BOK Financial (BOKF)

Regional banking company BOK Financial (NASDAQ:BOKF) reported Q4 CY2025 results beating Wall Street’s revenue expectations, with sales up 12.2% year on year to $589.6 million. Its GAAP profit of $2.89 per share was 33.3% above analysts’ consensus estimates.

Company Overview

Tracing its roots back to 1910 when Oklahoma was still a young state, BOK Financial (NASDAQ:BOKF) is a regional bank holding company that provides commercial banking, consumer banking, and wealth management services across eight states in the central and southwestern US.

Regional banks, financial institutions operating within specific geographic areas, serve as intermediaries between local depositors and borrowers. They benefit from rising interest rates that improve net interest margins (the difference between loan yields and deposit costs), digital transformation reducing operational expenses, and local economic growth driving loan demand. However, these banks face headwinds from fintech competition, deposit outflows to higher-yielding alternatives, credit deterioration (increasing loan defaults) during economic slowdowns, and regulatory compliance costs. Recent concerns about regional bank stability following high-profile failures and significant commercial real estate exposure present additional challenges.

BOK Financial competes with other regional banks operating in the South and Midwest such as Comerica (NYSE:CMA), Cullen/Frost Bankers (NYSE:CFR), and Zions Bancorporation (NASDAQ:ZION), as well as larger national banks including JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC).

Net interest income and and fee-based revenue are the two pillars supporting bank earnings. The former captures profit from the gap between lending rates and deposit costs, while the latter encompasses charges for banking services, credit products, wealth management, and trading activities. Regrettably, BOK Financial’s revenue grew at a sluggish 2.2% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. This fell short of our benchmarks and is a poor baseline for our analysis.

Long-term growth is the most important, but within financials, a half-decade historical view may miss recent interest rate changes and market returns. BOK Financial’s annualized revenue growth of 2.7% over the last two years aligns with its five-year trend, suggesting its demand was consistently weak. Note: Quarters not shown were determined to be outliers, impacted by outsized investment gains/losses that are not indicative of the recurring fundamentals of the business.

This quarter, BOK Financial reported year-on-year revenue growth of 12.2%, and its $589.6 million of revenue exceeded Wall Street’s estimates by 7.1%.

Net interest income made up 61.3% of the company’s total revenue during the last five years, meaning lending operations are BOK Financial’s largest source of revenue.

Net interest income commands greater market attention due to its reliability and consistency, whereas non-interest income is often seen as lower-quality revenue that lacks the same dependable characteristics.

Revenue trends explain a company’s historical growth, but the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) points to the profitability of that growth – for example, a company could inflate its sales through excessive spending on advertising and promotions.

BOK Financial’s EPS grew at an unimpressive 8.1% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. This performance was better than its flat revenue but doesn’t tell us much about its business quality because its efficiency ratio didn’t improve.

Like with revenue, we analyze EPS over a more recent period because it can provide insight into an emerging theme or development for the business.

For BOK Financial, its two-year annual EPS growth of 7% was lower than its five-year trend. We hope its growth can accelerate in the future.

In Q4, BOK Financial reported EPS of $2.89, up from $2.12 in the same quarter last year. This print easily cleared analysts’ estimates, and shareholders should be content with the results. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects BOK Financial’s full-year EPS of $9.16 to shrink by 2.7%. This is unusual as its revenue and operating margin are anticipated to increase, signaling the fall likely stems from "below-the-line" items such as taxes.

The balance sheet drives banking profitability since earnings flow from the spread between borrowing and lending rates. As such, valuations for these companies concentrate on capital strength and sustainable equity accumulation potential.

When analyzing banks, tangible book value per share (TBVPS) takes precedence over many other metrics. This measure isolates genuine per-share value by removing intangible assets of debatable liquidation worth. On the other hand, EPS is often distorted by mergers and flexible loan loss accounting. TBVPS provides clearer performance insights.

BOK Financial’s TBVPS grew at a solid 6.3% annual clip over the last five years. TBVPS growth has also accelerated recently, growing by 13.3% annually over the last two years from $62.15 to $79.83 per share.

Over the next 12 months, Consensus estimates call for BOK Financial’s TBVPS to grow by 8.6% to $86.71, paltry growth rate.

Leverage is core to a financial firm’s business model (loans funded by deposits). To ensure economic stability and avoid a repeat of the 2008 GFC, regulators require certain levels of capital and liquidity, focusing on the Tier 1 capital ratio.

Tier 1 capital is the highest-quality capital that a firm holds, consisting primarily of common stock and retained earnings, but also physical gold. It serves as the primary cushion against losses and is the first line of defense in times of financial distress.

This capital is divided by risk-weighted assets to derive the Tier 1 capital ratio. Risk-weighted means that cash and US treasury securities are assigned little risk while unsecured consumer loans and equity investments get much higher risk weights, for example.

New regulation after the 2008 financial crisis requires that all firms must maintain a Tier 1 capital ratio greater than 4.5%. On top of this, there are additional buffers based on scale, risk profile, and other regulatory classifications, so that at the end of the day, firms generally must maintain a 7-10% ratio at minimum.

Over the last two years, BOK Financial has averaged a Tier 1 capital ratio of 12.9%, which is considered safe and well capitalized in the event that macro or market conditions suddenly deteriorate.

Return on equity, or ROE, tells us how much profit a company generates for each dollar of shareholder equity, a key funding source for banks. Over a long period, banks with high ROE tend to compound shareholder wealth faster through retained earnings, buybacks, and dividends.

Over the last five years, BOK Financial has averaged an ROE of 10.6%, respectable for a company operating in a sector where the average shakes out around 7.5% and those putting up 15%+ are greatly admired.

It was good to see BOK Financial beat analysts’ EPS expectations this quarter. We were also excited its revenue outperformed Wall Street’s estimates by a wide margin. Zooming out, we think this was a good print with some key areas of upside. The stock traded up 2% to $130.62 immediately following the results.

Updated: January 16, 2026 at 11:49 PM EST

When considering an investment in BOK Financial, investors should account for its valuation and business qualities as well as what’s happened in the latest quarter.

We see the value of companies driving economic growth, but in the case of BOK Financial, we’re out. To kick things off, its revenue growth was weak over the last five years. And while its TBVPS growth was solid over the last five years, the downside is its net interest income growth was weak over the last five years. On top of that, its net interest margin limits its operating profit potential compared to other banks that can earn more, all else equal..

BOK Financial’s P/B ratio based on the next 12 months is 1.2x. At this valuation, there’s a lot of good news priced in - we think there are better stocks to buy right now.

Wall Street analysts have a consensus one-year price target of $124.50 on the company (compared to the current share price of $125.69).