Out Fox The $treet

Synovus Financial (SNV) was hit pretty hard today by the FBR analyst downgrade . The stock slid all the way down to $3.17 or over 8% at one point. Evidently the downgrade caught some investors off guard as it didn't highlight anything new and basically just offered a different opinion to that provided by management. One that should've been a concern of any investor. FBR claimed that SNV wouldn't be profitable this year as management claimed and that the bank wouldn't likely be bought out. Not really sure who would buy an unprofitable regional bank on a buyout hopes other then small retail investors. The whole reason to buy SNV is that they trade very cheaply compared to normalized earnings ( see Tom Brown for more detail ). With the economy turning and the real estate sector likely bottoming out, I'm not sure why FBR is so eager to fight the trend. Clearly management at SNV is too be questioned so I think the fact that it only trades at $3.25 now confirms that conce...

Synovus Financial (SNV) has been on fire the last week As of this afternoon it was roughly 25% over the 20EMA and the RSI was 76. Both indications that the stock is extended so we sold roughly 33% of our shares in the Growth and Opportunistic Portfolios. We'll add the shares back as the stock cools down or approaches the 200EMA around $3.17.

Most importantly to us, Regions Financial (RF) and Synovous Financial (SNV) our both up sharply today. For RF its clearly partly technical as they hit new 52 week highs and breakout from a double top. For SNV its like just a move with the sector today. Cramer was bullish on banks yesterday and in general the tone seems to be improving. The Opportunistic/CVIM Model is doing the best today as it has a higher concentration in those 2 stocks while the Growth Portfolio is also gaining in large part to a high concentration in the financial sector at roughly 20%. Though it contains much more of Hartford Financial (HIG) and ICICI (IBN) then these 2 regional banks. The chart on RF looks similar to how we expect the SP500 to go over the next few weeks. Initial weakness at the recent high (Jan in the case of the SP500) and then support from the rising 20ema and an eventual push to new highs on the 3rd try at 1150. SP500 Finally the chart of SNV. Not as impressive as RF. Still need to work thru s...

Now this news from CNBC and the fact Synovus Financial (SNV) is down 10% tops the list of absurdity. No way SNV would issue any share to repay TARP. They aren't in any pressure and in fact shareholders don't want them to repay TARP at this time. Maybe if the shares jumped to $5-6 they could consider an offering to repay TARP. Otherwise, thats just an issue for the major banks like PNC that did an offering this morning. Buy the dips from the dips! Analysts said regional bank shares were hurt by the prospect of TARP repayments, including dilutive common stock offerings like PNC's announcement, and investor worries about first-quarter 2010 performance. Edit 3:10 : Interesting note from FBR on buying the regionals on this dip. Buy! says FBR Capital Markets analyst Paul Miller in a note to clients today. On a selective basis, we believe that such an overhang may present an attractive entry point for investors to add or build positions. Names that we would look to take advanta...

The market might have sold off today 'due' to the results at JPMorgan (JPM) and the fears of higher credit costs, but if anything it was a buy the rumor and sell the news. Or maybe just the media reporting the results in such a negative way that it scared the market. We'd bet that come Tuesday, all the buyers will be back as they realize that JPM could easily earn $3.5 next year making the stock clearly cheap. JPM reported net income of $3.3B or $.74 per share easily beating the $.61 estimates. Revenue was lower then expected, but that's nothing to get excited about in this recovery. Earnings rule revenue any time of the day. They beat estimates by 20% after all but that got quickly brushed aside. reported fourth-quarter 2009 net income of $3.3 billion, compared with net income of $702 million in the fourth quarter of 2008. Earnings per share were $0.74, compared with $0.06 in the fourth quarter of 2008. For the full year of 2009, net income was $11.7 billion, or $2.26...

Interesting note from Investopeida on the insider buys at SNV. Whats even more interesting is that the stock has been crushed. Insiders evidently saw the Q3 write offs as a peak while outsiders saw fear of more of the same in the future. We're still sticking with the insider for now. After all the yield curve is on their side. Synchronized Buying Synovus Financial Corp. (NYSE: SNV ) saw some very active buying in the last week by the company's CFO and one director, and steady buying from seven separate corporate insiders since September 22. The total number of shares purchased over that period was 162,500 with an average cost of roughly $3.00, for a total of approximately $488,000.

The Wall St Journal is reporting that the proposal to allow Tax Loss Carry Backs for 5 years is poised to be approved next week. It's been difficult to find information on this subject as we originally wrote about it on Wednesday [Tax Loss Proposal Gains Support] and hadn't seen any news about it until finding this article. The proposal is significant because it will provide immediate capital to a lot of struggling small cap stocks such as Liz Claiborne (LIZ) mentioned in the article. Basically any company losing money now would immediately be able to receive a portion of the taxes back that they've paid the last 5 years. The more they've lost the better. The article doesn't mention financials so we're still wondering what the impact will be on companies such as Regions Financial (RF) or Synovus Financial (SNV) that both received TARP money. If those companies were to get a refund, Congress might come under fire. If excluded, LIZ or Terex (TEX) would be our fa...

Both Phoenix ( PNX ) and Synovus Financial ( SNV ) are small cap financials trading below book value. PNX being a badly beaten down insurance company left for dead and SNV being a regional bank that recently did an offering 10% higher. For SNV we have added to a position began at $2.8. If the economy continues to recover, these 2 financials will be big winners. Edit 11PM: PNX closed above the 20EMA which remains above the 200EMA. If the stock gets follow thru tomorrow, its a must buy with a book value close to $8. Disclosure: Long in client and personal accounts

Bought an initial position in Synovus Financial (SNV) for the Growth Portfolio. SNV is a Georgia based banking institution hard hit by non performing loans. SNV recently did a $600M equity offering at $4 so the purchase around $3.8 is a 5% discount to that offering. As we've seen on most of these banking deals, the offering eliminates the 'going out of business' fear and allows for the stock to eventually trade more based on normalized earnings down the road in 2011. The extra cash also gives SNV the opportunity to snap up some of the banks that seem to fail every week in GA. The other reasons to buy are based on the analysis by banking expert Tom Brown and the technicals suggesting prices above $3.8 are support. Do your own homework but don't take too long.