SouthState (NASDAQ:SSB) Cut to “Market Perform” at Hovde Group

Hovde Group lowered shares of SouthState (NASDAQ:SSB) from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a research note released on Wednesday, MarketBeat Ratings reports.

A number of other research analysts also recently weighed in on SSB. Truist Financial cut their price target on shares of SouthState from $111.00 to $103.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, October 28th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods restated an “outperform” rating and set a $120.00 target price (up from $115.00) on shares of SouthState in a report on Thursday, November 7th. Citigroup assumed coverage on SouthState in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $102.00 price target for the company. Stephens raised their price objective on SouthState from $101.00 to $105.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Piper Sandler upped their target price on SouthState from $110.00 to $112.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, October 25th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $105.11.

SouthState Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ SSB opened at $105.98 on Wednesday. SouthState has a one year low of $70.68 and a one year high of $113.14. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $98.93 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $88.87. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a current ratio of 0.92 and a quick ratio of 0.91. The company has a market capitalization of $8.09 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.35 and a beta of 0.66.

SouthState (NASDAQ:SSB) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 23rd. The bank reported $1.90 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.64 by $0.26. The business had revenue of $426.41 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $429.47 million. SouthState had a return on equity of 9.41% and a net margin of 21.24%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down .4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.62 EPS. Analysts anticipate that SouthState will post 6.92 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

SouthState Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 8th were paid a $0.54 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, November 8th. This represents a $2.16 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.04%. SouthState’s payout ratio is 33.33%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Daniel E. Bockhorst sold 2,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $100.00, for a total value of $250,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 33,328 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,332,800. This represents a 6.98 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CFO William E. V. Matthews sold 5,000 shares of SouthState stock in a transaction on Friday, September 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $100.00, for a total transaction of $500,000.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 36,964 shares in the company, valued at $3,696,400. This represents a 11.91 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 1.26% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On SouthState

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in SSB. Waldron Private Wealth LLC bought a new stake in SouthState in the third quarter valued at about $35,000. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its holdings in SouthState by 120.7% during the second quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 609 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $47,000 after purchasing an additional 333 shares in the last quarter. UMB Bank n.a. grew its stake in shares of SouthState by 53.9% in the 3rd quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 548 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $53,000 after purchasing an additional 192 shares during the period. Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. acquired a new position in shares of SouthState in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $97,000. Finally, Innealta Capital LLC bought a new position in shares of SouthState during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $133,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.76% of the company’s stock.

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.