2023-03-17 11:19:40 ET
- South Plains Financial ( NASDAQ: SPFI ) stock slid 2.5% in Friday morning trading even as Raymond James started coverage of the stock with an Outperform rating due to the regional lender's strong levels of reserves, liquidity and capital against a backdrop of turmoil surrounding the banking space.
- Specifically, the company has $1.5B in available liquidity, analyst Michael Rose pointed out in a note, outpacing its ~$1B in uninsured deposits.
- "In conjunction with the bank’s operations being business as usual this past week, in our view the aforementioned characteristics should translate to continued relative outperformance," he contended. SPFI is off 17.8% in the past month alone.
- Rose's Outperform rating diverges from the Quant system rating of Hold, with the poorest mark in valuation, and aligns with the average Wall Street analyst rating of Buy.
- In January, before the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank started to roil markets, South Plains raised its quarterly dividend by 8.3% .
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South Plains Financial lands bull rating at RayJay on strong liquidity, capital