Regions Financial Corporation Stock Hold Recommendation Reiterated (RF)

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Regions Financial Corporation (NYSE:RF) has been reiterated by TheStreet Ratings as a hold with a ratings score of C. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its compelling growth in net income, expanding profit margins and notable return on equity. However, as a counter to these strengths, we find that we feel that the company's cash flow from its operations has been weak overall.

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Highlights from the ratings report include:

• REGIONS FINANCIAL CORP has shown improvement in its earnings for its most recently reported quarter when compared with the same quarter a year earlier. The company has demonstrated a pattern of positive earnings per share growth over the past two years. We feel that this trend should continue. This trend suggests that the performance of the business is improving. During the past fiscal year, REGIONS FINANCIAL CORP continued to lose money by earning -$0.02 versus -$0.63 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings ($0.59 versus -$0.02).
• The net income growth from the same quarter one year ago has significantly exceeded that of the S&P 500 and the Commercial Banks industry. The net income increased by 188.4% when compared to the same quarter one year prior, rising from $69.00 million to $199.00 million.
• Despite the weak revenue results, RF has outperformed against the industry average of 25.1%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly dropped by 9.3%. The declining revenue has not hurt the company's bottom line, with increasing earnings per share.
• This stock has managed to decline in share value by 3.33% over the past twelve months. We feel that the combination of its price rise over the last year and its current price-to-earnings ratio relative to its industry tend to reduce its upside potential.
• Net operating cash flow has decreased to $755.00 million or 43.31% when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, when comparing to the industry average, the firm's growth rate is much lower.

Regions Financial Corporation operates as the holding company for Regions Bank that provides a range of commercial, retail, and mortgage banking services in the United States. The company has a P/E ratio of 56.1667,and above the S&P 500 P/E ratio of 17.7. Regions Financial has a market cap of $9.52 billion and is part of the financial sector and banking industry. Shares are up 51.4% year to date as of the close of trading on Thursday.

You can view the full Regions Financial Ratings Report or get investment ideas from our investment research center.

--Written by a member of TheStreet Ratings Staff.

TheStreet ratings do not represent the views of TheStreet's staff or its contributors. Ratings are established by computer based on metrics for performance (which includes growth, stock performance, efficiency and valuation) and risk (volatility and solvency). Companies with poor cash flow or high debt levels tend to earn lower ratings in our model.

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