OceanFirst Financial’s Q4 Earnings & Sales Beat Estimates
OceanFirst Financial (OCFC), reported quarterly earnings at $0.67 per share. This beats the Zacks Consensus Estimate for $0.63 per shares. This compares with earnings of $0.48 a year ago. These figures include non-recurring expenses.
This quarter’s earnings surprise is 6.35%. This quarter, OceanFirst Bank was expecting earnings of $0.56 per shares. Instead, earnings of $0.60 were achieved, surprising 7.14%.
In the last four quarters, consensus EPS estimates were surpassed four times by the company.
OceanFirst, which belongs the Zacks Financial Savings and Loan sector, saw revenues of $134.04 millions for the quarter ended December 2022. This is 21.03% higher than the Zacks Consensus Estimate. This compares with the $90million revenues from the previous year. In the last four quarters, consensus revenue estimates have been exceeded twice by the company.
Based on the most recent numbers, the sustainability of the stock’s price movement and future earnings expectations will largely depend on management’s comments on the earnings call.
OceanFirst shares have lost about 1.1% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500’s gain of 2.3%.
What’s next for OceanFirst?
OceanFirst has not performed as well as the market in the first quarter of this year. However, investors are left wondering: What is the future for the stock.
While there are no simple answers to this crucial question, investors can look at the earnings outlook of the company. This includes the current consensus earnings outlook for the upcoming quarter(s), and how they have changed recently.
Empirical research shows strong correlations between stock movements in the near-term and trends in earnings estimates revisions. Investors can track such revisions themselves, or rely on a trusted rating tool like Zacks Rank. It has a long track record of harnessing earnings estimate revisions’ power.
OceanFirst’s estimate revisions are unfavorable ahead of the earnings release. Although the company’s latest earnings report could have an impact on the direction and magnitude estimates, the stock currently has a Zacks #4 (Sell). The shares will likely underperform in the near future. The complete Zacks #1 Rank (Strong buy) stock list can be found here.
It will be interesting, in the coming days, to see how the forecasts for the future quarters and fiscal year evolve. Current consensus EPS estimates for the coming quarter are $0.61 on revenue of $111.63 million and $2.59 at revenue of $461.4 millions for the current fiscal.
Investors need not forget that the outlook of the industry can have an impact on the stock’s performance. According to the Zacks Industry Rank Financial – Savings and Loan currently ranks in the bottom 20% among the 250+ Zacks industries. Our research has shown that the top 50 percent of Zacks-ranked businesses outperforms the bottom half by more than two to 1.
Citizens Community Bancorp, Inc. (CZWI), another stock in the same sector, has not yet reported results for the quarter ended Dec 2022.
The company expects to report quarterly earnings of $0.40 per shares in its next report. This is a -31% increase year-over-year. Over the past 30 days, the consensus EPS estimate has remained the same.
Citizens Community Bancorp, Inc. is expected to make $16.6 million, a decrease of 11.7% over the previous quarter.
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OceanFirst Financial Corp. (OCFC) : Free Stock Analysis Report
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