Dallas, Texas 10/22/2013 (Financialstrend) – Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ:HBAN) is a $7.37 billion market capitalized regional bank. It released its 3 Q numbers on October 17 which was able to meet the investor expectations. The stock rallied close to 3.98% during last week to shoot past its 52 week high valuation post the earnings call. On start of trading it shed some of its previous week’s gains and slipped by 0.22%. As of close of business on October 21, the stock had settled at $8.88 per share which translates to a close to 1.88% dip from its 52 week close valuations.
The mid capped banking firm reported a solid 3Q. It had managed to generate income of $178 million which equates to a $0.20 per share. While the revenue in the 3Q recorded a slight 2% dip compared to 3Q of FY12 at $682 million its total loans disbursal picked up by close to 5%. The growth was led by automobile sector with a increase of over $2 billion in coparison to previous quarter. Auto loans also constituted 49% of the total loan book since the company has continued to keep the loan on the balance sheet rather than sell it off to reinsurers. In a clear sign of the up take in the general economic sentiments, commercial loans which the bank had advanced has also seen a 4% increase. The real estate loans which had been holding back the bank since the 2007/08 crisis, has continued to go down. This sector recorded a 14% decline in value this quarter in spite of $5 billion loan disbursal happening this quarter.
Analysts conducting a post-mortem on the results have opined that the bank was able to beat expectations primarily due to the reduction in reserves that the bank was obligated to keep. This reduction in reserves was possible due to dip in the loan loss that has happened over the past couple of quarters.
