Wedbush Cuts Earnings Estimates for Cathay General Bancorp

Cathay General Bancorp (NASDAQ:CATY) – Investment analysts at Wedbush reduced their FY2024 earnings estimates for shares of Cathay General Bancorp in a research report issued to clients and investors on Wednesday, October 23rd. Wedbush analyst D. Chiaverini now expects that the bank will post earnings of $4.04 per share for the year, down from their previous estimate of $4.08. Wedbush currently has a “Outperform” rating and a $52.00 target price on the stock. The consensus estimate for Cathay General Bancorp’s current full-year earnings is $4.02 per share. Wedbush also issued estimates for Cathay General Bancorp’s Q1 2025 earnings at $0.92 EPS, Q2 2025 earnings at $0.94 EPS, Q3 2025 earnings at $0.95 EPS, Q4 2025 earnings at $0.94 EPS, FY2025 earnings at $3.75 EPS and FY2026 earnings at $3.95 EPS.

CATY has been the topic of several other research reports. Truist Financial upped their price target on Cathay General Bancorp from $45.00 to $47.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, September 20th. StockNews.com raised shares of Cathay General Bancorp from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, July 19th. Finally, Piper Sandler increased their target price on shares of Cathay General Bancorp from $32.00 to $36.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 23rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $44.00.

Cathay General Bancorp Trading Down 0.2 %

CATY opened at $45.56 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.32 billion, a PE ratio of 10.08 and a beta of 1.11. Cathay General Bancorp has a one year low of $32.08 and a one year high of $46.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11, a quick ratio of 1.03 and a current ratio of 1.03. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $43.29 and its 200 day moving average price is $39.75.

Cathay General Bancorp (NASDAQ:CATY) last posted its earnings results on Monday, October 21st. The bank reported $0.94 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.95 by ($0.01). The firm had revenue of $359.86 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $182.70 million. Cathay General Bancorp had a net margin of 22.08% and a return on equity of 11.96%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.13 earnings per share.

Cathay General Bancorp Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 9th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 29th were paid a dividend of $0.34 per share. This represents a $1.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.99%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 29th. Cathay General Bancorp’s payout ratio is 30.09%.

Insider Activity at Cathay General Bancorp

In other Cathay General Bancorp news, Chairman Dunson K. Cheng sold 12,401 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $44.79, for a total transaction of $555,440.79. Following the sale, the chairman now directly owns 149,566 shares in the company, valued at $6,699,061.14. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 4.76% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Cathay General Bancorp

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Cathay General Bancorp by 2.4% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 8,254,816 shares of the bank’s stock worth $367,917,000 after purchasing an additional 196,146 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its stake in shares of Cathay General Bancorp by 4.4% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 4,194,232 shares of the bank’s stock worth $158,206,000 after buying an additional 176,215 shares during the period. American Century Companies Inc. raised its holdings in Cathay General Bancorp by 19.8% in the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 1,262,970 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $47,639,000 after acquiring an additional 208,599 shares in the last quarter. Boston Trust Walden Corp raised its holdings in Cathay General Bancorp by 4.1% in the second quarter. Boston Trust Walden Corp now owns 736,727 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $27,789,000 after acquiring an additional 28,968 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its stake in Cathay General Bancorp by 1.9% in the first quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 181,928 shares of the bank’s stock worth $6,979,000 after acquiring an additional 3,478 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.01% of the company’s stock.

Cathay General Bancorp Company Profile

Cathay General Bancorp operates as the holding company for Cathay Bank that offers various commercial banking products and services to individuals, professionals, and small to medium-sized businesses in the United States. The company offers various deposit products, including passbook accounts, checking accounts, money market deposit accounts, certificates of deposit, individual retirement accounts, and public funds deposits.