Stock price when the opinion was issued
A new purchase (June) for the portfolio. Global scale. Quite possibly the best bank in the world. Its smaller wealth management business is a focus for growth. Increasingly, scale matters in banking; secular shift away from regional banks.
Abundant organic growth opportunities, so it pays out a modest 25% of earnings in dividends. Outperforms the Canadian big 6, a rare feat. Robust earnings and dividend growth, compounding ~13% over the last decade. Yield is 1.99%.
Is the biggest and best of the money centre banks, but trades at 2.2x book value vs. Citi's 0.7-0.8x book. Citi was punished but is under a new CEO. Citi is less exposed to international markets and that volatility. Numbers are showing positive. He likes both. But JPM is fully valued though continues to do good things. The other is a little riskier, but more potential upside.
Just reported a clean top and bottom line beat. Loan loss provisions were lower than expected. Net interest income came in light. All businesses performed well, including commercial/investment banking beat handily while wealth management was in line. They raised full-year net interest income forecast by $1 billion. The CEO did cite risks from tariffs.
An absolute profit juggernaut. Makes more money in a year than, he believes, all 6 Canadian banks put together. It is going to make an absolute fortune with the flood of IPOs that we are seeing right now. Thinks they have put most of their legal and regulatory woes behind them, which means that the drag on profits from the fines is over. All the US banks took tremendous reserve hits after the housing bubble because all of the houses had no equity or equity inadequacy to justify the mortgage. Every month that house prices go up in the US, currently up about 12% year-over-year, we are seeing most homeowners coming back into the black.