Essent Group price target lowered to $50 from $53 at JPMorgan

JPMorgan analyst Richard Shane lowered the firm’s price target on Essent Group to $50 from $53 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares. Following a recent wave of downgrades in the consumer finance sector, the market seems "locked on already discounted risks, rather than casting a view out toward the next horizon," Shane tells investors in a research note. The analyst believes this is creating a "wave of investment opportunities" into the Q4 results. The reports "will be messy," with downside risk to earnings estimates, says the analyst. He thinks this will be most acute for the card issuers as peak seasonal and cyclical growth "collided" in Q4.