Columbia Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLBK) Short Interest Update

Columbia Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLBK) saw a significant growth in short interest in the month of March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 2,770,000 shares, a growth of 6.5% from the March 15th total of 2,600,000 shares. Currently, 10.3% of the company’s shares are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 70,700 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 39.2 days.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in CLBK. Citigroup Inc. boosted its stake in Columbia Financial by 36.0% during the first quarter. Citigroup Inc. now owns 2,713 shares of the company’s stock worth $50,000 after acquiring an additional 718 shares in the last quarter. Ensign Peak Advisors Inc bought a new position in Columbia Financial during the third quarter worth $64,000. Dark Forest Capital Management LP bought a new position in Columbia Financial during the first quarter worth $65,000. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. boosted its stake in Columbia Financial by 17.2% during the fourth quarter. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. now owns 3,812 shares of the company’s stock worth $82,000 after acquiring an additional 559 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Tower Research Capital LLC TRC boosted its stake in Columbia Financial by 200.2% during the third quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 3,912 shares of the company’s stock worth $83,000 after acquiring an additional 2,609 shares in the last quarter. 12.72% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, Piper Sandler reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $19.00 target price on shares of Columbia Financial in a report on Tuesday, March 26th.

Columbia Financial Price Performance

Columbia Financial stock opened at $15.93 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $1.67 billion, a P/E ratio of 45.51 and a beta of 0.21. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $16.63 and its 200 day moving average is $17.26. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.03 and a quick ratio of 1.03. Columbia Financial has a one year low of $14.11 and a one year high of $20.46.

Columbia Financial (NASDAQ:CLBK) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 25th. The company reported $0.09 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.07 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $56.59 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $54.90 million. Columbia Financial had a net margin of 8.54% and a return on equity of 4.94%. As a group, research analysts expect that Columbia Financial will post 0.22 EPS for the current year.

About Columbia Financial

Columbia Financial, Inc, a bank holding company, provides various financial services to businesses and consumers in the United States. Its deposit products include checking, interest-earning checking products and municipal, savings and club deposits, and money market accounts, as well as certificates of deposit.