The Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Ltd (ASX: BEN) share price is having a disappointing year.
With a little over a week left in 2021, the regional bank's shares are trading down 6% year to date.
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Will 2022 be better for the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank share price?
There's good news and bad news when it comes to the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank share price in 2022.
The good news is that a number of brokers have price targets above where the bank's shares are currently trading.
The bad news is that despite this, none are prepared to recommend its shares as a buy at present.
What are brokers saying?
The team at Goldman Sachs currently has a neutral rating and $9.90 price target. This compares to current Bendigo and Adelaide Bank share price of $8.90.
Goldman has concerns over regional bank earnings due to retail banking profitability pressures. And while fellow regional player Bank of Queensland Limited (ASX: BOQ) is also exposed to this, the broker believes it has more opportunities to offset these headwinds.
Its analysts commented: "With 72% and 78% of their loan books exposed to Australian mortgages (retail-focused bank average 63%), and having written 57% and >45% of new mortgages as fixed rates in 2H21A, BEN and BOQ remain heavily exposed to this thematic."
"Furthermore, as price takers in the mortgage market, both will rely on the major banks to drive further fixed rate mortgage repricing to offset these pressures. We therefore downgrade BEN and BOQ's FY22/23/24E EPS by -7.8%/-9.5%/-10.3% and -3.1%/-3.1%/-3.0% respectively. As a result of our EPS changes, our BEN and BOQ TPs fall by -5.7%/-3.5% to A$9.90/A$9.66, respectively."
In light of this, it could be another tough 12 months for the bank's shares in 2022.
