of 10.62% and a return on equity of 5.14%. The business had revenue of $479.67 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $483.98 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.19 earnings per share. As a group, analysts expect that Valley National Bancorp will post 0.99 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Valley National Bancorp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, April 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 14th were given a dividend of $0.11 per share. This represents a $0.44 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.10%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, March 14th. Valley National Bancorp’s payout ratio is currently 63.77%.

Insider Transactions at Valley National Bancorp

In other Valley National Bancorp news, EVP Joseph Chillura sold 50,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $10.21, for a total transaction of $510,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 495,249 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,056,492.29. This represents a 9.17 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Company insiders own 1.43% of the company’s stock.

Valley National Bancorp Company Profile

Valley National Bancorp operates as the holding company for Valley National Bank that provides various commercial, private banking, retail, insurance, and wealth management financial services products. It operates through Consumer Banking, Commercial Banking, and Treasury and Corporate other segments.