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4 Major Regional Bank Stocks to Watch as Fed Cuts Interest Rates
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The Zacks Major Regional Banks will benefit from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cuts as the deposit/funding costs come down and the industry-wide lending backdrop improves. Further, a decent economic expansion will support the industry players’ net interest income (NII) and margins.
Business restructuring/expansion initiatives and digitization will offer support. Though weakening asset quality is likely to exert pressure on the financials to some extent, major banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM - Free Report) , U.S. Bancorp (USB - Free Report) , Truist Financial Corporation (TFC - Free Report) and The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BK - Free Report) are worth keeping an eye on.
About the Industry
The Zacks Major Regional Banks industry includes the nation’s largest banks in terms of assets, with most operating globally. The financial performance of these banks largely depends on the nation’s economic health. As the banks are involved in several complex financial activities, they are required to meet the stringent regulations set by the Federal Reserve and other agencies. Apart from traditional banking services, which are the source of the net interest income (NII), major regional banks provide a wide array of other financial services and products to retail, corporate and institutional clients, both domestic and global. These include credit and debit cards, mortgage banking, wealth management and investment banking, among others. Therefore, a large revenue source for these banks is fees and commissions earned from these services.
4 Themes Influencing the Major Regional Banks Industry
Interest Rate Cuts: During the September FOMC meeting, the Fed lowered the interest rates by 50 basis points for the first time since March 2020. The Fed fund rates now stand in the 4.75-5% range. The central bank officials also signaled two more rate cuts this year and four in 2025. With this, the Federal fund rates will be 3.4% by the end of next year.
Because of the central bank’s aggressive monetary tightening since early 2022 to control persistent inflation, major regional banks are reeling from higher deposit/funding costs. While banks reaped huge benefits in the form of higher net interest margin (NIM) and NII during the initial phase of high rates, challenges related to slowing loan demand, increased funding costs and reduced liquidity became more apparent gradually. Hence, as the interest rates come down, banks will likely benefit from the fall/stabilization of deposit costs and a gradual improvement in the lending scenario. There will likely be near-term pain in the form of lower NII and NIM, but the industry players are expected to gain from reduced interest rates eventually.
Modest Improvement in Loan Demand: The central bank’s aggressive monetary policy lowered the demand for loans amid the risk of a severe economic downturn/recession. The Fed’s Summary of Economic Projections released in September indicates that the U.S. economy will slow down this year, growing at a rate of 2%. Last year, the growth rate was 2.5%. While the high rates kept the borrowers on the sidelines for more than a year now, interest rate cuts are likely to reverse the trend to some extent later this year. As the demand for loans ticks up, major regional banks’ NII and NIM are expected to benefit from the same.
Restructuring Initiatives: Major regional banks are undertaking strategic initiatives to expand into new avenues and lower their dependence on spread income. The business restructuring is essential for technological advancement and further domestic/global expansion to continue improving profitability. The industry players are constantly investing in artificial intelligence and other digital platforms and even partnering/acquiring providers of such services. Major regional banks are also aggressively expanding their footprint outside the United States and into Europe and Asia. Several industry players are re-evaluating their business structure to simplify operations and do away with less profitable ones.
Weakening Asset Quality: For most of 2020, major regional banks built extra provisions to tide over unexpected defaults and payment delays due to the economic downturn resulting from the COVID-19 mayhem. This considerably hurt their financials. However, with solid economic growth and support from government stimulus packages, banks began to release these reserves back into the income statement.
Now, given the current macroeconomic headwinds, industry players are building additional reserves to counter any adverse fallout. While conservative lending policy and the resilience of borrowers helped banks keep their asset quality manageable, several metrics have crossed the pre-pandemic era levels. This signals the gradual deterioration of the industry players’ asset quality.
Zacks Industry Rank Suggests Bright Prospects
The Zacks Major Regional Banks industry is a 15-stock group within the broader Zacks Finance sector. The industry currently carries a Zacks Industry Rank #94, which places it in the top 37% of more than 250 Zacks industries.
The group’s Zacks Industry Rank, which is the average of the Zacks Rank of all the member stocks, indicates outperformance in the near term. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.
The industry’s positioning in the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries is a result of an encouraging earnings outlook for the constituent companies in aggregate. Looking at the aggregate earnings estimate revisions, it appears that analysts are gaining confidence in this group’s earnings growth potential. In the past year, the industry’s earnings estimates for the current year have been revised 4.4% upward.
Before we present some major bank stocks to keep on your radar, let’s take a look at the industry’s recent stock market performance and valuation picture.
