SunTrust: Financial Winner

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- SunTrust (STI) was the winner among the largest U.S. financial names on Thursday, with shares rising over 1% to close at $24.70.

The broad indexes were again mixed, as investors reacted to a mixed batch of economic data. The U.S. Labor Department reported that first-time jobless claims for the week ended Aug. 4 declined to 361,000 from an upwardly revised 367,000 the previous week. The four-week moving average for unemployment claims rose to 368,250 from 366,000 the previous week.

The Commerce Department reported that the U.S. trade deficit in June narrowed by 10.7% from May, to $42.9 billion, while exports increased by 0.9%, to $185 billion. Imports declined by 1.5% during June, to $227.9 billion.

China's National Bureau of Statistics reported that the nation's total industrial production increased 9.2% year-over-year, declining from a 9.5% growth rate in June, while retail sales growth slowed to 13.1% from 13.7%.

The KBW Bank Index (I:BKX) rose slightly to close at 46.58, with all but seven of the 24 index components showing at least slight gains for the session.

SunTrust's shares have now declined 2% year-to-date, following a 35% decline during 2011.

Based on a quarterly payout of eight cents, the shares have a dividend yield of 3.93%.

The shares trade 95% of their reported June 30 tangible book value of $26.02, and for 9.5 times the consensus 2013 earnings estimate of $2.61 a share, among analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. The consensus 2012 EPS estimate is $1.98.

The Atlanta lender in its second-quarter 10-Q filing on August 1 estimated that under the Federal Reserve's proposed final rules for the implementation of Basel III capital standards, its Tier 1 common equity ratio was roughly 8.0% as of June 30, declining from the previous reported Basel 1 Tier 1 common equity ratio of 9.40%, which included third-quarter redemptions of trust preferred securities. The company said the estimated Basel III Tier 1 common equity ratio was "comfortably in excess of the proposed requirements," which won't be fully phased-in until January 2019.