BOK FINANCIAL CORP (BOKF): what the price requires

At today's price, BOK FINANCIAL CORP (BOKF) is priced for 12.1% return on equity. boothcheck doesn't publish a fair value or a price target; it shows what the price assumes, so you can judge whether that bar is too high.

Generated: 2026-07-14 · Exported: 2026-07-16 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/BOKF

Headline

FieldValue
TickerBOKF
CompanyBOK FINANCIAL CORP
Current price$138.26/sh
CompositionCommercial Banking 50% / Consumer Banking 19% / Wealth Management 31%

What The Price Requires (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

FieldValue
Inversion basisfinancials
Return on equity needed12.1%
Return on equity now9.8%
ROE gap+2.3pp
Price-to-book1.41x

Solve inputs: computed at a 9.8% cost of equity with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage, on common book equity (FY2026); each 1pp of cost of equity moves the implied ROE ~1.4pp.

How unusual the bet is: elevated

ReferenceValue
vs own history+2.43σ
cohort percentile (of 119 peers)52
sustained it ~10 years at this level70%
implied end-window share0%

Valuation X-Ray

The price is supported by asset-based and earnings-power and relative-multiple and growth-DCF value. A value/asset-supported name, not a pure growth bet.

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

FamilyMedian price/FVModelsReads
Asset1.19x3expensive
Earnings0.86x2justifies
Relative0.89x3justifies
Growth1.18x1expensive

Families that justify the price: Asset, Earnings, Relative, Growth

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 5.1%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=9)

ModelFamilyFVPrice/FVApplicableMethodology
DCF Perpetual GrowthGrowth——no—
Bank Fair Value (P/TBV)—$93.781.47xyesTBVPS $81.56 × 1.15x (ROE (TTM) 10.3% / CoE 9.3%, g=5.0% (sustainable: 65% retention × ROE, 5% cap; not the terminal-growth assumption), credit 1.07% allowance/loans → ×0.93)
Relative ValuationRelative$112.301.23xyesP/E 10x (static sector reference · 2026-04), scenarios: 8.3x / 10.0x / 11.7x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA N/Ax
Simple DDMGrowth——no—
Two-Stage DDMGrowth——no—
Simple Excess ReturnAsset$110.571.25xyesBV/sh $99.50, ROE (TTM) 10.3%, ke 9.3%
Two-Stage Excess ReturnAsset$116.361.19xyes5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3%
Discounted Future Market CapGrowth$116.751.18xyesRev $1.4B, growth 10% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 5.1x / 6.1x / 7.2x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x)
Peter Lynch Fair ValueRelative$155.560.89xyesEPS $9.89, growth 16% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=0.86 (Undervalued)
Margin TrajectoryGrowth——no—
Earnings Power ValueEarnings——no—
Residual IncomeAsset——no—
Graham NumberAsset$148.800.93xyes√(22.5 × EPS $9.89 × BVPS $99.50) — Graham's conservative floor
EV/EBITDA RelativeRelative——no—
FCF YieldEarnings——no—
SBC-Adj FCF YieldEarnings——no—
Ben Graham FormulaEarnings$319.120.43xyesEPS $9.89 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%)
ROIC-Justified P/BAsset——no—
P/Sales SectorRelative——no—
PEG Fair ValueRelative$233.340.59xyesEPS $9.89 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 15.7% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 23.6x
Earnings YieldEarnings$106.921.29xyesEPS $9.89 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%)
Funds From Operations MultipleRelative——no—
Clinical Phase NPVGrowth——no—
MertonAsset——no—
V5 Mechanical———no—

Solvency

FieldValue
Share count CAGR (buyback)-3.0%

Deposit/float-funded balance sheet: debt is funding, not corporate leverage, and GAAP operating cash flow follows loan flows. Net-debt, interest-coverage, and cash-burn lenses do not apply. The solvency frame for a financial is regulatory capital and payout capacity (CET1, stress buffer, dividends plus buybacks against earnings).

Bullet Takeaways

At about $130 the stock sits above the conservative bank frames and inside the optimistic ones. The price is not cheap, but it is not stretched either.

The earnings are doing the work. First-quarter 2026 net income rose to $155.8 million, EPS of $2.58 beat the $2.30 consensus, net interest margin expanded to 2.90% year over year, and fee income was up 13.9%. Loan growth was strong across Texas, Oklahoma, and Arizona.

The distinguishing feature is the fee mix, but it cuts both ways. BOK Financial earns an unusually large share from wealth management, brokerage, and investment banking, which diversifies it from rate risk but exposes it to capital-markets cycles and energy-sector concentration in its lending base.

Bull Case

Measure where the price sits against the methods, because that is the cleanest read on a bank like this. At about $130 (June 27, 2026), BOK Financial trades above its most conservative valuation frames and below its most optimistic. The Bank Fair Value model, which capitalizes the return-on-equity premium over cost of equity, lands at $94 on a 1.15 times tangible-book multiple. Above the price, Relative Valuation, the excess-return frames, and the growth-tilted methods all reach into the $110s and higher. The price is therefore in the upper-middle of the valuation cone, which says the market is paying a fair price for a quality franchise, not an aggressive one.

