** New York Community Bancorp's NYCB.N shares last down 0.3% ahead of the regional lender's results due before the bell on Friday

** Bank expected to report a loss of 40 cents per share vs year-ago profit in Q3, due to higher loan-loss provisions tied to its commercial real estate loan book

** Analyst and investor focus is expected to be on further measures to cut costs after NYCB announced job cuts earlier this month

** After the job cuts were announced, analysts at Piper Sandler said in a note the bank still needs to lower costs by roughly $325 mln to meet management's goal of $725 mln a year

** "Workforce reduction will get them part of the way, but certainly not the entire way to meeting targets" - Brokerage

** Bank has also vowed to reduce exposure to the troubled CRE sector and committed to shrinking its balance sheet by shedding non-core businesses

** NYCB shares are down ~61.6% YTD and have been under pressure since January when it reported a surprise loss and cut its dividend

** NYCB's troubles deepened in late February after flagging "material weakness" in internal controls and revising its loss to more than 10 times what was previously disclosed; In March, NYCB raised $1 bln from multiple investors

** Its troubles had been a drag on the regional banking index .KRX; KRX is up ~5.8% YTD vs ~21.4% gain in S&P 500 .SPX

(Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru)

((Manya.Saini@thomsonreuters.com))