United Community Financial Corp. (UCFC) Earning Somewhat Favorable Media Coverage, Report Finds

Media stories about United Community Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:UCFC) have been trending somewhat positive this week, Accern Sentiment reports. The research group scores the sentiment of news coverage by monitoring more than 20 million blog and news sources in real-time. Accern ranks coverage of public companies on a scale of negative one to one, with scores closest to one being the most favorable. United Community Financial Corp. earned a daily sentiment score of 0.17 on Accern’s scale. Accern also assigned press coverage about the savings and loans company an impact score of 46.0956991399475 out of 100, meaning that recent news coverage is somewhat unlikely to have an impact on the company’s share price in the near term.

Several research firms recently issued reports on UCFC. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reissued a “buy” rating and set a $11.00 price target on shares of United Community Financial Corp. in a report on Friday, July 21st. Zacks Investment Research raised shares of United Community Financial Corp. from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $10.00 target price for the company in a report on Saturday, July 22nd. Finally, Boenning Scattergood set a $10.00 target price on shares of United Community Financial Corp. and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 19th.

Shares of United Community Financial Corp. (NASDAQ UCFC) traded up 1.03% on Friday, reaching $8.86. 75,442 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged. The company has a market capitalization of $440.68 million, a P/E ratio of 21.30 and a beta of 0.57. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $8.89 and its 200-day moving average price is $8.56. United Community Financial Corp. has a 1-year low of $6.41 and a 1-year high of $9.50.

United Community Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:UCFC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 20th. The savings and loans company reported $0.16 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.14 by $0.02. United Community Financial Corp. had a net margin of 18.95% and a return on equity of 8.90%. The company had revenue of $27.58 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $26.20 million. Analysts anticipate that United Community Financial Corp. will post $0.57 EPS for the current fiscal year.

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 11th. Shareholders of record on Friday, July 28th were given a dividend of $0.04 per share. This represents a $0.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.81%. This is an increase from United Community Financial Corp.’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.03. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, July 26th. United Community Financial Corp.’s payout ratio is 39.02%.

In related news, CFO Timothy Esson sold 3,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $8.35, for a total value of $25,050.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 60,692 shares in the company, valued at approximately $506,778.20. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, General Counsel Jude J. Nohra sold 12,218 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $8.37, for a total transaction of $102,264.66. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now owns 80,867 shares in the company, valued at $676,856.79. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 17,718 shares of company stock worth $148,990 over the last quarter. Insiders own 3.56% of the company’s stock.

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About United Community Financial Corp.

United Community Financial Corp. is financial services holding company. The Company’s subsidiaries include The Home Savings and Loan Company of Youngstown, Ohio (Home Savings or the Bank), HSB Insurance, LLC and HSB Capital, LLC. The principal business of Home Savings is the origination of mortgage loans, including construction loans, on residential and nonresidential real estate located in Home Savings’ primary market area.