...Improving Earnings, Below Peer Averages: SunTrust Banks, Inc.'s (STI) earnings continue to exhibit improvement, and are approaching large regional bank averages. Fitch Ratings notes that improvement in STI's earnings is supported primarily by lower provisioning and expense management. Moderating Asset Quality Trends: Credit quality metrics continue to improve from their peak in mid- to late 2009. Similar to others in the industry, STI has reported improvement in NPAs, NCOs, NPL inflows and delinquencies for quite some time now. STI's level of commercial and consumer NCOs has already approached normalized levels; as such, future asset quality improvement will likely be predicated on continued improvement in residential mortgage and home equity. Fitch notes that credit risk within STI's TDR books is quite manageable with 96% of accruing TDRs current at the end of the recent quarter. Excluding these TDRs, STI's adjusted NPA ratio falls below the large regional bank average. Positioned for...
