UPDATE: J.P. Morgan Reiterates Neutral Rating, Raises PT on People's United Financial

In a report published Monday, J.P. Morgan & Co. reiterated its Neutral rating on People's United Financial

, and slightly raised its price target from $12.50 to $13.00. J.P. Morgan noted, “As a general rule of thumb, we're not big fans of bank stocks that are expensive on actual earnings, but more reasonably priced on what the bank could theoretically earn via deployment of excess capital. What underlies this position is the risk to the investor that the ‘theoretical' earnings never actually materialize into actual earnings, typically tied to management teams paying more for transactions (and hence receiving less earnings) than what was implied in their stock price. While Peoples fits nicely into this bucket of a stock that is expensive on near-term earnings, trading at 15.6x 2013e EPS, or an 11% premium to peers, and trading more reasonably priced on long-term earnings power, trading at 8.5x our 2016e EPS, or a more modest 4% premium to peers, we don't see PBCT at very high risk of doing transactions that deliver less return that what could be achieved via organic growth and buybacks. In fact, we've been impressed with the still relatively new management team at PBCT which thus far seem to have done more walking away than walking to deals that don't deliver enough economic profit to their shareholders.” People's United Financial closed on Friday at $12.29.