Columbia Banking downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Stephens

Stephens downgraded Columbia Banking to Equal Weight from Overweight with a price target of $24, down from $31, following a 29% operating EPS miss and an “underwhelming guide for 2024” that at the midpoint implied 25% downside to the firm’s prior 2024 operating EPS forecast. While the firm had come away from a late-November non-deal roadshow “optimistic” around deposit growth, cost trends and the potential for modest upside in expenses, the Q4 result was “materially worse than expected,” the analyst tells investors.