Home Insights Equities Financials: Poised for recovery

The positive economic outlook—highlighted by an increasingly likely soft landing—along with industry-specific green shoots, such as favorable credit conditions, improving loan growth, higher net margins and fee income, and a more accommodating regulatory environment, is poised to drive an inflection point in financial services earnings. These factors should help create a return to capital and a favorable earnings environment through 2026, helping extend positive investor sentiment within financial stocks.

Despite recessionary concerns for most of the past two years, it is increasingly evident that the U.S. economy is not as weak as once thought, with overall momentum geared toward a soft landing.

This positive economic environment should benefit Financials—notably the banking and credit lending industries. Moreover, a bottom-up review of recent earnings reports points to several industry-specific green shoots that should help drive an inflection point in financial services earnings: beneficial credit conditions, improving loan growth, improving net margins and fee income, and an easier regulatory environment.

After suffering year-over-year earnings declines of 10-15% in the first quarter of 2024, most bank earnings began to recover in the second and third quarters as deposit pressures abated and fee income recovered from multi-decade lows. This momentum should continue, with Q4 2024 EPS expected to grow an average of 15%+ for large banks, benefitting from a rebound in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity, while small banks, aided by Fed easing, forecast to grow an average of 5%.

Deeply shunned over much of the past two decades, especially in the wake of the high-profile regional bank failures in 2023, financials have recently begun attracting more investor attention and steadily outperforming the broader market. The more positive economic environment and its knock-on effects should help create an attractive earnings environment through 2026, helping extend positive investor sentiment in the sector.

Read more perspectives about Financials heading into 2025 here.

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