Headlines about Westamerica Bancorporation (NASDAQ:WABC) have trended somewhat positive this week, according to Accern Sentiment Analysis. The research group ranks the sentiment of media coverage by monitoring more than twenty million news and blog sources. Accern ranks coverage of companies on a scale of negative one to positive one, with scores closest to one being the most favorable. Westamerica Bancorporation earned a news impact score of 0.13 on Accern’s scale. Accern also assigned news headlines about the financial services provider an impact score of 46.4215049651134 out of 100, meaning that recent media coverage is somewhat unlikely to have an effect on the company’s share price in the near future.
Separately, BidaskClub upgraded Westamerica Bancorporation from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, June 10th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company. The company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $56.00.
Westamerica Bancorporation (NASDAQ:WABC) traded down 0.089% during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $50.755. The company had a trading volume of 14,290 shares. Westamerica Bancorporation has a 52 week low of $47.31 and a 52 week high of $65.34. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $53.75 and its 200 day moving average is $54.93. The company has a market capitalization of $1.34 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.783 and a beta of 1.06.
Westamerica Bancorporation (NASDAQ:WABC) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 20th. The financial services provider reported $0.60 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.56 by $0.04. Westamerica Bancorporation had a net margin of 35.26% and a return on equity of 10.74%. The company had revenue of $47.90 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $46.70 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.57 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was down .6% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts predict that Westamerica Bancorporation will post $2.32 EPS for the current year.
Westamerica Bancorporation announced that its board has approved a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, July 27th that allows the company to repurchase 1,750,000 outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the financial services provider to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are usually an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.
The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 18th. Shareholders of record on Monday, August 7th were issued a $0.39 dividend. This represents a $1.56 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.07%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 3rd. Westamerica Bancorporation’s payout ratio is 66.67%.
In other news, Director Edward B. Sylvester sold 1,260 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $54.40, for a total transaction of $68,544.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 72,490 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,943,456. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. 4.90% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.
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Westamerica Bancorporation Company Profile
Westamerica Bancorporation is a bank holding company. The Company provides a range of banking services to individual and corporate customers in Northern and Central California through its subsidiary bank, Westamerica Bank. The communities served are located in Northern and Central California, from Mendocino, Lake and Nevada Counties in the north to Kern County in the south.
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