Truist Financial shares can jump 60% after their recent drop, according to Citi. Analyst Keith Horowitz upgraded the bank stock to buy from neutral, saying investors are wrong about the deposit outlook at Truist. “The TFC bear case is all about high HTM [held-to-maturity] losses relative to equity and we believe this thesis is flawed. Our view is that the deposit outlook is fine, meaning that securities can be held to maturity at par without realizing losses (just lower net interest margin over time from opportunity cost),” Horowitz wrote to clients on Wednesday. “Given the recent price action we view this as an attractive entry point and are upgrading TFC to Buy,” he said. Truist shares are down 25% in 2023, and tumbled more than 17% and 16% this and last week, respectively, as investors feared the risk of contagion following the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. The analyst’s $52 price target implies shares can jump 63% from Tuesday’s closing price of $31.88. The stock is down 2% in the Wednesday premarket. The analyst said that Truist will not be forced to sell securities to stay afloat. “Given the very different deposit mix of TFC and a new BTFP program, it seems highly unlikely TFC will be a forced seller of securities, so unclear why the market is so overly focused on this issue other than possibly a search to find the next SVB, but TFC is a fundamentally different bank, so this is an apples and oranges comparison,” Horowitz said. TFC 5D mountain Truist shares 5-day —CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
