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Top Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades (AKS, ALU, AWK, APA, AF, AZK, DRI, HBAN, PHG, LTD, PIR, Rl, RL, UL, URBN, VIP, WBMD, WCC)

Administrator — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:07:18 +0000

These are some of the top analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations seen from Wall Street brokerage and research firms this Wednesday morning.

AK Steel Holding Corp. (NYSE: AKS) Raised to Outperform with $12 target at Credit Suisse.
Alcatel-Lucent, S.A. (NYSE: ALU) Raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank.
American Water Works Company, Inc. (NYSE: AWK) Raised to Buy at Ladenburg Thalmann.
Apache Corporation (NYSE: APA) Started as Buy at Stifel Nicolaus.
Astoria Financial Corporation (NYSE: AF) Cut to UNderweight at JPMorgan.
Aurizon Mines Ltd. (NYSE: AZK) named as Value Stock of the Day at Zacks.
Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE: DRI) Maintained Underperform as Bear of the Day at Zacks.
Huntington Bancshares Inc. (NASDAQ: HBAN) Cut to Hold at Stifel Nicolaus.
Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV (NYSE: PHG) Cut to Sell at Citigroup.
Lazard Ltd. (NYSE: LTD) Cut to Neutral at Citigroup.
Pier 1 Imports Inc. (NYSE: PIR) Started as Hold at Argus.
Ralph Lauren Corporation (NYSE: RL) Cut to Market Perform at Wells Fargo.
Unilever PLC (NYSE: UL) Cut to Underperform at BofA/ML.
Urban Outfitters Inc. (NASDAQ: URBN) Cut to Sell at Citigroup.
VimpelCom Ltd. (NYSE: VIP) Raised to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
WebMD Health Corporation (NASDAQ: WBMD) Cut to Market Perform at Wells Fargo.
WESCO International (NYSE: WCC) Raised to Outperform as Bull of the Day at Zacks.

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JON C. OGG

Filed under: Analyst Calls Tagged: AF, AKS, ALU, APA, AWK, AZK, DRI, HBAN, LTD, PHG, PIR, RL, UL, URBN, VIP, WBMD, WCC

Real Banks With Real Dividends! (JPM, MTB, VLY, NYB, HCBK, PBCT, FNFG, AF, NWBI, CFR, UBSI, FMER, PRK, TRMK, HBHC, FNB, BOH, RY, BNS, BMO, CM)

Administrator — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 15:28:18 +0000

Most investors today believe that none of the banks are paying high-yielding dividends any longer. While it is true that J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) is going to reinstate its dividend as soon as it is allowed to by regulators, its paltry 0.4% dividend yield just doesn’t entice income buyers today. There is also a risk that regulators or politicians will opt to keep the heat on money-center banks to keep reserves aside or to make more loans to businesses rather than using cash to buyback stock or juice up the dividend.

We wanted to take a look at “all those other banks” out there that might have avoided the trouble that the big money center banks got into. The screen pointed to M&T Bank Corp. (NYSE: MTB), Valley National Bancorp (NYSE: VLY), New York Community Bancorp Inc (NYSE: NYB), Hudson City Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ: HCBK), People’s United Financial Inc. (NASDAQ: PBCT), First Niagara Financial Group (NASDAQ: FNFG), Astoria Financial Corporation (NYSE: AF), Northwest Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ: NWBI), Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc. (NYSE: CFR), United Bankshares Inc. (NASDAQ: UBSI), FirstMerit Corporation (NASDAQ: FMER), Park National Corp. (NYSE: PRK), Trustmark Corporation (NASDAQ: TRMK), Hancock Holding Co. (NASDAQ: HBHC), F.N.B. Corporation (NYSE: FNB) and Bank of Hawaii Corporation (NYSE: BOH). In Canada there is Royal Bank of Canada (NYSE: RY), The Bank Of Nova Scotia (NYSE: BNS), Bank of Montreal (NYSE: BMO), and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (NYSE: CM).It turns out that there are still many banks around the country that do pay higher dividends at above-market yields.

Our screen boiled down to a simple process. We took a 3.0% Yield hurdle because that is what was implied as a future yield by JPMorgan this week if you use forward earning projections. To avoid the micro-regional risks and to avoid the “so small no one cares if they fail” we also made a market cap hurdle of $1.0 billion. After this we took a look at forward earnings expectations and also looked in the past to see what happened to their common stock dividends during the Great Recession when bank failure risks were systematic.

M&T Bank Corp. (NYSE: MTB) is based in Buffalo, NY and is the holding company for M&T Bank. As of a year ago it had 793 banking offices in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia, as well as a branch in George Town, Cayman Islands. The company is in the process of acquiring another.

Share price of $89.85 compares to 52-week range of $72.03 to $96.15
Market Cap is $10.76 billion
Thomson Reuters sees 2011 at $6.12 EPS and $3.77 billion in revenues
Dividend of $0.70/quarter generates a yield of 3.2%
Dividend history during recession was unchanged

Valley National Bancorp (NYSE: VLY) is the bank holding company for Valley National Bank and it had 197 full-service banking branches a year ago located throughout New Jersey and New York.

