Dime Community (DCOM) shares soared 10.5% in the last trading session to close at $28.75. The move was backed by solid volume with far more shares changing hands than in a normal session. This compares to the stock's 10.2% gain over the past four weeks.

Shares of Dime Community rallied for the fourth consecutive trading session and touched a new 52-week high of $29.21 as Raymond James upgraded it to Strong Buy from Outperform. The primary drivers for the upgrade were “core deposit growth momentum” and expected lower interest rates, which are likely to support “material improvement in earnings for 2025.”

Further, the company’s “conservatively underwritten commercial real estate and multifamily credit” will get more support from lower interest rates. Raymond James also lifted the target price on DCOM stock to $35 from $29. 

This drove investors’ confidence in the stock and resulted in a solid rally.

This bank holding company is expected to post quarterly earnings of $0.40 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of -28.6%. Revenues are expected to be $86.36 million, up 2.3% from the year-ago quarter.

Earnings and revenue growth expectations certainly give a good sense of the potential strength in a stock, but empirical research shows that trends in earnings estimate revisions are strongly correlated with near-term stock price movements.

For Dime Community, the consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has remained unchanged over the last 30 days. And a stock's price usually doesn't keep moving higher in the absence of any trend in earnings estimate revisions. So, make sure to keep an eye on DCOM going forward to see if this recent jump can turn into more strength down the road.

The stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here >>>>

Dime Community is a member of the Zacks Banks - Southeast industry. One other stock in the same industry, South Atlantic Bancshares, Inc. (SABK), finished the last trading session 1.8% higher at $14. SABK has returned -1.7% over the past month.

South Atlantic Bancshares' consensus EPS estimate for the upcoming report has remained unchanged over the past month at $0.31. Compared to the company's year-ago EPS, this represents a change of +6.9%. South Atlantic Bancshares currently boasts a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

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