Two financial stocks with gains ahead

Article Excerpt

Both Great-West Lifeco and IGM Financial sell mutual funds and wealth-management services. The companies’ fees vary with the value of the assets they manage, so both stocks have moved down due to recent stock-market volatility. Even so, we still like their long-term prospects. GREAT-WEST LIFECO INC. $22 (Toronto symbol GWO; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 949.5 million; Market cap: $20.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.7; Dividend yield: 5.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.greatwestlifeco.com) is Canada’s largest insurance company, with $497.0 billion of assets under administration. That’s up 7.2% in the past year. Great-West also sells retirement-planning and wealth-management services. Canada accounts for 49% of its earnings, followed by Europe (27%) and the U.S. (24%). In the three months ended June 30, 2011, Great-West’s earnings rose 15.6%, to $526 million, or $0.55 a share. A year earlier, it earned $455 million, or $0.48 a share. However, revenue fell 3.8%, to $7.1 billion from $7.4 billion, due to fewer gains from its investment…