Truist Financial Corp shares declined 0.4% on February 23, 2026, amid broader market weakness in the banking sector. Banking stocks traded lower following President Trump's announcement of plans to raise global tariffs to 15%. Market concerns centered on macroeconomic uncertainty from tariff announcements, potential credit losses from increased unemployment driven by artificial intelligence disruption, and private credit-related exposure concerns. Morningstar reported that US banks traded down by low-to-mid single digits on this date due to these macro concerns. Despite the decline, Morningstar maintained fair value estimates for US banks, noting the sector trades at approximately 1.0 times fair value estimates and remains well capitalized. This came days after Morgan Stanley upgraded Truist Financial from equal weight to overweight with a $69.00 price target on February 20, 2026.
Read full analysisTruist Financial Corp shares declined 0.4% on February 23, 2026, amid broader market weakness in the banking sector. Banking stocks traded lower following President Trump's announcement of plans to raise global tariffs to 15%. Market concerns centered on macroeconomic uncertainty from tariff announcements, potential credit losses from increased unemployment driven by artificial intelligence disruption, and private credit-related exposure concerns. Morningstar reported that US banks traded down by low-to-mid single digits on this date due to these macro concerns. Despite the decline, Morningstar maintained fair value estimates for US banks, noting the sector trades at approximately 1.0 times fair value estimates and remains well capitalized. This came days after Morgan Stanley upgraded Truist Financial from equal weight to overweight with a $69.00 price target on February 20, 2026.
Truist Financial is one of the largest U.S. regional banks, formed from the 2019 merger of BB&T and SunTrust, serving consumer and commercial clients primarily across the Southeast. The company is executing a major restructuring aimed at saving $750 million over 18 months through streamlined operations and fewer management layers. As a large regional bank with a beta of 0.89, Truist is directly exposed to the broad financials sector pressure from tariff uncertainty and macro concerns driving the current selloff.