State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D Sells 4,402 Shares of Peoples Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:PEBO)

State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D trimmed its holdings in shares of Peoples Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:PEBO) by 6.6% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 62,672 shares of the bank’s stock after selling 4,402 shares during the period. State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D’s holdings in Peoples Bancorp were worth $1,886,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Boston Partners bought a new stake in shares of Peoples Bancorp during the 1st quarter valued at $710,000. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Peoples Bancorp by 1.0% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 1,904,357 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $56,388,000 after purchasing an additional 18,272 shares during the last quarter. EMC Capital Management lifted its stake in Peoples Bancorp by 787.3% in the third quarter. EMC Capital Management now owns 57,485 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $1,730,000 after buying an additional 51,006 shares during the period. Hantz Financial Services Inc. bought a new position in Peoples Bancorp during the second quarter worth about $981,000. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of Peoples Bancorp by 158.5% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 57,631 shares of the bank’s stock worth $1,729,000 after buying an additional 35,333 shares during the period. 60.68% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Piper Sandler cut their price target on shares of Peoples Bancorp from $39.00 to $36.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Peoples Bancorp currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $33.50.

Insider Transactions at Peoples Bancorp

In other news, Director David F. Dierker sold 1,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $30.36, for a total transaction of $30,360.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 10,330 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $313,618.80. This represents a 8.83 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Matthew Edgell sold 3,000 shares of Peoples Bancorp stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, November 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $34.36, for a total value of $103,080.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 16,092 shares in the company, valued at approximately $552,921.12. This represents a 15.71 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 10,445 shares of company stock valued at $348,956 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 3.46% of the company’s stock.

Peoples Bancorp Stock Performance

PEBO stock opened at $35.00 on Tuesday. Peoples Bancorp Inc. has a 1-year low of $26.74 and a 1-year high of $36.19. The company has a current ratio of 0.83, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21. The firm has a market cap of $1.24 billion, a PE ratio of 9.97 and a beta of 0.74. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $31.35 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $30.68.

Peoples Bancorp (NASDAQ:PEBO) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 22nd. The bank reported $0.89 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.82 by $0.07. Peoples Bancorp had a return on equity of 11.84% and a net margin of 20.16%. The business had revenue of $158.41 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $112.30 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.06 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that Peoples Bancorp Inc. will post 3.31 earnings per share for the current year.

Peoples Bancorp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, November 18th. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 4th were issued a $0.40 dividend. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.57%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, November 4th. Peoples Bancorp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 45.58%.

Peoples Bancorp Profile

Peoples Bancorp Inc operates as the holding company for Peoples Bank that provides commercial and consumer banking products and services. The company accepts various deposit products, including demand deposit accounts, savings accounts, money market accounts, certificates of deposit, and governmental deposits; and provides commercial and industrial, commercial real estate, construction, finance, residential real estate, and consumer indirect and direct loans, as well as home equity lines of credit and overdrafts.