Regional Banks Report Positive Q4 Earnings

Friday, January 19, 2018

For this column, even though there is a chance the U.S. government may shut down today, we will not wade into those waters at this time. Instead, we will let D.C. be D.C. After all, even if the government does shut down, it doesn’t take away the positive results we’ve seen overall so far in Q4 earnings season.

Yesterday after the bell we saw good Q4 headlines from companies of diverse industries, from Big Tech play IBM (NYSE:IBM) to Transportation’s Canadian Pacific (NYSE:CP) . Although the devil is in the details for IBM in the quarter just passed, we still see beats on the top and bottom lines and growth year over year.

Another transportation firm, Kansas City Southern (NYSE:KSU) , has this morning topped the Zacks consensus earnings estimate by 2 cents to $1.38 per share. The railway major narrowly missed the analyst consensus on quarterly revenues, however, to $660.4 million. Operation income was up in the quarter, though operating ratio was slightly down year over year. For more on KSU’s earnings, click here.

Oil services giant Schlumberger (NYSE:SLB) beat estimates on its top and bottom line ahead of today’s opening bell: 48 cents per share on $8.18 billion in revenues outpaced the 44 cents per share and $8.12 billion expected, respectively. Year over year, Production was up a whopping 146%, with Drilling up 36% from the year-ago quarter. For more on SLB’s earnings, click here.

Q4 Earnings Results for Regional Banks

Now that most of the biggest bank conglomerates on Wall Street have already posted Q4 results, we now turn to a series of regionally run, smaller banks. The good news here is these banks have performed at least as well as the much larger financial institutions.

Birmingham, AL-based Regions Financial (NYSE:RF) , a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stock, posted a one-cent beat to 27 cents per share, even counting a one-time tax write-off amounting to 7 cents per share. Revenues of $318 million easily surpassed the $278 million we had anticipated. For more on RF’s earnings, click here.

Providence, RI-based Citizens Financial (NYSE:CFG) topped bottom-line estimates by 4 cents to 71 cents per share, on $1.48 billion in revenues which also beat the Zacks consensus and rose 6.3% year over year. This marks at least the fifth straight earnings beat for the Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company, with the trailing 4 quarters posting an average positive surprise of 9.1%. For more on CFG’s earnings, click here.

Finally, Atlanta, GA-based SunTrust Banks (NYSE:STI) , another Zacks Rank #2-rated bank, put up $1.09 per share — 4 cents better than the $1.04 expected and +21% year over year — on an in-line $2.31 billion in quarterly revenues. For the full year, SunTrust reports $4.09 per share for a 3-cent beat and +14% growth from the year-ago quarter. For more on STI’s earnings, click here.

Mark Vickery
Senior Editor

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