Eastern Bankshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBC) Receives Average Rating of “Hold” from Brokerages

Eastern Bankshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBC) has been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the three ratings firms that are currently covering the stock, Marketbeat.com reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 12 month price objective among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $15.25.

Separately, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Eastern Bankshares in a research note on Friday, January 26th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Eastern Bankshares news, Director Luis Borgen sold 40,288 shares of Eastern Bankshares stock in a transaction on Monday, March 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $13.08, for a total transaction of $526,967.04. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 42,040 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $549,883.20. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Company insiders own 1.15% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Eastern Bankshares

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in EBC. FMR LLC lifted its position in Eastern Bankshares by 24.9% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 9,926,166 shares of the company’s stock valued at $124,474,000 after acquiring an additional 1,979,113 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Eastern Bankshares in the 4th quarter valued at $24,543,000. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company lifted its position in Eastern Bankshares by 1,965.8% during the 4th quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 1,622,734 shares of the company’s stock worth $23,043,000 after buying an additional 1,544,181 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in Eastern Bankshares by 20.1% during the 4th quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 3,794,640 shares of the company’s stock worth $53,885,000 after buying an additional 634,133 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in Eastern Bankshares by 19.3% during the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 3,464,674 shares of the company’s stock worth $49,198,000 after buying an additional 559,754 shares in the last quarter. 71.68% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Eastern Bankshares Trading Up 0.4 %

Eastern Bankshares stock opened at $13.13 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01, a current ratio of 0.82 and a quick ratio of 0.82. The company has a market capitalization of $2.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.31 and a beta of 0.85. Eastern Bankshares has a one year low of $9.93 and a one year high of $15.07. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $13.14 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $13.07.

Eastern Bankshares (NASDAQ:EBC) last released its earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The company reported $0.10 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.21 by ($0.11). The company had revenue of $160.05 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $153.53 million. On average, analysts forecast that Eastern Bankshares will post 1.18 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About Eastern Bankshares

Eastern Bankshares, Inc operates as the bank holding company for Eastern Bank that provides banking products and services primarily to retail, commercial, and small business customers. The company provides deposit accounts, interest checking accounts, money market accounts, savings accounts, and time certificates of deposit accounts.