Wedbush Securities Best on the Street Banking Analyst Picks the Best of the Regional Bank Stocks

February 19, 2019

Peter J. Winter is a Managing Director at Wedbush Securities, and prior to that, he was a senior analyst in BMO Capital Markets Corp.’s equity research group, covering regional and Texas banks. Prior to joining BMO Capital Markets, Mr. Winter was a senior analyst at Advest, Inc., an affiliate of AXA Financial, and CIBC World Markets.

His prior experience includes equity research positions at NatWest Markets and Paine Webber Inc. He began his career at Citibank in the private bank division. He was ranked first in earning estimate accuracy in 2018 and 2017 and third in 2016 and 2015 in StarMine. In addition, in 2008, he was ranked fifth out of 72 analysts by The Wall Street Journal for stock picking and in 2001 “Best on the Street Analysts Survey” for earnings accuracy among banks and S&Ls.

In this exclusive 2,406 word interview in the Wall Street Transcript, Mr. Winter identifies the trends that support his top bank portfolio picks:

“Bank balance sheets are stronger than they’ve ever been. Capital levels are at record levels. They have more liquidity. From a credit perspective, banks that barely made it through the financial crisis have new management teams, which addressed risk management controls. All the banks have de-risked since the financial crisis, exiting businesses that caused a lot of credit problems.

To your point on CCAR and DFAST, it has created a more stringent and disciplined underwriting approach that wasn’t there pre-crisis, and that makes me more confident banks are better positioned for an economic downturn.”

This view has generated some names for investors to pursue:

Assuming the economy slows but does not go into a recession, the names we like are Fifth Third (NASDAQ:FITB), Citizens Financial (NYSE:CFG) and KeyCorp (NYSE:KEY). ”

In order to get the full detail on the rationale behind picking these banks, along with additional picks and pans in the banking sector chosen by the award winning Peter Winter, read the entire 2,406 word interview, exclusive to the Wall Street Transcript.