Sierra Bancorp (NASDAQ:BSRR) Director Sells $81,889.60 in Stock

Sierra Bancorp (NASDAQ:BSRR) Director Albert L. Berra sold 2,540 shares of Sierra Bancorp stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $32.24, for a total transaction of $81,889.60. Following the sale, the director now owns 150,063 shares in the company, valued at $4,838,031.12. This represents a 1.66 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website.

Sierra Bancorp Trading Down 2.0 %

Shares of Sierra Bancorp stock opened at $31.52 on Friday. Sierra Bancorp has a 1 year low of $17.69 and a 1 year high of $35.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 0.79. The company has a market capitalization of $453.57 million, a P/E ratio of 12.51 and a beta of 0.89. The company’s fifty day moving average is $29.29 and its two-hundred day moving average is $26.01.

Sierra Bancorp (NASDAQ:BSRR) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 21st. The financial services provider reported $0.74 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.73 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $52.59 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $38.30 million. Sierra Bancorp had a net margin of 17.91% and a return on equity of 10.48%. Analysts forecast that Sierra Bancorp will post 2.79 earnings per share for the current year.

Sierra Bancorp Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, November 12th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 31st were issued a $0.24 dividend. This represents a $0.96 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.05%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 31st. Sierra Bancorp’s payout ratio is 38.10%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

BSRR has been the topic of several research analyst reports. StockNews.com lowered shares of Sierra Bancorp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, November 8th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their price objective on shares of Sierra Bancorp from $23.00 to $29.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 23rd.

Institutional Trading of Sierra Bancorp

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in BSRR. Lazard Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in Sierra Bancorp by 45.7% during the first quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 3,051 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $61,000 after buying an additional 957 shares in the last quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. boosted its holdings in Sierra Bancorp by 8.2% during the second quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. now owns 11,957 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $268,000 after buying an additional 904 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Sierra Bancorp by 0.9% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 680,053 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $13,737,000 after buying an additional 5,830 shares in the last quarter. Empowered Funds LLC boosted its holdings in Sierra Bancorp by 8.0% during the first quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 66,202 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,337,000 after buying an additional 4,900 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Assenagon Asset Management S.A. boosted its holdings in Sierra Bancorp by 24.0% during the third quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 74,000 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $2,137,000 after buying an additional 14,335 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 55.40% of the company’s stock.

About Sierra Bancorp

Sierra Bancorp operates as the bank holding company for Bank of the Sierra that provides retail and commercial banking services to individuals and businesses in California. It accepts various deposit products, such as checking accounts, savings accounts, money market demand accounts, time deposits, retirement accounts, and sweep accounts.