Industry Outperforms the Sector and the S&P 500
The Zacks Major Regional Banks industry has widely outperformed both the S&P 500 composite and its sector over the past year. While stocks in this industry have collectively surged 48.6% over the period, the Zacks S&P 500 composite has jumped 32.4%, and the Zacks Finance sector has rallied 31.4%.
One-Year Price Performance
Industry's Valuation
One might get a good sense of the industry’s relative valuation by looking at its price-to-tangible book ratio (P/TBV), which is commonly used for valuing banks because of large variations in their earnings results from one quarter to the next.
The industry currently has a trailing 12-month P/TBV of 2.08X. This compares with the highest level of 2.48X, the lowest of 1.21X and the median of 1.93X over the past five years. The industry is trading at a huge discount compared with the market at large, as the trailing 12-month P/TBV for the S&P 500 composite is 14.92X, as the chart below shows.
Price-to-Tangible Book Ratio (TTM)
As finance stocks typically have a lower P/TBV ratio, comparing major regional banks with the S&P 500 may not make sense to many investors. However, comparing the group’s P/TBV ratio with that of the broader sector ensures that the group is trading at a solid discount. The Zacks Finance sector’s trailing 12-month P/TBV came in at 5.02X. This is way above the Zacks Major Regional Banks industry’s ratio, as the chart below shows.
Price-to-Tangible Book Ratio (TTM)
4 Major Regional Banks to Keep an Eye on
JPMorgan: The largest U.S. bank (in terms of assets), JPMorgan has operations in more than 60 countries. The company is expected to keep benefiting from decent loan growth, strategic buyouts, business diversification efforts, a strong liquidity position and efforts to expand the branch network in new markets.
In May 2023, JPM took over the failed First Republic Bank for $10.6 billion. The deal immensely benefited the company’s financials in 2023 and helped record the biggest annual profits in its history.
This Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) lender has been growing through on-bolt acquisitions, both domestic and international. These are expected to keep aiding its plan to diversify revenues, expand the fee income product suite and consumer bank digitally. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Also, JPMorgan is expanding its footprint in new regions and has a presence in 48 of 50 U.S. states. It intends to expand its retail branches further. The strategy continues to help the bank grab cross-selling opportunities by increasing its presence in the card and auto loan sectors. Also, the company launched its digital retail bank Chase in the U.K. in 2021 and plans to expand its reach across European Union countries.
With the resurgence of the investment banking (IB) business, JPMorgan is expected to leverage its leadership position to further expand its market share. The company will likely witness growth in IB fees going forward, driven by a healthy IB pipeline and active merger & acquisition (M&A) market.
With a market cap of $601 billion, JPMorgan is expected to continue benefiting from its scale and business expansion efforts. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings has moved marginally upward for 2024 in the past week. The stock has rallied 24% this year.
Price and Consensus: JPM
U.S. Bancorp: Headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, U.S. Bancorp provides banking and investment services, principally operating in the Midwest and West regions of the United States. A solid business model and diverse revenue streams are likely to aid its financials.
USB has experienced solid growth in average loans and deposits in the past few years as it continued to expand and deepen relationships with current customers and acquire new customers and market share. The strengthening loan pipelines in the commercial and credit card space is expected to drive loan growth. Also, stabilizing deposit trends will continue to support deposit growth.
Organic growth and diverse revenue sources are key strengths of U.S. Bancorp. Management is encouraged by current trends in client growth and penetration rates as evidenced by the continued strength in its fee revenue businesses. Hence, the company is well-positioned to improve its revenue trend, which is backed by growth in fee income and NII.
U.S. Bancorp has completed several strategic acquisitions over the years, which have opened new markets to it and fortified existing markets. In 2022, it acquired MUFG Union Bank’s core regional banking franchise, expanding its branch network and enjoying greater access to digital banking tools. Such strategic buyouts and the ongoing investments in innovative product enhancements, services and people will strengthen this Zacks Rank #3 company’s fee-based businesses.
USB has a market cap of $69.8 billion. In the past week, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings has been unchanged for 2024. So far this year, the stock has gained 2.7%.
Price and Consensus: USB
Truist Financial: Formed following the ‘merger of equals’ deal between BB&T Corp and SunTrust Banks, Truist Financial is one of the largest commercial banks in the United States. The company, based in Charlotte, NC, conducts business operations primarily through its bank subsidiary, Truist Bank, and a few other non-bank subsidiaries.
Growth in loans, higher interest rates and Truist Financial’s efforts to improve fee income are likely to keep aiding financials. It has been recording an improvement in NII due to decent loan demand and rising rates.
