Stock Yards Bancorp stock dives as Piper cuts to Underweight after recent rally

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Stock Yards Bancorp (NASDAQ:SYBT) shares slid 3.7% in Wednesday afternoon trading after Piper Sandler analyst Brendan Nosal downgraded the regional lender to Underweight from Neutral on the basis that the stock has limited upside following its recent bull run.

In the past six months alone, SYBT jumped 22.3%, significantly outperforming the SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE), +1.5%, as seen in this chart.

Nosal's downbeat coverage of SYBT is purely technical, as he thinks the bank is "one of the highest quality names in the industry, delivering decades of top quartile / top decile performance, a nearly unbroken 30+ year track record of EPS growth, and a conservative credit posture," according to a note written to clients.

But given the stock's recent outperformance and a widened premium valuation to near-peak levels, the analyst sees "near-term upside as limited," noting that the stock is not expected to see downside over the next twelve months.

The Underweight rating contrasts with both the Quant rating of Hold and the average Wall Street analyst rating of Hold.

Previously, (Oct. 26) Stock Yards Q3 earnings topped consensus, helped by growth in loans and NII.