Huntington Bancshares price target raised, named Top Pick at Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley analyst Manan Gosalia raised the firm’s price target on Huntington Bancshares (HBAN) to $16 from $13 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares, which the analyst is also making the firm’s Top Pick among midcap banks, replacing M&T Bank (MTB), citing Huntington’s low commercial real estate, or CRE, exposure and high reserve ratio. The events in the past week at New York Community Bancorp (NYCB) don’t change the firm’s view that working through CRE will be a long grind for the group, but with weakness accelerating for the next two to three quarters, adds the analyst, who remains In-Line on midcap banks with a skew to defensive names.