Stephens Reaffirms Equal Weight Rating for SouthState (NASDAQ:SSB)

Stephens reissued their equal weight rating on shares of SouthState (NASDAQ:SSB) in a report released on Thursday morning, Benzinga reports. Stephens currently has a $88.00 target price on the bank’s stock.

Several other analysts have also issued reports on the stock. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their target price on shares of SouthState from $92.00 to $95.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 28th. Raymond James raised shares of SouthState from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and set a $90.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Tuesday, May 21st. Piper Sandler raised their target price on SouthState from $95.00 to $98.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 29th. Finally, Truist Financial dropped their price target on SouthState from $84.00 to $81.00 and set a hold rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, July 8th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $93.43.

SouthState Trading Up 3.0 %

SSB opened at $100.18 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.63 billion, a PE ratio of 16.34 and a beta of 0.68. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.89. SouthState has a fifty-two week low of $63.36 and a fifty-two week high of $100.46. The company’s 50-day moving average is $78.87 and its 200 day moving average is $80.43.

SouthState (NASDAQ:SSB) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, July 24th. The bank reported $1.79 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.54 by $0.25. SouthState had a return on equity of 9.31% and a net margin of 20.84%. The company had revenue of $425.48 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $418.08 million. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.63 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts predict that SouthState will post 6.33 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

SouthState Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 16th. Stockholders of record on Friday, August 9th will be issued a $0.54 dividend. This is a positive change from SouthState’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.23. This represents a $2.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.16%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 9th. SouthState’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 33.93%.

Institutional Trading of SouthState

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. SageView Advisory Group LLC purchased a new position in SouthState during the 1st quarter valued at about $879,000. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company boosted its position in shares of SouthState by 2.0% in the fourth quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 720,801 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $60,872,000 after acquiring an additional 13,905 shares during the period. BNP Paribas Financial Markets grew its stake in SouthState by 82.5% during the first quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 42,345 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $3,601,000 after acquiring an additional 19,138 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in SouthState by 0.6% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 8,448,323 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $713,461,000 after acquiring an additional 54,147 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fifth Third Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new stake in SouthState during the 1st quarter worth approximately $2,754,000. 89.76% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

SouthState Company Profile

SouthState Corporation operates as the bank holding company for SouthState Bank, National Association that provides a range of banking services and products to individuals and companies. It offers checking accounts, savings deposits, interest-bearing transaction accounts, certificates of deposits, money market accounts, and other time deposits, as well as bond accounting, asset/liability consulting related activities, and other clearing and corporate checking account services.