Regions Financial Corp.’s stock
RF,
was down by 0.9% in premarket trading on Friday after JPMorgan Chase analyst Vivek Juneja downgraded the bank to neutral from overweight on the heels of third-quarter earnings and cut its target price to $16.50 from $19. JPMorgan also removed Regions Financial from its analyst focus list. “We don’t see a catalyst to outperform,” Juneja said. “Regions also needs to likely invest more in cyber given the surprising higher fraud costs for last two quarters and still not back fully to normal in 4Q,” he said. “Regions management had done a good job with interest rate risk management when rates declined, and its profitability should remain better than some peers.” When the Fed starts cutting interest rates, the bank should be better-positions than some peers, but currently Juneja said the bank faces “some drag from the hedge protection against lower rates.”
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