Americana Partners LLC Takes Position in Stellarone Corp $STEL

Americana Partners LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Stellarone Corp (NYSE:STEL) during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund purchased 19,763 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $611,000.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. ProShare Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Stellarone by 3.3% during the fourth quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 9,139 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $283,000 after buying an additional 289 shares during the period. Inscription Capital LLC grew its stake in Stellarone by 26.1% in the fourth quarter. Inscription Capital LLC now owns 29,752 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $921,000 after purchasing an additional 6,160 shares during the last quarter. UBS Group AG grew its stake in Stellarone by 2.2% in the fourth quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 172,890 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $5,349,000 after purchasing an additional 3,687 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Stellarone by 0.6% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,275,827 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $101,354,000 after purchasing an additional 18,749 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Segment Wealth Management LLC grew its stake in Stellarone by 3.9% in the fourth quarter. Segment Wealth Management LLC now owns 83,079 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $2,570,000 after purchasing an additional 3,111 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 54.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have issued reports on STEL. Raymond James Financial lowered Stellarone from a “moderate buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Weiss Ratings upgraded Stellarone from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a research note on Monday, April 27th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded Stellarone from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and lifted their target price for the company from $33.00 to $44.00 in a research note on Tuesday, February 3rd. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Stellarone presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $37.00.

Stellarone Price Performance

STEL opened at $37.42 on Monday. The business’s 50-day moving average is $36.89 and its two-hundred day moving average is $34.80. Stellarone Corp has a 1 year low of $26.08 and a 1 year high of $40.21. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.02, a current ratio of 0.89 and a quick ratio of 0.89. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.91 billion, a PE ratio of 18.25 and a beta of 0.72.

Stellarone (NYSE:STEL) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The financial services provider reported $0.58 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.50 by $0.08. Stellarone had a return on equity of 6.54% and a net margin of 17.56%.The business had revenue of $111.04 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $108.41 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.46 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 6.0% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts anticipate that Stellarone Corp will post 2.04 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Stellarone Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 26th. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 15th will be paid a dividend of $0.15 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, June 15th. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.6%. Stellarone’s payout ratio is presently 29.27%.

About Stellarone

StellarOne Corporation is a bank holding company of StellarOne Bank (the Bank). The Bank is an independent commercial bank holding company. It offers services provided by full-service banks, including individual and commercial demand and time deposit accounts, commercial and consumer loans, residential mortgages, credit card services and deposit services. The Bank, through its commercial banking segment, offers Internet banking access for banking services, mobile banking and online bill payment for both consumers and commercial customers.