jp morgan chase  co bank of america corp and goldman sachs group inc reduced their capital buffers and will have some nearterm capital flexibility after the federal reserves bank stress test results published late wednesday citi analyst keith horowitz said as part of a flurry of mostly upbeat analyst comments thursday on the feds annual review of bank strength see fed stress tests see large banks able to handle recession and slide in commercial real estate prices overall the stress test results came in better than expected with stress capital buffers coming down or staying flat for most banks in our coverage horowitz said most bank stocks moved up on thursday the kbw nasdaq bank index was up 13 the spdr sp bank exchangetraded fund kbe was ahead by 16 the financial select spdr etf xlfwas up by 1 and the spdr sp regional banking etf was up by 16 other analysts mostly echoed his view and said its unlikely banks will make any major positive moves on stock buybacks and dividends for investors because of an uncertain regulatory environment following the collapse of silicon valley bank signature bank and first republic bank earlier this year jpmorgan jpm bank of america bac and goldman sachs gs were the biggest winners with a 1 reduction in their stress capital buffers while citizens financial group inc cfg and truist financial corp tfc reported surprise increases in their stress capital buffers of 07 and 04 respectively but both banks remained more than 1 above their implied minimums horowitz said although we expect the stocks to react positively on the downward revisions as the lower stress capital buffers scbs provide nearterm flexibility and could see some modest dividend increases we do not expect to see major changes to capital return outlook as many banks await further clarity on regulatory reform with basel iii endgame horowitz said jpmorgan chase was up by 3 bank of america was up by 31 goldman sachs was up by 28 citizens financial was up by 09 and truist was up by 11 citigroup c was down by 11 and wells fargo  co wfc was up by 36 while morgan stanley ms was rising by 21 jp morgan analyst vivek juneja on thursday lowered his rating on citizens financial group inc to neutral from overweight after the feds annual bank stress test results he kept the price target for the stock at 27 a share relative to its banking peers citizens will see its capital requirement increase which will further pressure profitability at the bank juneja said citizens has a lower cushion relative to peers above minimum tierone capital requirements based on its capital levels on march 31 and has continued to buy back stock in the second quarter citizens is being pressured by high losses on its commercial real estate cre loans due to high level of maturities of office cre loans in 2023 and 2024 juneja said jefferies analyst ken usdin said capital one financial corp cof could see its tierone capital requirement increase the most from the 23 banks in the stress test citizens bank truist financial tfc and citigroup tier one capital requirements may also increase while bank of america jpmorgan wells fargo goldman sachs and morgan stanley as well as mt bank mtb and pnc financial services group inc pnc look better than they did a year ago oppenheimer analyst chris kotowski said the stress tests have become arbitrary and capricious and cited a few examples why are jpms ci losses projected at 100 and citi only 46 and deutsche at25 why are citis home equity losses at 191 and bac at 40 why doesgoldman who lends mainly to millionaires and billionaires lose 37 on its firstlienmortgages but cof with its healthy amount of subprime only 32 very curiousno kotowski said john sedunov finance professor at villa nova university school of business said the stress tests as well as the flight of deposits from regional banks to larger banks during the bank failures earlier this year reinforce the theme of bigger is better in the business for larger regionals they certainly have been given an incentive to be as big as possible sedunov told marketwatch maybe theyll reserve their cash and capital to think about buying somebody overall the results were encouraging with the banks subjected to stresses related to unemployment recession commercial real estate vacancies and a study on the affects of interest rates hikes on the eight largest banks im hopeful that the fed got the various scenarios more correct this time around he said also read fdic studying plan to include smaller us banks in basel iii capital requirements after failures in early 2023 also readfed official eyes reverse stress tests for banks as results awaited after 2023 bank failures this content was created by marketwatch which is operated by dow jones  co marketwatch is published independently from dow jones newswires and the wall street journal