FRME vs ONB: Which Is the Better Buy in 2026?

Same yardstick, side by side (as of August 2026). Valuation lined up like this is most meaningful for two names in the same corner of the market, which these are. Figures are approximate; verify before investing.

The metrics above tell you which is the marginally better business. The bigger risk for most people is not picking the slightly worse stock, it is over-concentrating. FRME and ONB share themes, so owning both, or adding either to what you already hold, can quietly push a large share of your portfolio into one bet.

This is the part a generic comparison page cannot answer, because it depends on what you own. Connect your brokerage and Walnut shows your real, combined FRME and ONB exposure, flags overlap with your existing positions, and tells you if adding one would tip you past a concentration you are comfortable with, read-only by default, with your login staying at your broker. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

First Merchants Corporation is a financial holding company headquartered in Muncie, Indiana, organized in 1982 and operating through First Merchants Bank, whose roots trace back to 1893. It is the largest financial services holding company headquartered in central Indiana and one of the largest in the state, running community-banking operations across roughly 125 locations in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois. In the first quarter of 2026 it completed the all-stock acquisition of First Savings Financial Group, adding about $2.4 billion in assets and pushing total assets to roughly $21.1 billion, loans to about $15.3 billion, and deposits to about $16.5 billion.

Full FRME guide

Old National Bancorp (NASDAQ: ONB) is the holding company for Old National Bank, a super-regional bank headquartered in Evansville, Indiana, with a large operational base in Chicago and a footprint concentrated across the Midwest. Following its May 2025 acquisition of Bremer Bank, the company holds roughly $70 billion in total assets and more than $30 billion in wealth assets under management, making it among the top 25 banking companies headquartered in the United States and one of the largest commercial banks in the Midwest. Like most banks, it earns money in two broad ways: net interest income, the spread between what it earns on loans and securities and what it pays on deposits (roughly $2.4 billion on a full-year 2025 basis), and noninterest fee income from wealth management, mortgage banking, treasury management, and capital markets.

Full ONB guide

Both fit overlapping themes, but they are not interchangeable. The useful comparison is which set of drivers and risks you want exposure to.

• FRME drivers: Indiana-anchored community-banking scale; Acquisition-driven growth.
• ONB drivers: Growth through acquisition and scale; Solid margin and cost discipline.

A faster-growing, richer-valued name usually swings harder, so it suits a longer horizon and a higher tolerance for volatility; a steadier, more cash-generative business suits a more conservative or income-minded investor. The honest test is which set of risks you could hold through a drawdown: As a regional bank, First Merchants' earnings are cyclical and hinge on credit quality, so a Midwest slowdown, rising unemployment, or stress in commercial real estate could lift loan-loss provisions and pressure profit. For ONB, old National is sensitive to interest rates: net interest income (about $2.4 billion in 2025) is its largest revenue line, so falling rates, deposit repricing, or an inverted yield curve can compress the margin and earnings.

Growth-minded investors who believe the theme has years to run tend to accept the richer multiple for more upside; value-minded investors lean toward the cheaper forward earnings and steadier profile. Pick FRME if you believe its drivers more; ONB if you believe its. Many investors hold both, but since they share themes, that is a concentrated bet, not diversification. Decide deliberately and check overlap. For the full detail, see the FRME and ONB guides.

FRME. As of July 2026, FRME trades around $42 per share with a market cap near $2.6 billion and a trailing P/E of roughly 12 times, a modest multiple typical of a Midwest regional bank. First-quarter 2026 reported net income fell to about $28 million (diluted EPS near $0.45) because of a mortgage-loan reclassification loss and First Savings integration costs, but adjusted EPS was about $1.03 as core lending and fee income grew. The roughly 3.5 percent dividend yield is well above the broad market.

ONB. Reading a regional bank means looking past a single earnings number to a few structural metrics. The net interest margin (around 3.65% in Q4 2025) shows how profitably the bank lends relative to its funding costs, and the efficiency ratio (an adjusted ~48.8% for 2025) measures how lean the operation is, where lower is better. Note the gap between GAAP EPS of $1.79 and adjusted EPS of $2.21, which reflects one-time merger and integration charges from the Bremer deal, so the adjusted figure is a cleaner read on underlying run-rate earnings. A trailing P/E near 13 is in the typical range for regional banks, which tend to trade at lower multiples than the broader market because their earnings are cyclical and rate-sensitive. The distinctive feature here is the growth-by-acquisition scale-up; the open question is how much of the Bremer benefit is already reflected in the share price versus still to be realized through integration.

Headline figures (approximate, July 2026): FRME shows revenue (net interest income + fees, ttm) ~$850M, net income (ttm) ~$210M, q1 2026 adjusted eps ~$1.03 (GAAP ~$0.45), market cap ~$2.6B; ONB shows revenue (net interest income + fees, fy2025) ~$2.9 billion, net interest income (fy2025) ~$2.4 billion, net income to common (fy2025) ~$653 million GAAP (~$809 million adjusted), diluted eps (fy2025) $1.79 GAAP ($2.21 adjusted).

FRME and ONB are related but distinct: same themes, different businesses and risks. Neither wins in the abstract; the right pick is whichever thesis you actually believe, sized so you are not over-concentrated in one theme. Walnut can show your combined FRME and ONB exposure against your real portfolio. It is not an investment adviser.