Cathay General Bancorp (NASDAQ:CATY) Hits New 12-Month High – Should You Buy?

Cathay General Bancorp (NASDAQ:CATY) shares reached a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Friday . The company traded as high as $58.63 and last traded at $58.4550, with a volume of 64696 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $58.18.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts recently issued reports on the company. Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on Cathay General Bancorp from $45.00 to $47.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Monday, April 27th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their price objective on Cathay General Bancorp from $55.00 to $58.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 23rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, three have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $51.75.

Cathay General Bancorp Trading Up 0.1%

The stock has a market cap of $3.90 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.00 and a beta of 0.86. The company has a quick ratio of 1.03, a current ratio of 1.03 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. The business has a 50-day moving average of $54.86 and a 200-day moving average of $51.76.

Cathay General Bancorp (NASDAQ:CATY) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 22nd. The bank reported $1.29 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.19 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $213.20 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $211.27 million. Cathay General Bancorp had a return on equity of 11.37% and a net margin of 23.79%.The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 14.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.98 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that Cathay General Bancorp will post 5.4 earnings per share for the current year.

Cathay General Bancorp Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, June 9th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 28th will be given a dividend of $0.38 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 28th. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.6%. Cathay General Bancorp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 31.34%.

Cathay General Bancorp announced that its board has initiated a share repurchase plan on Thursday, April 23rd that permits the company to buyback $150,000.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the bank to reacquire up to 4,164,630.6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cathay General Bancorp

In other Cathay General Bancorp news, Vice Chairman Peter Wu sold 20,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $57.33, for a total transaction of $1,146,600.00. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 275,252 shares in the company, valued at $15,780,197.16. This trade represents a 6.77% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, SVP May K. Chan sold 558 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, April 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $56.00, for a total value of $31,248.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president owned 2,693 shares in the company, valued at approximately $150,808. This trade represents a 17.16% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 25,394 shares of company stock worth $1,421,341 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 4.53% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Cathay General Bancorp

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its holdings in Cathay General Bancorp by 0.4% during the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 4,050,007 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $201,930,000 after buying an additional 17,444 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. raised its holdings in Cathay General Bancorp by 6.7% during the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,685,203 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $81,547,000 after buying an additional 105,484 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in Cathay General Bancorp during the fourth quarter valued at about $41,140,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp raised its holdings in Cathay General Bancorp by 7.7% during the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 669,527 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $32,398,000 after buying an additional 48,034 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its holdings in Cathay General Bancorp by 13.3% during the fourth quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 580,038 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $28,068,000 after buying an additional 67,898 shares in the last quarter. 75.01% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Cathay General Bancorp

Cathay General Bancorp is a bank holding company headquartered in Los Angeles, California, trading on NASDAQ under the symbol CATY. Its principal subsidiary, Cathay Bank, provides a full suite of financial services to commercial, institutional and retail clients. As a community-focused institution, the company emphasizes relationship banking and tailored solutions for businesses and individuals.

Founded in 1962 by a group of Chinese American entrepreneurs, Cathay has expanded from a single branch operation in downtown Los Angeles into one of the largest Asian-American banks in the United States.