Rising dividends a sign of confidence

Article Excerpt

Fears that higher interest rates and inflation will hurt loan demand and credit card use have hurt the shares of Canada’s big banks in the past few months. However, those banks remain well capitalized. In fact, in a sign of confidence, these two banks just raised their dividends. BANK OF MONTREAL $118 is a buy. The bank (Toronto symbol BMO; Income-Growth Dividend Payer Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 677.1 million; Market cap: $79.9 billion; Dividend yield: 5.0%; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Highest; www.bmo.com) will raise your quarterly dividend with the August 2023 payment, by 2.8%, to $1.47 a share from $1.43. The new annual rate of $5.88 yields a high 5.0%. On February 1, 2023, the bank completed its $13.8 billion U.S. acquisition of Bank of the West from France’s BNP Paribas. That firm provides a variety of retail and commercial banking services to over 1.8 million customers through 514 branches in 24 U.S. states. If you exclude costs related to the acquisition and other unusual items, earnings…