The market has been bouncing around a lot, reacting to inflationary headlines and now, earnings. The big question on everyone’s minds is when will the Fed pump on the breaks on its rate hikes. While the rest of them stress out about rate hikes, why not look for stock ideas that will actually benefit from rate hikes? Stocks like banks benefit from net interest margin, the difference between the rate they lend at and the rate they borrow.

Today’s Bull of the Day is Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) Bank OZK (OZK Quick QuoteOZK - Free Report) . Bank OZK provides various retail and commercial banking services. It accepts various deposit products, including non-interest-bearing checking, interest bearing transaction, business sweep, savings, money market, individual retirement, and other accounts, as well as time deposits. 

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The reason for the favorable rank is the series of earnings estimate revisions coming from analysts. Over the last sixty days, two analysts have increased their earnings estimates for the current year and next year. The bullish sentiment has pushed up our Zacks Consensus Estimates for the current year from $4.22 to $4.51 while next year’s is up from $4.47 to $4.91.

It has helped its Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise Chart look amazing. As the stock has come down from highs over $50, the earnings have continued to rise. This has brought divergence, but not in the way technical analysts traditionally find it. This is divergence in between the stock’s price and its earnings consensus. Eventually, one of two things happen. Either earnings reel in, or the stock price catches up to earnings. Since earnings reversals are much rarer that a stock price reversal, this tends to be a great sign.