The Judo Capital Holdings Ltd (ASX: JDO) share price is charging higher today.
Judo shares closed yesterday at $1.58 and are currently trading for $1.67, up 5.6%.
The challenger bank listed in the ASX in November last year, with a focus on lending to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).
Here's what's piquing ASX investor interest today.
What did the bank report?
The Judo share price is gaining following two price-sensitive announcements released in recent days.
First, on Friday, Judo updated the market on its loan book, as at 30 April. The bank reported a closing balance for gross loans and advances (GLAs) of $5.56 billion. That equates to lending growth of $220 million for April, up 4.1% from March.
Commenting on the result, Judo deputy CEO Chris Bayliss said, "We remain confident in achieving our prospectus forecast for GLA of $6.0 billion by 30 June 2022, underpinned by our current lending balance and our pipeline of approximately $1.1 billion."
Judo share price lifts amid investor day presentation
In this morning's release, the bank reported it is holding its inaugural investor day in Sydney today.
Among the core results. The bank said it expects to achieve or beat all of its prospectus metrics for the 2022 financial year.
In the current environment of rising inflation and interest rate hikes, investors may also be bidding up the Judo share price on its report that it has "significant positive leverage" to rising interest rates.
Addressing the investor day presentation, Judo's CEO and co-founder, Joseph Healy said:
We believe specialists beat generalists every time. Judo is a specialist SME bank which operates with risk management at its core…
Along with our lending growth, our team at Judo is also growing as we continue to attract talented bankers who want to be part of Judo as we scale towards becoming a world class SME business bank.
Bayliss added, "The outlook for ongoing cash rate increases provides a significant tailwind for our margins given our lending portfolio is largely floating-rate, while our funding costs are predominantly fixed."
Judo share price snapshot
It's been a rough year for the Judo share price. Despite today's boost, shares in the ASX bank remain down 22.9% since 4 January. That compares to a year-to-date loss of 8.2% posted by the All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO).