Share price of $13.51 compares to 52-week range of $12.33 to $16.19
Market Cap is $2.2 billion
Thomson Reuters sees 2011 at $0.84 EPS and $550.98 million in revenues
Dividend of $0.18/quarter generates a yield of about 5.3%
Dividend history during recession was not effectively interrupted at all and it continued to pay a 5% stock dividend.

New York Community Bancorp Inc (NYSE: NYB) is the bank holding company for York Community Bank and New York Commercial Bank and as of a year ago it had 241 community bank branches and 35 commercial bank branches throughout New York.

Share price of $18.92 compares to 52-week range of $14.40 to $19.33
Market Cap is $8.24 billion
Thomson Reuters sees 2011 at $1.33 EPS and $1.25 billion in revenues
Dividend of $0.25/quarter generates a yield of 5.4%
Dividend history during recession was unchanged at $0.25 per quarter since 2004.

Hudson City Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ: HCBK) is the bank holding company for Hudson City Savings Bank and as of a year ago it had 95 branches located in 17 counties throughout the State of New Jersey.

Share price of $11.40 compares to 52-week range of $10.80 to $14.75
Market Cap is $5.6 billion
Thomson Reuters sees 2011 at $0.77 EPS and $966.6 million in revenues
Dividend of $0.15/quarter generates a yield of 5.3%
Dividend history during recession was actually raised during 2009 when others were eliminating or cutting the dividend. The dividend has been this rate since mid-2009.

Filed under: Banking, Dividend, Editor's Picks, Financial Stocks, Research Tagged: AF, BMO, BNS, BOH, CFR, CM, FMER, FNB, FNFG, HBHC, HCBK, JPM, MTB, NWBI, NYB, PBCT, PRK, RY, TRMK, UBSI, VLY

S&P Looking For More Bank Losses (WFC, CMA, USB, BBT, RF, COF, FITB, HBAN, SNV, WTNY, FAS)

247wallst — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:40:14 +0000

Standard & Poor’s may still have at least some relevance in its debt ratings. This morning we saw a wave of downgrades at banks by the debt ratings agency on systematic-risk and non-systematic risk. We tried to shorten this up to the most concise report in rating groups as this is hitting many of the bank stocks pretty hard this morning. Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC), Comerica (NYSE: CMA), USBancorp (NYSE: USB), BB&T Corp. (NYSE: BBT), Regions Financial Corp. (NYSE: RF), Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE: COF), Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ: FITB), Huntington Bancshares Inc. (NASDAQ: HBAN), Synovus Financial Corp. (NYSE: SNV) and Whitney Holding Corp. (NASDAQ: WTNY) were all in the wave of S&P downgrades. This news has the extremely volatile Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X Shares (NYSE: FAS) triple leverage financial sector ETF down 7% at $8.60.

Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) was cut to AA- from AA. It is off watch but the outlook is negative. Comerica (NYSE: CMA) was cut to A- from A, and it is off watch and the outlook is negative. USBancorp (NYSE: USB) was cut to A+ from AA, and it is off watch and the outlook is stable. BB&T Corp. (NYSE: BBT) was cut to A from A+, and is off watch and the outlook is stable.

Regions Financial Corp. (NYSE: RF) was cut to BBB+ from A, and it is off watch but the outlook is negative. Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE: COF) was cut to BBB from BBB+. Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ: FITB) was cut to BBB from A- and the outlook is negative. KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY) was cut to BBB+ from A-, and is off watch and the outlook is negative.

Huntington Bancshares Inc. (NASDAQ: HBAN) is now junk. S&P cut it to BB+ from BBB, and it is off watch but the outlook is negative. Synovus Financial Corp. (NYSE: SNV) and Whitney Holding Corp. (NASDAQ: WTNY) were also cut to Junk Rating.

Associated Banc Corp. (ASBC), Astoria Financial (AF), PNC Financial (PNC), Susquehanna (SUSQ), Valley National Bancorp (VLY), Webster Financial (WBS), and Wilmington Trust (WL) were also part of this major downgrade.

It seems that S&P has figured out that the future of banks will not be as good as things were in the past. It sees stress tests pointing to more pain ahead and losses above current expectations. S&P sees weaker operating conditions ahead. Before you go run into a panic about write-downs and losses, keep in mind that S&P has had many of these banks under review for more than six months. It is also not exactly as though S&P (and Moody’s for that matter) was ahead of the curve in catching the banking and lending crisis that got us where we are today.

Jon C. Ogg

Posted in Analyst Calls, Banking, Financial Stocks Tagged: AF, ASBC, BBT, CMA, COF, FAS, FITB, HBAN, PNC, RF, SNV, SUSQ, USB, VLY, WBS, WFC, WL, WTNY

Early Analyst Calls (AF)(AXYS)(FEED)(YUM)

247wallst — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 08:01:37 +0000

Astoria (AF) remains "underperform" at FBR.

Axsys (AXYS) upped to "buy" at Morgan Joseph.

Yum! (YUM) upgraded to "buy" at Argus.

AgFeed (FEED) downgraded to "neutral" at Global Hunter.

Sources: Briefing.com and wire services.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted in Analyst Calls Tagged: AF, AXYS, FEED, YUM