Niche finance stocks have strong prospects

Article Excerpt

We continue to recommend that investors broaden their U.S. Finance holdings beyond big banks such as J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo. Top finance stocks outside of banks include the three stocks we analyze below. Each is a leader in its industry and continues to invest in its business to maintain its market share. Broadridge and State Street are best suited to aggressive investors, although we see all of three as buys. AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. $114 (New York symbol AXP, Conservative Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 837.0 million; Market cap: $95.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.5; Dividend yield: 1.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.americanexpress.com) is one of the world’s largest issuers of payment cards. As of March 31, 2018, it had 113.9 million of those cards in use across 130 countries. Amex issues both traditional credit cards, which let users carry a balance, and charge cards, which have no pre-set spending limit, but must have their balances paid in full each month. The U.S. accounts for 65% of…