Management remains open to strategic business restructuring initiatives to bolster fee income. In sync with this, in May 2024, the company sold its remaining 80% stake in its insurance subsidiary — Truist Insurance Holdings. Subsequently, the bank undertook strategic balance sheet repositioning to support NII in the quarters ahead. These measures bolstered the bank's capitalization and liquidity profile.
Further, in February 2024, the company announced a deal to divest its asset-management subsidiary, Sterling Capital Management LLC. Earlier, this Zacks Rank #3 company had acquired Service Finance Company, which augmented its point-of-sale lending business. Driven by these restructuring efforts, Truist Financial is expected to witness growth in the top line.
TFC has a market cap of $56.8 billion. In the past seven days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings has remained unchanged for 2024. The stock has gained 13.7% this year.
Price and Consensus: TFC
BNY Mellon: Operating in 35 countries, BNY Mellon provides various products and services to individuals and institutions. Its global client base consists of financial institutions, corporations, government agencies, endowments and foundations, and high-net-worth individuals.
Higher interest rates continue to support BNY Mellon’s top-line growth. While the company’s NII and NIM declined in 2020 and 2021, both rebounded solidly thereafter. Though higher funding costs will likely weigh on NII, the metric is anticipated to keep improving in the quarters ahead, driven by lower rates.
BNY Mellon’s growth initiatives are impressive. The company has been launching several new services and products, digitizing operations and making strategic acquisitions.
In September, BNY Mellon announced plans to launch Alts Bridge, an extensive data, software and services solution, by fall. It will cater to rising demand from wealth intermediaries seeking simplified access to alternative and private market investment products. The platform has been designed to integrate seamlessly into intermediaries' existing desktops, starting with BNY Pershing X’s Wove advisory platform and NetX360+, incorporating cutting-edge artificial intelligence and analytics tools.
In the same month, BK signed an agreement to acquire Berwyn, PA-based Archer Holdco, LLC, a leading technology-enabled service provider of managed account solutions to the asset and wealth management industry. This will bolster the company’s retail wealth presence.
This Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company has been trying to gain a foothold in foreign markets and is undertaking several growth initiatives (including launching new services, digitizing operations and making strategic buyouts). Its international revenues are expected to continue improving as the demand for personalized services rises globally.
BNY Mellon has a market cap of $53.1 billion. Over the past seven days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings has moved almost 1% upward for 2024. In the year-to-date period, the stock has jumped 42.3%.
Price and Consensus: BK
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4 Major Regional Bank Stocks to Watch as Fed Cuts Interest Rates
The Zacks Major Regional Banks will benefit from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cuts as the deposit/funding costs come down and the industry-wide lending backdrop improves. Further, a decent economic expansion will support the industry players’ net interest income (NII) and margins.
Business restructuring/expansion initiatives and digitization will offer support. Though weakening asset quality is likely to exert pressure on the financials to some extent, major banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM - Free Report) , U.S. Bancorp (USB - Free Report) , Truist Financial Corporation (TFC - Free Report) and The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BK - Free Report) are worth keeping an eye on.
About the Industry
The Zacks Major Regional Banks industry includes the nation’s largest banks in terms of assets, with most operating globally. The financial performance of these banks largely depends on the nation’s economic health. As the banks are involved in several complex financial activities, they are required to meet the stringent regulations set by the Federal Reserve and other agencies. Apart from traditional banking services, which are the source of the net interest income (NII), major regional banks provide a wide array of other financial services and products to retail, corporate and institutional clients, both domestic and global. These include credit and debit cards, mortgage banking, wealth management and investment banking, among others. Therefore, a large revenue source for these banks is fees and commissions earned from these services.
4 Themes Influencing the Major Regional Banks Industry
Interest Rate Cuts: During the September FOMC meeting, the Fed lowered the interest rates by 50 basis points for the first time since March 2020. The Fed fund rates now stand in the 4.75-5% range. The central bank officials also signaled two more rate cuts this year and four in 2025. With this, the Federal fund rates will be 3.4% by the end of next year.
Because of the central bank’s aggressive monetary tightening since early 2022 to control persistent inflation, major regional banks are reeling from higher deposit/funding costs. While banks reaped huge benefits in the form of higher net interest margin (NIM) and NII during the initial phase of high rates, challenges related to slowing loan demand, increased funding costs and reduced liquidity became more apparent gradually. Hence, as the interest rates come down, banks will likely benefit from the fall/stabilization of deposit costs and a gradual improvement in the lending scenario. There will likely be near-term pain in the form of lower NII and NIM, but the industry players are expected to gain from reduced interest rates eventually.
