10 Best Local Bank Stocks To Invest In Now

1. The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE:PNC)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q2 2024: 51

The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE:PNC) is a Pennsylvania based regional bank that provides asset management, commercial, retail, and institutional banking services. Its heft, as evidenced by a whopping $561 billion in total assets provides the bank not only with the stability to weather downturns but also the agility to prepare itself for the future. The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE:PNC) is doing just that, as it ended the second quarter with a liquidity coverage ratio of 119% which was 19 percentage points higher than the requirement of 100%. This provides the bank with the ability to offer more loans right when rates are dropping, in order to boost its interest income while other banks focus on non interest income. The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE:PNC) aims to do just this, and it is currently aiming to deploy this capital in the second half of 2024 and 2025. The bank also bolstered its cash position in Q2 by marking a $745 million gain through monetizing its stake in Visa.

The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE:PNC) ‘s management also shared key details for its deposit base during the Q2 2024 earnings call when it revealed:

“Average deposits declined $3 billion or 1% reflecting seasonally lower corporate balances. Regarding mix, consolidated non-interest bearing deposits were 23% of total deposits in the second quarter, down less than 1 percentage point from the first quarter.

Additionally, average non-interest bearing deposits had the smallest dollar decline in the second quarter of 2024 since the Fed began raising rates in 2022, which gives us confidence that the non-interest bearing portion of our deposits has largely stabilized. And our rate paid on interest bearing deposits increased by only 1 basis point during the second quarter to 2.61%. We believe our rate paid on deposits is approaching its peak level, but we do expect some potential to [drift] (ph) higher as interest rates remain elevated.”

PNC tops our list of the best hedge fund local bank stocks. But our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than PNC but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

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