BofI Holding Touches a New 52-Week High - Analyst Blog

On Mar 12, 2014, shares of BofI Holding, Inc. BOFI reached a new 52-week high of $105.37. The momentum was driven by continued solid performance and a strong financial position.

With respect to earnings, this western region bank witnessed positive earnings surprises in three of the last four quarters, with an average beat of 4.12%. In the last reported quarter, earnings successfully surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 5.56% and improved year over year. This also represented the eighteenth consecutive quarter of earnings improvement. BofI Holding's strong and diversified deposits, lending and fee income businesses led to the upside.

BofI Holding is focused on enhancing operations. Toward this end, the company expanded its Commercial and Industrial lending, Lender Finance division (C&I) in Nov 2013. The company, which already has strong brand recognition in provision of debt capital to real estate private lenders, looks forward to gain market traction through this expansion. We expect the collective lending experience of the company to help it to capitalize on this expansion opportunity and reach out to other asset classes as well.

In Sep 2013, BofI Holding acquired round $173 million in deposits from Principal Bank. This transaction expanded the company's customer base by adding new deposit customers to Bank of Internet USA, a subsidiary of BofI Holding. Total deposits surged 22.1% year over year in second-quarter fiscal 2014.

BofI also boasts a strong financial position with asset and loan portfolio improving from the prior-year period.

The stock gained almost 203% in 1–year period. The year-to-date return from the stock is 32.85%, higher than other players in the industry, with EverBank Financial Corp. EVER, The Bancorp Inc. TBBK and Capital One Financial Corp. COF recording 3.33%, 9.43% and –3.6% returns, respectively. Over the last 30 days, estimates moved north to raise the Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2014 by 1.3% to $3.77 per share and fiscal 2015 by 2.2% to $4.55.

BofI Holding currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). The Bancorp is another stock that looks attractive at current level with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).