Short Interest in Customers Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE:CUBI) Decreases By 11.6%

Customers Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE:CUBI) was the target of a large drop in short interest during the month of November. As of November 15th, there was short interest totalling 2,050,000 shares, a drop of 11.6% from the October 31st total of 2,320,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 381,200 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 5.4 days. Approximately 7.1% of the shares of the company are sold short.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts have commented on the company. B. Riley upped their price objective on shares of Customers Bancorp from $78.00 to $80.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, November 4th. Hovde Group downgraded Customers Bancorp from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and set a $49.00 price objective on the stock. in a research note on Friday, August 9th. Wedbush lowered Customers Bancorp from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their target price for the company from $79.00 to $53.00 in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods downgraded Customers Bancorp from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and lowered their target price for the stock from $57.00 to $52.00 in a report on Monday, November 4th. Finally, Piper Sandler cut their target price on shares of Customers Bancorp from $61.00 to $55.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, November 4th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Customers Bancorp presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $61.11.

Insider Activity at Customers Bancorp

In other Customers Bancorp news, CEO Jay S. Sidhu sold 86,578 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $56.54, for a total transaction of $4,895,120.12. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,090,598 shares in the company, valued at $61,662,410.92. This represents a 7.35 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Glenn Hedde sold 5,002 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $53.68, for a total transaction of $268,507.36. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 66,256 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,556,622.08. The trade was a 7.02 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 96,440 shares of company stock worth $5,425,815. Insiders own 6.92% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of CUBI. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC purchased a new position in Customers Bancorp during the second quarter valued at approximately $2,508,000. Intech Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Customers Bancorp during the 2nd quarter valued at $698,000. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans boosted its holdings in Customers Bancorp by 26.6% in the 2nd quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 71,473 shares of the bank’s stock worth $3,429,000 after buying an additional 15,011 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. increased its stake in Customers Bancorp by 252.1% in the 2nd quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 253,954 shares of the bank’s stock worth $12,185,000 after buying an additional 181,819 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Denali Advisors LLC raised its holdings in Customers Bancorp by 37.0% during the second quarter. Denali Advisors LLC now owns 47,044 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $2,257,000 after acquiring an additional 12,700 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.29% of the company’s stock.

Customers Bancorp Price Performance

CUBI traded down $0.39 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $56.45. The stock had a trading volume of 150,861 shares, compared to its average volume of 441,278. The business has a fifty day moving average of $49.30 and a 200 day moving average of $49.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.78, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a current ratio of 0.93. Customers Bancorp has a 1 year low of $42.31 and a 1 year high of $68.49. The company has a market cap of $1.77 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.16 and a beta of 1.61.

Customers Bancorp (NYSE:CUBI) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 31st. The bank reported $1.34 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.43 by ($0.09). Customers Bancorp had a net margin of 15.22% and a return on equity of 13.55%. The company had revenue of $167.10 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $191.61 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.59 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 23.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Customers Bancorp will post 5.63 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About Customers Bancorp

Customers Bancorp, Inc operates as the bank holding company for Customers Bank that provides financial products and services to individual consumers, and small and middle market businesses. The company provides deposit banking products, which includes commercial and consumer checking, non-interest-bearing and interest-bearing demand, MMDA, savings, and time deposit accounts.