Laurie Havener Hunsicker is Managing Director and Research Analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading LLC. Ms. Hunsicker is a Managing Director and senior equity analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading covering small regional banks, community banks and thrift conversions, with a geographic focus on the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Hawaii.
She is well-known in the financial services investment community for providing in-depth, fundamental analysis and equity research with a career as a senior equity analyst that spans 28 years. Ms. Hunsicker has received more Top Stock Picking Awards of Excellence by Thomson Reuters/StarMine in both the categories of Thrifts & Mortgage Finance and Banks, combined, than any other U.S. equity sellside analyst since StarMine started publishing awards in 2002.
In this 3,491 word interview, exclusive to the Wall Street Transcript, Laurie Havener Hunsicker explores the current state of bank stocks, and reveals her top picks.
“If I look at our names again, prior to our downgrade, we had 18 “buys,” and now we are at 11. We had six “neutrals,” and we are now at nine “neutrals.” We had zero “sells,” and now we are now at four “sells.” When we look more broadly, some of the dividend yields on these stocks are huge. Of our “buy”-rated stocks, I have two stocks that are yielding over 4% at the moment, and that is also attractive.”
There are few times when a equity analyst with 28 years of experience uses the word “love” when referring to a stock pick:
“To start off, there is absolute love for the Hawaii banks. Starting alphabetically, Bank of Hawaii (NYSE:BOH) is a $3 billion-market-cap stock that we have “buy”-rated. It is currently trading at 2.4 of tangible book and 11.5 times our 2020 estimate. BOH is a $17 billion bank with a very high ROTCE that is sitting upward of 18%.
When we look at how this bank performed during the last crisis, it was virtually unscathed. It has a very attractive dividend yield here at 3.5%. It actively buys back. In fact, in the last quarter, it bought back almost 300,000 shares at $83. The stock is sitting today at $71.
We believe there is a lot of directional reason to own BOH. And deposit franchise has become increasingly important, as we have seen rates go up.”
To see the rest of the analysis for Bank of Hawaii and all the other banks the award winning Laurie Havener Hunsicker recommends, read the entire 3,491 word interview in the Wall Street Transcript.
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