"Bank Stocks, Limited Rise Despite Price Merits"

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jihwan] The sluggishness of bank stocks is expected to continue for the time being. Currently, they are significantly underperforming the market, presenting a low-price merit, but the upward trend is expected to be limited.

Kim Eungap, a researcher at IBK Investment & Securities, said on the 26th, "The January stock return of bank stocks this year was -5.2%, underperforming the KOSPI return of 2.9% by 8.1 percentage points," adding, "While other industries with bright business outlooks have recovered their stock prices after the ex-dividend date, bank stocks remain sluggish."

Researcher Kim explained, "This can be seen as reflecting the expectation that 2020 earnings will be at best similar to those of 2019," and added, "Recent regulations on mortgage loans are expected to constrain loan growth, and issues related to the sale of financial products also seem to have affected the poor stock performance."

He noted that bank stocks have relatively intensified underperformance compared to other industries, and with a PBR of 0.42 times, the stock price is worth expecting a rebound, but even if it rebounds, the increase is expected to be limited. Additionally, the ROE forecast is also gradually declining.