Columbia Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLBK) Short Interest Up 6.5% in March

Columbia Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLBK) saw a large increase in short interest in the month of March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 2,770,000 shares, an increase of 6.5% from the March 15th total of 2,600,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 70,700 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 39.2 days. Currently, 10.3% of the company’s shares are short sold.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, Piper Sandler restated a “neutral” rating and set a $19.00 price objective on shares of Columbia Financial in a report on Tuesday, March 26th.

Institutional Trading of Columbia Financial

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Columbia Financial by 0.3% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,630,379 shares of the company’s stock worth $78,090,000 after buying an additional 10,519 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. increased its holdings in Columbia Financial by 2.2% during the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 2,779,807 shares of the company’s stock worth $50,815,000 after buying an additional 60,316 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its holdings in Columbia Financial by 3.5% during the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,683,066 shares of the company’s stock worth $32,452,000 after buying an additional 56,155 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its holdings in Columbia Financial by 0.9% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,073,570 shares of the company’s stock worth $18,562,000 after buying an additional 9,448 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Columbia Financial by 4.4% in the first quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 754,902 shares of the company’s stock valued at $13,800,000 after purchasing an additional 31,722 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 12.72% of the company’s stock.

Columbia Financial Stock Up 0.3 %

CLBK traded up $0.05 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $16.06. The company had a trading volume of 13,653 shares, compared to its average volume of 71,091. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.03 and a quick ratio of 1.03. Columbia Financial has a 12 month low of $14.11 and a 12 month high of $20.46. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $16.65 and its 200 day moving average price is $17.26. The company has a market cap of $1.69 billion, a P/E ratio of 45.74 and a beta of 0.21.

Columbia Financial (NASDAQ:CLBK) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The company reported $0.09 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.07 by $0.02. Columbia Financial had a net margin of 8.54% and a return on equity of 4.94%. The firm had revenue of $56.59 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $54.90 million. Equities analysts anticipate that Columbia Financial will post 0.22 EPS for the current year.

About Columbia Financial

Columbia Financial, Inc, a bank holding company, provides various financial services to businesses and consumers in the United States. Its deposit products include checking, interest-earning checking products and municipal, savings and club deposits, and money market accounts, as well as certificates of deposit.