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From Bloomberg: Bank Profits Tripling Leaves Stocks Cheapest With 15% Discount to S&P 500

Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) -- No U.S. industry has faster profit growth than banks and brokers, and no group is more hated by investors.

Analysts say earnings at financial companies rose 120 percent in the fourth quarter, accounting for all of the income increase in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, and will triple by 2011, climbing four times as fast as the market. Should the estimates prove correct, the shares are trading at a 15 percent discount to the index, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

That’s not enough for money managers burned by the 84 percent drop in the stocks from February 2007 through March and more than 160 U.S. bank failures in the past two years. Financial companies are the least-favored equities, according to a Bank of America Corp. survey of investors with $617 billion in assets that showed 38 percent of 123 money managers are holding fewer shares than are in benchmark indexes.

“The stocks are clearly too cheap,” said Mark Giambrone, a fund manager who bought PNC Financial Services Group Inc. and Bank of America stock for USAA Investment Management Co., which oversees about $74 billion in San Antonio. “There may be some bumps in the road ahead, but for the most part those are reflected in the valuations.”

So far the analysts have proven right after the S&P 500 Financials Index gained 15 percent in 2009. Now, Jennifer Thompson, whose ratings for New York-based research firm Portales Partners LLC returned 31 percent in the past two years, eight times the gain for all the companies she follows, said PNC and Fifth Third Bancorp are poised to rally.

Most Bullish

Analysts are more bullish on bank stocks in the S&P 500 than any other industry based on their average share-price forecasts, which call for a 14 percent rally, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That would extend the group’s 145 percent rally since March that was spurred by better economic data and government rescues of companies from New York-based Citigroup Inc. to American International Group Inc.

The industry has risen the most of 10 in the S&P 500 during the past 10 months. The benchmark index itself gained 2.7 percent last week and closed at 1,144.98 on Jan. 8. Futures on the gauge added 0.4 percent to 1,146.10 as of 12:56 p.m. in New York.

The S&P 500 Financials Index of 78 banks, brokerages and insurers remains down 60 percent since peaking in February 2007. The slump is twice the drop of the S&P 500, which has lost 27 percent from its October 2007 record, after the subprime mortgage market collapse caused $1.71 trillion in losses and writedowns for financial firms worldwide and led to the demise of New York-based Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos., data compiled by Bloomberg show.