AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. $66 - New York symbol AXP

AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. $66 (
New York symbol AXP, Conservative Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 1.1 billion; Market cap: $72.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.1; Dividend yield: 1.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.- americanexpress.com) has passed the Federal Reserve’s latest “stress test,” which measures how well banks and other financial firms would cope with a sharp jump in unemployment, falling stock prices and other unfavourable economic conditions.

As a result, the company raised its quarterly dividend by 15.0%, to $0.23 a share from $0.20. The new annual rate of $0.92 yields 1.4%. Amex also announced that it would buy back $4.0 billion worth of its shares in 2013, and $1 billion more in the first quarter of 2014.

American Express is a buy.

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One of the sweetest and most profitable pleasures of successful investing is to buy high-quality “value stocks” (or stocks that are reasonably priced, if not cheap, in relation to its sales, earnings or assets), then hold on to them as mainstream investors recognize the value and push up the share price.

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