TD BANK $54.90 (Toronto symbol TD; Shares outstanding: 1.8 billion; Market cap: $100.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.7%; www.td.com) is Canada’s largest bank, with $1.03 trillion of assets. It also operates more branches in the U.S. than Canada (1,302 vs. 1,165) and owns 40.72% of TD Ameritrade (New York symbol AMTD), a leading online brokerage.
Excluding one-time items, TD’s earnings per share rose 4.6% in its fiscal second quarter ended April 30, 2015, to $1.14 from $1.09 a year earlier. Revenue gained 4.4%, to $7.8 billion from $7.4 billion, as low interest rates continue to spur loan demand.
The bank’s loan-loss provisions fell 4.3%, to $375 million from $392 million, because more U.S. credit card customers are repaying their loans on time.
Meanwhile, TD has just agreed to buy department store operator Nordstrom’s (New York symbol JWN) U.S. credit card portfolio. (Nordstrom is a recommendation of Wall Street Stock Forecaster, our newsletter that focuses on U.S. stocks.) These loans total $2.2 billion U.S.
The stock trades at 12.4 times the bank’s forecast fiscal 2015 earnings of $4.42 a share. It yields 3.7%. TD Bank is our #1 safety-conscious buy for 2015.