The operating results justify the placement. First-quarter 2026 net income rose to $155.8 million from $119.8 million a year earlier, and EPS of $2.58 beat the $2.30 consensus and was up sharply from $1.86. Net interest margin expanded to 2.90% from 2.78% a year ago, net interest income grew year over year, and fees and commissions were up 13.9%. The loan book grew across its core geographies, with Texas, Oklahoma, and Arizona all posting high-single-digit to better annualized growth, and management guided to roughly 10% loan growth for the full year.

The differentiator is the revenue mix. BOK Financial earns an unusually high share of its revenue from fees, including wealth management, brokerage, and investment banking, which makes it less dependent on net interest margin than a typical regional bank. That diversification smooths earnings across rate cycles. Credit quality is pristine, with no provision required in the quarter, non-performing assets falling to $52 million, and minimal net charge-offs. A bank growing loans at double digits, expanding its margin, diversified by fee income, and carrying clean credit, priced in the middle of its valuation range, is a reasonable proposition.

Bear Case

The disruption risk for BOK Financial is its concentration, and it runs along two lines that mainstream competitors do not share. The first is energy. BOK Financial is an Oklahoma- and Texas-centered bank with a meaningful energy-lending franchise, and energy is a boom-bust sector. When oil and gas prices fall, energy borrowers come under stress, and a bank concentrated in that lending faces credit losses that diversified national banks can absorb more easily. The geographic concentration in the energy-belt states compounds the issue: a regional energy downturn would hit the loan book, the local economy, and the deposit base at once. The competitors that matter here are not just other banks but the larger, more diversified institutions that can underwrite energy credit through the cycle without the same regional exposure.

The second concentration is the fee mix that the bull case celebrates. BOK Financial's heavy reliance on investment banking, brokerage, and wealth-management fees diversifies it from rate risk, but it introduces capital-markets cyclicality. The first quarter already showed the downside: total fees fell sequentially, with the company attributing the decline to lower investment banking revenue driven by seasonality and transaction volume. Capital-markets revenue is lumpy and tied to market conditions, and a slow year for deal activity or trading would pressure a revenue stream that a deposit-and-loan bank would not depend on. The fee engine is a differentiator, but it is also a source of volatility the price does not fully account for.

The valuation is the third consideration. The inversion reads the price as assuming a return on equity of about 11.7%, while the bank has recently earned closer to 9.8%, so the assumed return runs above its actual record. The franchise is high quality and the credit is clean, so this is not a distress case. It is a case of paying an above-average multiple for a bank whose two distinguishing features, energy lending and capital-markets fees, are also its two largest sources of cyclical risk.

Valuation

BOK Financial is valued the way a bank should be, on the return it earns on its capital, so the price is read off price-to-book rather than an operating multiple. At about $130 the stock trades near 1.3 times book. Inverting that, the price assumes the bank sustains a return on equity of about 11.7% at a 9.8% cost of equity. The bank has recently earned about 9.8%, so the assumed return runs above its actual record, which is the main thing to weigh.

The model spread brackets the price from both sides. On the optimistic end, Relative Valuation and the excess-return frames land in the $110s, and several growth-tilted methods reach much higher on aggressive growth inputs that a mature regional bank does not merit.

The priced-in label is within range, and the price-to-book sits in the upper half of the peer group. The honest synthesis is that the stock is priced for a return on equity modestly above what it has lately delivered, which makes it fully valued rather than cheap on the conservative lens, and reasonable if the fee diversification and loan growth lift the return toward the assumed 11.7%. The deciding variables are net interest margin as rates evolve, the durability of the capital-markets fee income that just dipped sequentially, energy and regional credit quality, and whether loan growth near the guided 10% converts into the higher return the price assumes.

Catalysts

First-quarter 2026 results, reported in April, were the recent driver and they beat. Net income rose to $155.8 million with EPS of $2.58, ahead of the $2.30 consensus and up from $1.86 a year earlier. Net interest income totaled $342.6 million, the net interest margin expanded to 2.90% from 2.78% a year ago though it slipped from 2.98% sequentially, and fees and commissions of $209.8 million were up 13.9% year over year despite a sequential dip from lower investment banking activity. Loan growth was broad across Texas, Oklahoma, and Arizona, credit was clean with no provision required and non-performing assets falling to $52 million, and the bank paid a quarterly dividend of $0.63 per share.

Management's full-year 2026 guidance frames the forward case: net interest income of $1.42 billion to $1.45 billion, fee income of $820 million to $845 million, and loan growth near 10%. The pace of loan growth and the recovery of capital-markets fees are the key swing factors.

The watch items are net interest margin as the rate cycle turns, the volatility of investment banking and brokerage fees, energy and regional credit quality, loan growth against the 10% guide, and the dividend. Sources: BOK Financial Q1 2026 results, 8-K, and 10-Q (sec.gov), earnings coverage and call transcript (finance.yahoo.com, gurufocus.com, fool.com, benzinga.com).

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Commercial Banking (reported)

Consumer Banking (reported)

Wealth Management (reported)

Methodology Note

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.

View the full interactive BOKF report on boothcheck