Topic: How To Invest

Dividend Advisor Hotline – Friday, December 6, 2024

Article Excerpt

BANK OF MONTREAL, $146.32, Toronto symbol BMO, is still a buy. With the February 2025 payment, the bank will raise your quarterly dividend by 2.6%, to $1.59 a share from $1.55. The new annual rate of $6.36 yields a high 4.3%. Bank of Montreal also announced a new plan to buy back up to 20 million of its common shares (2.7% of the total outstanding). On February 1, 2023, the bank completed its acquisition of Bank of the West from France’s BNP Paribas for $13.8 billion U.S Bank of the West provides a variety of retail and commercial banking services to over 1.8 million customers in 24 U.S. states, mainly in the Western and Midwestern regions. Partly due to that purchase, as well as the impact of high interest rates on some of its larger clients, the bank set aside $1.52 billion to cover potential bad loans in the fiscal 2024 fourth quarter, ended October 31, 2024. That’s up 241.5% from $446 million a..