M&T Bank CFO: 'We're Slogging Through'

M&T Bank was dropping in recent trading Monday, losing $11.05, or 15.9%, to $58.65.

Standard & Poor's analyst Erik Oja, who has a hold rating on the bank and an $85 price target for the stock, believes that the profit outlook may begin to improve in the latter half of 2008. He thinks that several regional banks will not need to raise additional capital or cut their dividends.

"For most banks, we also expect the growth of nonperforming loans to slow, which we think would be a positive for the industry," wrote Oja.

The large-cap banks haven't fared as well as some of the regional banks, with firms like Citigroup (C Quote) and Wachovia (WB Quote) turning in losses for the first quarter and not expected to do much better in the second.

On M&T's conference call, Jones said that commercial real estate had been fairly solid. He also noted that he doesn't expect charge-offs to abate anytime soon. "I expect that we'll have a couple of quarters like we've seen. Two, three. We're slogging through it."