Largest holding in my port by far is EWBC. It's a regional bank and so it has been hammered alongside all the other regionals since SIVB.
It is also chartered in CA where most of of the turbulence happened. There has been a lot of negative pressure on it because of that proximity. However, EWBC is very different from the other names you have seen in the news. They cater specifically to the Asian-American community and have branches all over Eastern Asia as well as CA and several other states.
The fundamentals are simply off the charts. They are extremely conservative and have always been. Their CEO,Dominic Ng, has been with the company since the early 90s and is well-respected in the banking community and in China-US relations and is a big driver of the conservative position.
They reported earnings a couple weeks ago and had record net interest income while other banks have been trending down for multiple quarters now. This is likely because of their large cash position and the fact that they had dry powder to essentially “average down” in treasuries. They have a sizeable cash hoard compared to other regionals of their size. Their costs were elevated last quarter and therefore it was a slight miss YoY comparison in earnings. They are currently absorbing clients from their failed competition and are spending on those. They had record deposits again this quarter.
Their credit quality is far and above almost all other banks I have looked at. Their ratio of high quality loans (CET1) is higher than most major banks including JPM. With the bond yield inversions close to going positive again, banks that don't have credit or liquidity issues will mop up for the foreseeable future. EWBC is also doing buybacks this quarter while other banks are scrambling for liquidity.
Here is some light reading from folks you might trust more: https://www.tradingview.com/news/reuters.com,2023:newsml_L4N3C04C8:0-ubs-cheers-east-west-bancorp-s-enviable-position-with-upgrade/
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