Modest Improvement in Loan Demand: The central bank’s aggressive monetary policy lowered the demand for loans amid the risk of a severe economic downturn/recession. The Fed’s Summary of Economic Projections released in September indicates that the U.S. economy will slow down this year, growing at a rate of 2%. Last year, the growth rate was 2.5%. While the high rates kept the borrowers on the sidelines for more than a year now, interest rate cuts are likely to reverse the trend to some extent later this year. As the demand for loans ticks up, major regional banks’ NII and NIM are expected to benefit from the same.
Restructuring Initiatives: Major regional banks are undertaking strategic initiatives to expand into new avenues and lower their dependence on spread income. The business restructuring is essential for technological advancement and further domestic/global expansion to continue improving profitability. The industry players are constantly investing in artificial intelligence and other digital platforms and even partnering/acquiring providers of such services. Major regional banks are also aggressively expanding their footprint outside the United States and into Europe and Asia. Several industry players are re-evaluating their business structure to simplify operations and do away with less profitable ones.
Weakening Asset Quality: For most of 2020, major regional banks built extra provisions to tide over unexpected defaults and payment delays due to the economic downturn resulting from the COVID-19 mayhem. This considerably hurt their financials. However, with solid economic growth and support from government stimulus packages, banks began to release these reserves back into the income statement.
Now, given the current macroeconomic headwinds, industry players are building additional reserves to counter any adverse fallout. While conservative lending policy and the resilience of borrowers helped banks keep their asset quality manageable, several metrics have crossed the pre-pandemic era levels. This signals the gradual deterioration of the industry players’ asset quality.
Zacks Industry Rank Suggests Bright Prospects
The Zacks Major Regional Banks industry is a 15-stock group within the broader Zacks Finance sector. The industry currently carries a Zacks Industry Rank #94, which places it in the top 37% of more than 250 Zacks industries.
The group’s Zacks Industry Rank, which is the average of the Zacks Rank of all the member stocks, indicates outperformance in the near term. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.
The industry’s positioning in the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries is a result of an encouraging earnings outlook for the constituent companies in aggregate. Looking at the aggregate earnings estimate revisions, it appears that analysts are gaining confidence in this group’s earnings growth potential. In the past year, the industry’s earnings estimates for the current year have been revised 4.4% upward.
Before we present some major bank stocks to keep on your radar, let’s take a look at the industry’s recent stock market performance and valuation picture.
Industry Outperforms the Sector and the S&P 500
The Zacks Major Regional Banks industry has widely outperformed both the S&P 500 composite and its sector over the past year. While stocks in this industry have collectively surged 48.6% over the period, the Zacks S&P 500 composite has jumped 32.4%, and the Zacks Finance sector has rallied 31.4%.
One-Year Price Performance
Industry's Valuation
One might get a good sense of the industry’s relative valuation by looking at its price-to-tangible book ratio (P/TBV), which is commonly used for valuing banks because of large variations in their earnings results from one quarter to the next.
The industry currently has a trailing 12-month P/TBV of 2.08X. This compares with the highest level of 2.48X, the lowest of 1.21X and the median of 1.93X over the past five years. The industry is trading at a huge discount compared with the market at large, as the trailing 12-month P/TBV for the S&P 500 composite is 14.92X, as the chart below shows.
Price-to-Tangible Book Ratio (TTM)
As finance stocks typically have a lower P/TBV ratio, comparing major regional banks with the S&P 500 may not make sense to many investors. However, comparing the group’s P/TBV ratio with that of the broader sector ensures that the group is trading at a solid discount. The Zacks Finance sector’s trailing 12-month P/TBV came in at 5.02X. This is way above the Zacks Major Regional Banks industry’s ratio, as the chart below shows.
Price-to-Tangible Book Ratio (TTM)
4 Major Regional Banks to Keep an Eye on
JPMorgan: The largest U.S. bank (in terms of assets), JPMorgan has operations in more than 60 countries. The company is expected to keep benefiting from decent loan growth, strategic buyouts, business diversification efforts, a strong liquidity position and efforts to expand the branch network in new markets.
In May 2023, JPM took over the failed First Republic Bank for $10.6 billion. The deal immensely benefited the company’s financials in 2023 and helped record the biggest annual profits in its history.
This Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) lender has been growing through on-bolt acquisitions, both domestic and international. These are expected to keep aiding its plan to diversify revenues, expand the fee income product suite and consumer bank digitally. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Also, JPMorgan is expanding its footprint in new regions and has a presence in 48 of 50 U.S. states. It intends to expand its retail branches further. The strategy continues to help the bank grab cross-selling opportunities by increasing its presence in the card and auto loan sectors. Also, the company launched its digital retail bank Chase in the U.K. in 2021 and plans to expand its reach across European Union countries.
