SYF - Fifth Third Regions cut at Wolfe Research Cullen Frost upgraded to Outperform

Wolfe Research analyst Bill Carcache is downgrading mid-cap banks as a group to Market Weight as he sees price/earnings multiples pressured by greater recession risk following last week's yield curve inversion. He's most cautious on mid-cap banks with heavy exposure to capital markets and mortgages and most bullish on banks with high levels of liquidity. Carcache downgraded Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ:FITB) and Regions Financial (NYSE:RF) to Peer Perform on valuation. He also initiates a Texas pair trade, advising to overweight Cullen/Frost Bankers (CFR), which he upgrades to Outperform, against Prosperity Bancshares (PB), which he downgraded to Underperform. At Thursday midafternoon, Fifth Third (FITB) falls 2.0%, Regions (RF) drops 2.6%, Cullen/Frost (CFR) edges up 0.1%, Prosperity Bancshares (PB) dips 2.4%. He also turns more cautious on consumer finance stocks and continues to expect that "issuers with high exposure to the low-end consumer to face more severe credit headwinds as inflationary pressures intensify." In

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Fifth Third, Regions cut at Wolfe Research, Cullen Frost upgraded to Outperform