Peoples Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:PEBO)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 11
Peoples Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:PEBO) is an Ohio-based banking company with a dividend yield of about 5.25%. The stock recently saw insider buying activity earlier this month when Dwight Eric Smith, a director at Peoples Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:PEBO), piled into 4,306 shares at a price of $30.00 per share. The net worth of this transaction was $15,001. The transaction took place on May 8. Since this transaction the stock has gained about 0.9%.
Peoples Bancorp made headlines last month when the company increased its quarterly dividend by 2.6%. Forward dividend yield came in at 5.6%. The new dividend is payable May 20. This was the ninth consecutive year of the company’s quarterly dividend increase.
Peoples Bancorp management talked about its guidance during Q1 earnings call last month:
“We expect our quarterly net interest margin to be between 4.1% and 4.3% assuming that there are no significant short-term interest rate changes in 2024.
We believe our fee-based income growth will be between 6% and 8% compared to 2023. We expect quarterly total noninterest expenses to be between $67 million and $69 million for the second, third and fourth quarters of 2024. We believe our loan growth for 2024 will be between 6% and 8% compared to 2023. As we noted last quarter, we anticipate an increase in our provision for credit losses with the anticipated loan growth and return of some of our net charge-offs to pre-pandemic levels. As we move through the year, we are anticipating a full year net charge-off rate of around 20 basis points. Our first quarter earnings continue to beat expectations and our diluted EPS of $0.84 exceeded the consensus analyst estimate of $0.80 for the quarter.”
A total of 11 hedge funds out of the 933 funds tracked by Insider Monkey had stakes in Peoples Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:PEBO) as of the end of 2023. The most notable stake in Peoples Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:PEBO) is owned by Fred Cummings’ Elizabeth Park Capital Management, worth about $3.7 million.
Despite this positive sentiment, the stock begs the question: is it the best financial dividend stock insiders are buying in 2024? Does it make sense for individual investors to buy Peoples Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:PEBO) right now?
Peoples Bancorp ranks 3rd on our list of the 10 Best Financial Dividend Stocks Insiders are Buying in 2024. Click to see the 2 Financial Dividend Stocks Better Than Peoples Bancorp.
Disclosure: None