Insider Buying: First Guaranty Bancshares (NASDAQ:FGBI) Director Acquires $822,013.56 in Stock

First Guaranty Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FGBI) Director Edgar Smith III bought 99,277 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 30th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $8.28 per share, for a total transaction of $822,013.56. Following the acquisition, the director directly owned 958,523 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,936,570.44. This trade represents a 11.55% increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink.

First Guaranty Bancshares Price Performance

First Guaranty Bancshares stock opened at $8.31 on Monday. The firm has a market capitalization of $137.45 million, a P/E ratio of -3.43 and a beta of 0.47. First Guaranty Bancshares, Inc. has a one year low of $4.31 and a one year high of $11.02. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.96, a current ratio of 0.73 and a quick ratio of 0.73. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $8.61 and a 200-day moving average price of $9.18.

First Guaranty Bancshares (NASDAQ:FGBI) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, July 27th. The bank reported $0.17 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.09 by $0.08. First Guaranty Bancshares had a negative return on equity of 12.25% and a negative net margin of 16.83%.The company had revenue of $24.18 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $21.66 million. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that First Guaranty Bancshares, Inc. will post 0.4 EPS for the current year.

First Guaranty Bancshares Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, September 30th. Investors of record on Friday, September 25th were given a dividend of $0.01 per share. This represents a $0.04 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.5%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, September 25th. First Guaranty Bancshares’s payout ratio is presently -1.65%.

Institutional Trading of First Guaranty Bancshares

A hedge fund recently raised its stake in First Guaranty Bancshares stock. NewEdge Advisors LLC increased its stake in First Guaranty Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FGBI) by 1,288.4% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 6,942 shares of the bank’s stock after acquiring an additional 6,442 shares during the period. NewEdge Advisors LLC’s holdings in First Guaranty Bancshares were worth $56,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 39.52% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have weighed in on FGBI. Wall Street Zen raised First Guaranty Bancshares to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, June 27th. Weiss Ratings cut shares of First Guaranty Bancshares from a “sell (d)” rating to a “sell (d-)” rating in a research report on Friday, August 14th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Reduce”.

First Guaranty Bancshares Company Profile

First Guaranty Bancshares, Inc is a bank holding company headquartered in Hammond, Louisiana. Through its principal subsidiary, First Guaranty Bank, the company provides community banking services to individuals, businesses and organizations.

First Guaranty Bank offers deposit products such as checking, savings and money market accounts, certificates of deposit and business deposits. Its lending activities include commercial and industrial loans, commercial real estate financing, construction and development loans, residential real estate loans, agricultural lending and consumer loans.

The bank also provides treasury management, online and mobile banking, cash management and other financial services.