Peoples Bancorp (NASDAQ:PEBO) Rating Lowered to Sell at StockNews.com

Peoples Bancorp (NASDAQ:PEBO) was downgraded by equities researchers at StockNews.com from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report issued on Friday.

PEBO has been the subject of several other reports. Hovde Group initiated coverage on Peoples Bancorp in a research report on Monday, April 1st. They issued a “market perform” rating and a $31.00 target price for the company. Piper Sandler assumed coverage on Peoples Bancorp in a research report on Friday, February 23rd. They set an “overweight” rating and a $34.00 price objective for the company.

Peoples Bancorp Trading Up 3.4 %

Peoples Bancorp stock traded up $0.95 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $28.49. The stock had a trading volume of 153,880 shares, compared to its average volume of 125,193. The company has a quick ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21. The stock has a market cap of $1.01 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.23 and a beta of 0.76. Peoples Bancorp has a one year low of $23.05 and a one year high of $34.85. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $28.23 and its 200-day simple moving average is $29.22.

Peoples Bancorp (NASDAQ:PEBO) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, January 23rd. The bank reported $1.04 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.94 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $112.92 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $115.00 million. Peoples Bancorp had a return on equity of 13.47% and a net margin of 21.52%. On average, equities analysts predict that Peoples Bancorp will post 3.39 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Peoples Bancorp

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in PEBO. BlackRock Inc. increased its holdings in Peoples Bancorp by 18.3% in the second quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 2,691,943 shares of the bank’s stock worth $71,471,000 after purchasing an additional 416,748 shares in the last quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. increased its holdings in Peoples Bancorp by 56.9% in the second quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 1,031,164 shares of the bank’s stock worth $27,377,000 after purchasing an additional 374,144 shares in the last quarter. Brown Advisory Inc. increased its holdings in Peoples Bancorp by 160.6% in the fourth quarter. Brown Advisory Inc. now owns 552,649 shares of the bank’s stock worth $18,657,000 after purchasing an additional 340,566 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. increased its holdings in Peoples Bancorp by 13.3% in the fourth quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 1,815,196 shares of the bank’s stock worth $61,281,000 after purchasing an additional 213,264 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Peoples Bancorp by 8.8% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 1,886,085 shares of the bank’s stock worth $63,674,000 after purchasing an additional 152,659 shares in the last quarter. 60.68% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Peoples Bancorp

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.