Topic: How To Invest

Dividend Advisor Hotline – Friday, June 3, 2022

Article Excerpt

BANK OF MONTREAL, $136.95, Toronto symbol BMO, is a buy. The bank is now raising your dividend by 4.5%. Starting with the August 2022 payment, investors will receive $1.39 a share instead of $1.33. The new annual rate of $5.56 yields 4.1%. Bank of Montreal set aside $50 million to cover potential loan losses in its fiscal 2022 second quarter, ended April 30, 2022. That’s down 16.7% from $60 million a year earlier. Those lower provisions helped lift its earnings before unusual items in the quarter by 4.4%, to $2.19 billion from $2.10 billion. Due to more shares outstanding, earnings per share rose at a slower rate of 3.2%, to $3.23 from $3.13. That beat the consensus estimate of $3.21. Thanks to the lower loan-loss provisions as well as higher loan volumes, earnings at the Canadian banking operations (41% of the total) rose 21.0% in the quarter while earnings at the U.S. banking business (25%) gained 8.5%. However, earnings at the wealth management operations (14%)…