Manulife Financial (MFC.TO)

Chart shows a strong upward trend from mid-2012. It broke above the little resistance, which is reasonably positive. Insurance companies benefit from the rate rise that we saw from May and the stock market, moving up. Until those things change, the trend line says it is going to go up.

His outlook for this company is pretty reasonable. Has had a huge move over the last year. They are delivering on their longer-term clients in terms of deleveraging and hedging the exposure to long-term interest rates and to equity markets. This has had an inordinately large move.

Has just bought more recently. Feels the yield curve is artificially low as a result of the Fed. When he saw the strength in the job market, even with the government shut down and all the chaos that went on, that was a big, big outlier for everybody. The long end of the yield curve should be about 4.5% right now with inflation at around 2%. If you naturalize where the long bond is after inflation, it should be about 4.5%. If he is right, this company has another 20%-30% to go.

A couple of years away from a dividend raise. Have really good insurance growth in Asia and good success in wealth management. A spectre of higher rates means of the higher valuation. His one-year target would be $21. Buy territory would be at around $18. 2.6% dividend.

This is very attractive, particularly as you go further out. They have huge operations in Hong Kong and Japan and Asia is a huge growth area for them. Came out with numbers today and the capital looks terrific, the earnings blew away the street.

(Market Call Minute) Has had a good run and if capital markets improve you should hold.

This company was heading down while Canadian banks were doing well this summer. Because of its involvement in the equity markets, it is still in an upward trend and still very positive. Thinks it is a good place to be.

A much different company from when it had problems during the financial crisis. Improving core earnings, less strain from new business because of changes in their product lines, less market sensitive products and expanding wealth management operations. Well-capitalized balance sheet.

They benefit from the strength in the stock market. They have a great Asian component. Have been in Hong Kong for years. Reasonable dividend and the balance sheet gets cleaned up as the market improves. They can grow.

Has not been enthused about this one as he is in this sector for dividend) growth. However, this one has more upside because they have been pounded down so badly. Have good operations in the Far East but this is a different regime and far riskier. Yield is relatively low also.

Sell it here and buy a bank. Generally he sees better growth out of the banks.

Screens better than Power Financial. He expects higher interest rates and better markets going forward so this is a buy. This one is coming off a pretty low base. The momentum is there since they turned the corner. 2.9% dividend.

A reasonable opportunity for investing if you’re timeframe is a year or longer. This is on the presumption that interest rates will be a lot higher than they are.

At this point we have extracted the most we can get from the lifecos. The turn earlier this year at $15 was where he thought the high was. Other things can provide more upside over the next couple of years.

(A Top Pick Sept 11/12. Up 51.04%.) The insurance companies will benefit as the longer-term interest rates continue to rise. They are in their early days. Still sees plenty of upside here.