Home Bancorp (NASDAQ:HBCP) Raised to Buy at StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of Home Bancorp (NASDAQ:HBCP) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note published on Friday morning.

Several other analysts also recently commented on HBCP. Hovde Group downgraded shares of Home Bancorp from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $53.00 to $54.50 in a research report on Tuesday, November 12th. Raymond James upgraded Home Bancorp from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $50.00 target price on the stock in a report on Monday, October 21st.

Home Bancorp Stock Performance

Shares of HBCP stock opened at $46.29 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $373.84 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 10.26 and a beta of 0.71. Home Bancorp has a 52 week low of $33.30 and a 52 week high of $52.39. The company has a quick ratio of 0.96, a current ratio of 0.96 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $48.55 and a 200-day moving average of $44.29.

Home Bancorp (NASDAQ:HBCP) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 17th. The bank reported $1.18 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.97 by $0.21. The company had revenue of $34.07 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $33.10 million. Home Bancorp had a net margin of 18.55% and a return on equity of 9.58%. On average, equities analysts forecast that Home Bancorp will post 4.48 earnings per share for the current year.

Home Bancorp Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 8th. Shareholders of record on Monday, October 28th were issued a dividend of $0.26 per share. This represents a $1.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.25%. This is an increase from Home Bancorp’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.25. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, October 28th. Home Bancorp’s payout ratio is currently 23.06%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Home Bancorp

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Martingale Asset Management L P boosted its holdings in Home Bancorp by 2.9% during the 3rd quarter. Martingale Asset Management L P now owns 14,172 shares of the bank’s stock worth $632,000 after acquiring an additional 400 shares during the last quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets boosted its holdings in shares of Home Bancorp by 73.8% in the 3rd quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 2,377 shares of the bank’s stock worth $106,000 after buying an additional 1,009 shares during the last quarter. Empowered Funds LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Home Bancorp by 5.2% in the 3rd quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 29,963 shares of the bank’s stock worth $1,336,000 after buying an additional 1,474 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Home Bancorp by 1.2% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 162,727 shares of the bank’s stock worth $7,256,000 after buying an additional 1,874 shares during the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Home Bancorp by 1.5% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 156,752 shares of the bank’s stock worth $6,988,000 after buying an additional 2,269 shares during the last quarter. 49.41% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Home Bancorp

Home Bancorp, Inc operates as the bank holding company for Home Bank, National Association that provides various banking products and services in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. It offers deposit products, including interest-bearing and noninterest-bearing checking, money market, savings, NOW, and certificates of deposit accounts.