Updating State Street Corp., eBay Inc., and Conagra Foods Inc.

Article Excerpt

STATE STREET CORP. $72 (New York symbol STT; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 425.0 million; Market cap: $30.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.2; Dividend yield: 1.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www. statestreet.com) sells accounting and administrative services to large institutional investors, such as mutual funds and pension plans. The company’s fee income rises and falls with the value of the securities it manages. Thanks to improving stock markets and new contracts, earnings rose 5.6% in the quarter ended June 30, 2014, to $603 million from $571 million a year earlier. State Street spent $410 million on share buybacks in the latest quarter. As a result, earnings per share gained 12.1%, to $1.39 from $1.24. Revenue rose 3.7%, to $2.7 billion from $2.6 billion. The company is facing new financial-industry regulations this year, and it now feels that complying with them will cost $30 million to $40 million more than it originally expected. However, it also makes money by helping its…