With the resurgence of the investment banking (IB) business, JPMorgan is expected to leverage its leadership position to further expand its market share. The company will likely witness growth in IB fees going forward, driven by a healthy IB pipeline and active merger & acquisition (M&A) market.
With a market cap of $601 billion, JPMorgan is expected to continue benefiting from its scale and business expansion efforts. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings has moved marginally upward for 2024 in the past week. The stock has rallied 24% this year.
Price and Consensus: JPM
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U.S. Bancorp: Headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, U.S. Bancorp provides banking and investment services, principally operating in the Midwest and West regions of the United States. A solid business model and diverse revenue streams are likely to aid its financials.
USB has experienced solid growth in average loans and deposits in the past few years as it continued to expand and deepen relationships with current customers and acquire new customers and market share. The strengthening loan pipelines in the commercial and credit card space is expected to drive loan growth. Also, stabilizing deposit trends will continue to support deposit growth.
Organic growth and diverse revenue sources are key strengths of U.S. Bancorp. Management is encouraged by current trends in client growth and penetration rates as evidenced by the continued strength in its fee revenue businesses. Hence, the company is well-positioned to improve its revenue trend, which is backed by growth in fee income and NII.
U.S. Bancorp has completed several strategic acquisitions over the years, which have opened new markets to it and fortified existing markets. In 2022, it acquired MUFG Union Bank’s core regional banking franchise, expanding its branch network and enjoying greater access to digital banking tools. Such strategic buyouts and the ongoing investments in innovative product enhancements, services and people will strengthen this Zacks Rank #3 company’s fee-based businesses.
USB has a market cap of $69.8 billion. In the past week, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings has been unchanged for 2024. So far this year, the stock has gained 2.7%.
Truist Financial: Formed following the ‘merger of equals’ deal between BB&T Corp and SunTrust Banks, Truist Financial is one of the largest commercial banks in the United States. The company, based in Charlotte, NC, conducts business operations primarily through its bank subsidiary, Truist Bank, and a few other non-bank subsidiaries.
Growth in loans, higher interest rates and Truist Financial’s efforts to improve fee income are likely to keep aiding financials. It has been recording an improvement in NII due to decent loan demand and rising rates.
Management remains open to strategic business restructuring initiatives to bolster fee income. In sync with this, in May 2024, the company sold its remaining 80% stake in its insurance subsidiary — Truist Insurance Holdings. Subsequently, the bank undertook strategic balance sheet repositioning to support NII in the quarters ahead. These measures bolstered the bank's capitalization and liquidity profile.
Further, in February 2024, the company announced a deal to divest its asset-management subsidiary, Sterling Capital Management LLC. Earlier, this Zacks Rank #3 company had acquired Service Finance Company, which augmented its point-of-sale lending business. Driven by these restructuring efforts, Truist Financial is expected to witness growth in the top line.
TFC has a market cap of $56.8 billion. In the past seven days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings has remained unchanged for 2024. The stock has gained 13.7% this year.
Price and Consensus: TFC
BNY Mellon: Operating in 35 countries, BNY Mellon provides various products and services to individuals and institutions. Its global client base consists of financial institutions, corporations, government agencies, endowments and foundations, and high-net-worth individuals.
Higher interest rates continue to support BNY Mellon’s top-line growth. While the company’s NII and NIM declined in 2020 and 2021, both rebounded solidly thereafter. Though higher funding costs will likely weigh on NII, the metric is anticipated to keep improving in the quarters ahead, driven by lower rates.
BNY Mellon’s growth initiatives are impressive. The company has been launching several new services and products, digitizing operations and making strategic acquisitions.
In September, BNY Mellon announced plans to launch Alts Bridge, an extensive data, software and services solution, by fall. It will cater to rising demand from wealth intermediaries seeking simplified access to alternative and private market investment products. The platform has been designed to integrate seamlessly into intermediaries' existing desktops, starting with BNY Pershing X’s Wove advisory platform and NetX360+, incorporating cutting-edge artificial intelligence and analytics tools.
In the same month, BK signed an agreement to acquire Berwyn, PA-based Archer Holdco, LLC, a leading technology-enabled service provider of managed account solutions to the asset and wealth management industry. This will bolster the company’s retail wealth presence.
This Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company has been trying to gain a foothold in foreign markets and is undertaking several growth initiatives (including launching new services, digitizing operations and making strategic buyouts). Its international revenues are expected to continue improving as the demand for personalized services rises globally.
BNY Mellon has a market cap of $53.1 billion. Over the past seven days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings has moved almost 1% upward for 2024. In the year-to-date period, the stock has jumped 42.3%.
Price and Consensus: BK