Capitol Federal price target raised to $8.50 from $8 at Piper Sandler

Piper Sandler raised the firm’s price target on Capitol Federal (CFFN) to $8.50 from $8 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares following quarterly results. The firm notes the bank continues to diversify more into commercial lending, which on top of some further funding cost leverage helped produce Capitol Federal’s 7th consecutive quarter of net interest margin expansion to 2.24%. Low-single-digit growth remains the outlook as residential run-off is replaced with commercial production, with more than enough capital to support this.