Lakeland Financial Corporation's (LKFN) earnings are expected to dip in 2020 as net interest income is expected to increase only slightly, which will be insufficient to absorb the natural growth in non-interest expense. Lower non-interest income is expected to further exacerbate the pressure on earnings. Consequently, I'm expecting the company's earnings to decline by 4% next year. Despite the anticipated fall in earnings, I'm expecting dividends to remain unchanged.
Loan Growth to Suffer From High Loan Payoffs
The growth of LKFN's loan portfolio declined significantly in the third quarter to 0.6%, from 1.5%