Topic: How To Invest

Dividend Advisor Hotline – Friday, January 17, 2020

Article Excerpt

WELLS FARGO & CO., $49.18, New York symbol WFC, remains a buy. The bank last raised its quarterly dividend with the September 2019 payment. Investors now receive $0.51 a share, up 13.3% from $0.45. The new annual rate of $2.04 yields you a high 4.1%. The stock fell 6% this week after Wells Fargo reported lower-than-expected earnings due to rising labour and legal costs. It’s also paying higher interest rates to attract new depositors. Meantime, the bank continues to operate under restrictions imposed by the U.S. Federal Reserve that limit the size of its total assets. The Fed put the cap in place because of the over 3.5 million unauthorized accounts that Wells Fargo employees opened to meet sales targets. The bank uncovered that activity in 2016. Since then, it has fired 5,000 employees involved in the scandal and tightened up its oversight procedures. Partly due to those restrictions, Wells Fargo’s revenue in the three months ended December 31, 2019, fell 5.3%, to $19.86…