Four of the top five most expensive companies, based on estimated earnings, are headquartered in California: Westamerica Bancorp., First Republic Bank, CVB Financial Corp. and SVB Financial Group.
S&P Global Market Intelligence analyzed profitable U.S. banks and thrifts that appear to be valued more as a multiple of earnings than tangible book value. To be included in this analysis, a company had to report a return on average tangible common equity for the last 12 months above 8% and have at least three analyst EPS estimates available for fiscal year 2018. In addition, the bottom 10% of banks and thrifts by price-to-tangible book value were excluded from the analysis.

February's market turbulence knocked stock valuations down among the banks that met this criteria. The median price for U.S. banks and thrifts to 14.5x of 2018 estimated earnings as of Feb. 28, down from 16.3x as of Dec. 5, 2017, when S&P Global Market Intelligence last analyzed valuation.
Seventeen of the top 25 U.S. bank stocks by valuation are expected to post slower earnings growth than the industry median. Annual earnings per share is expected to grow by a median 24.8% for the industry, compared to 22.3% for the top 25, as of Feb. 28.
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