New York, May 28, 2026, 05:03 EDT
Carter Bankshares dropped 1.9% to $26.84 on Wednesday, giving back some ground after a recent rally put the Virginia bank close to a 52-week high. MarketWatch had the Nasdaq stock closing at $26.84, off 51 cents as of 4:00 p.m. EDT.
The move is notable since the stock hasn’t acted like a typical small bank. It hit $27.86 on Tuesday before moving lower Wednesday. StockAnalysis put volume at 217,125 shares Wednesday, down from 254,683 shares Tuesday.
Carter shares were up roughly 37% for the year through May 27, Yahoo Finance data showed. The recent drop looks more like a pause, testing if investors want to keep pushing shares higher after the company cleared up its balance sheet.
U.S. markets stayed open Thursday. Memorial Day, May 25, was on Nasdaq’s holiday list for the week, according to its calendar. Nasdaq lists its pre-market hours as 4:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Eastern.
Carter’s most recent company filing wasn’t an earnings report. The company reported on an SEC Form 4 that Jane Ann Davis, executive vice president and chief administrative officer, sold 261 shares at $26.95 each on May 21. After this, she owns 13,723 shares. The SEC accepted the filing on May 26.
First-quarter results from April are still front and center. Carter said the company made $85.8 million, or $3.88 a diluted share. The quarter got a lift from selling a big nonperforming credit. Nonperforming loans dropped to $24.0 million from $244.0 million at the end of 2025.
Chief Executive Litz H. Van Dyke said at the time the deal “meaningfully strengthened” Carter’s balance sheet and “positions us well for continued growth.” He mentioned margin expansion and loan growth throughout the bank’s footprint. Nasdaq
Carter’s one-time gain is out of focus for investors now. The bank’s first-quarter investor presentation shows adjusted net income at $8.6 million, or 40 cents per diluted share, using a non-GAAP number that excludes what management calls non-routine items. Net interest margin came in at 3.07%, showing the difference between earnings from loans and securities versus funding costs.
Carter Bankshares brought back its dividend. Carter said in April the board approved a 10-cent quarterly cash dividend, payable May 25. Van Dyke said it’s the company’s first quarterly cash dividend in almost 10 years.
The stock fell harder than a few regional bank indexes, though the move wasn’t out of sync with markets. The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF showed a loss of around 1.0% in recent trade. Some neighboring banks went the other way: Primis Financial in Virginia gained 0.6%, while First Bancorp out of North Carolina slipped 1.1%.
Carter, with a market cap near $586 million, still trades as a small-cap bank. Its shares are more volatile than bigger banks because of lighter trading. The company has $4.8 billion in assets and operates 63 branches in Virginia and North Carolina.
But there’s a risk investors are buying into a tidier bank before steady earnings show up. Carter has itself warned on interest rates, deposit and funding costs, commercial property loans, and any post-deal adjustments. If those go the wrong way for the bank, Wednesday’s drop could be more than traders just booking profits.
