Topic: Growth Stocks

STATE STREET CORP. $68 – New York symbol STT

STATE STREET CORP. $68 (New York symbol STT; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 423.5 million; Market cap: $28.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.0; Dividend yield: 1.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.statestreet.com) sells accounting and administrative services to large institutional investors, like mutual funds and pension plans.

The company’s fee income rises and falls with the value of the mutual funds and other securities it administers. Thanks to improving stock markets and new contracts, its assets under custody and administration rose to $28.4 trillion as of June 30, 2014, up 10.3% from a year earlier.

These gains offset the lower interest income the company earned on bank deposits and certain securities. As a result, its overall revenue rose 3.7% in the three months ended June 30, 2014, to $2.7 billion from $2.6 billion a year earlier.

Earnings gained 5.6%, to $603 million from $571 million. The company spent $410 million on share buybacks in the latest quarter. As a result, earnings per share rose 12.1%, to $1.39 from $1.24.

State Street will have to spend an extra $20 million in both the third and fourth quarters of 2014 to comply with increasingly complex financial regulations. However, its ongoing cost cuts, including layoffs and outsourcing some of its computer systems, should lower its expenses by $130 million this year.

The stock trades at just 12.9 times the $5.26 a share that State Street will likely earn in 2014. The $1.20 dividend yields 1.8%.

State Street is a buy.

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