Topic: How To Invest

Dividend Advisor Hotline – Friday, June 2, 2017

Article Excerpt

BANK OF MONTREAL, $91.27, Toronto symbol BMO, will now raise its quarterly dividend by 2.3%. Starting with the August 2017 payment, investors will receive $0.90 a share instead of $0.88. The new annual rate of $3.60 yields 3.9%. For the 2017 second quarter, ended April 30, 2017, the bank’s earnings rose 12.4%, to $1.30 billion from $1.15 billion a year earlier. Due to more shares outstanding, earnings per share gained 11.0%, to $1.92 from $1.73. Those earnings exclude the cost to integrate last year’s purchase of the transportation-financing operations of General Electric. That business lends money to commercial truck and trailer manufacturers in the U.S. and Canada. On that basis, the latest earnings missed the consensus estimate of $1.93. Earnings from Canadian retail banking (40% of the total) gained 1.1%. However, U.S. retail banking (15%) saw its profits fall 10.6% due to higher loan-loss provisions for commercial loans. Earnings at the bank’s capital markets operations (24%) improved 12.2% on higher demand from corporate clients…