Bad sign No. 1: Management chirped a lot about "record" this and "strengthening" that.
Bad sign No. 2: Management didn't opt to include much in the way of actual numbers in its financial press release (though you can find pretty much all the info you'd need in the company's simultaneous 8-K filing).
All in all, my regular readers should hardly be surprised that I didn't start out with an especially positive bias toward Regions Financial (NYSE:RF). Make a financial writer work to get his information, and he's apt to get a bit grumpy. What's worse, the numbers that I found didn't seem too impressive.
Excluding merger costs, earnings in the quarter were up about 12%, which isn't a bad number. What's more, return on assets improved nicely, as did return on equity -- though the improvement was like going from "pretty stinky" to "below average."
In this case, the devil seems to be in the details. Net interest income was up 9%, and that's good -- particularly given that the company actually increased its net interest margin by a decent amount. Non-interest income, though, was up just about 1% excluding gains. And while the efficiency ratio did improve quarter over quarter, ending up at 61% isn't so great.
Average loan balances increased just 1% as declining commercial loan balances offset growth in mortgages. The deposit picture was even more unnerving -- average interest-bearing deposits were virtually flat over last year. In all fairness, quarter-end interest-free deposit balances did rise 14%, and the overall increase in cost of funds was roughly in line with the increase in yield on earning assets.
While I'm certainly willing to acknowledge that Hurricane Katrina caused problems for the bank, I just have a hard time getting too excited here. The company seems to have a lot of underperforming branches, and it competes in some difficult deposit markets. What's more, while there's ample room for improvement (or buyout), I'd be more inclined to investigate Fifth Third (NASDAQ:FITB) on that basis.
I'm sure I'll be covering quite a few more banks before this earnings season is finished, so I just can't see the reason to go out and pounce on these shares today. I don't doubt that I'll uncover at least a few better ideas before it's all said and done.
For more Foolish financial findings:
Fool contributor Stephen Simpson has no financial interest in any stocks mentioned (that means he's neither long nor short the shares).
