FirstFed Financial initiated with "outperform"

07/02/07 - Credit Suisse

NEW YORK, July 2 (newratings.com) - Analyst K Hueston of Credit Suisse initiates coverage of FirstFed Financial Corp (FED) with an "outperform" rating. The 12-month target price is set to $80.

In a research note published this morning, the analyst mentions that the attractiveness of the payoption ARM product has reduced in the last 18 months due to several events in the credit, regulatory and interest rate environments. The analyst adds, however, that the competitiveness of FirstFed Financial’s ARM product might get restored over time through the changing underwriting scenario and a normalized slope of the yield curve.