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Strength Seen in Bar Harbor (BHB): Can Its 6.7% Jump Turn into More Strength?

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Bar Harbor Bankshares (BHB - Free Report) shares soared 6.7% in the last trading session to close at $32.90. The move was backed by solid volume with far more shares changing hands than in a normal session. This compares to the stock's 2.3% gain over the past four weeks.

Shares of Bar Harbor Bankshares hit a 52-week high of $33.11 on the last day’s trading. The performance of banks is expected improve on rising interest rates and decent demand for commercial and consumer loans. The Federal Reserve is expected to hike the interest rates to approximately 5.1% by 2023 (having already increased the rates by 450 basis points this year) to bring down the “sticky” inflation. This, thus, led to bullish investor sentiments, which drove BHB stock higher.

This bank is expected to post quarterly earnings of $0.81 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of +19.1%. Revenues are expected to be $39.9 million, up 14.1% from the year-ago quarter.

While earnings and revenue growth expectations are important in evaluating the potential strength in a stock, empirical research shows a strong correlation between trends in earnings estimate revisions and near-term stock price movements.

For Bar Harbor, the consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has remained unchanged over the last 30 days. And a stock's price usually doesn't keep moving higher in the absence of any trend in earnings estimate revisions. So, make sure to keep an eye on BHB going forward to see if this recent jump can turn into more strength down the road.

The stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here >>>>

Bar Harbor is a member of the Zacks Banks - Northeast industry. One other stock in the same industry, Peapack-Gladstone (PGC - Free Report) , finished the last trading session 1.3% lower at $36.30. PGC has returned -10.3% over the past month.

For Peapack-Gladstone, the consensus EPS estimate for the upcoming report has remained unchanged over the past month at $1.11. This represents a change of +42.3% from what the company reported a year ago. Peapack-Gladstone currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).


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