Bank of Montreal (NYSE:BMO) Given Consensus Rating of “Hold” by Analysts

Bank of Montreal (NYSE:BMO) (TSE:BMO) has been assigned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the ten research firms that are presently covering the firm, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and two have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year price target among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $119.75.

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on BMO shares. Jefferies Financial Group lowered Bank of Montreal from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 27th. TD Securities downgraded Bank of Montreal from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 27th. Royal Bank of Canada downgraded Bank of Montreal from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 30th. StockNews.com downgraded Bank of Montreal from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Scotiabank downgraded Bank of Montreal from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and lowered their price objective for the stock from $123.00 to $112.00 in a research note on Wednesday, August 28th.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Townsend & Associates Inc bought a new position in Bank of Montreal during the third quarter valued at about $208,000. Fiera Capital Corp boosted its stake in Bank of Montreal by 1.5% during the third quarter. Fiera Capital Corp now owns 3,453,718 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $312,054,000 after buying an additional 50,287 shares in the last quarter. Gold Investment Management Ltd. boosted its stake in Bank of Montreal by 1.3% during the third quarter. Gold Investment Management Ltd. now owns 20,905 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $1,888,000 after buying an additional 268 shares in the last quarter. Harvest Portfolios Group Inc. boosted its stake in Bank of Montreal by 1.8% during the third quarter. Harvest Portfolios Group Inc. now owns 31,812 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $2,871,000 after buying an additional 554 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Intact Investment Management Inc. boosted its stake in Bank of Montreal by 72.9% during the third quarter. Intact Investment Management Inc. now owns 588,209 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $53,082,000 after buying an additional 248,098 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 45.82% of the company’s stock.

Bank of Montreal Stock Performance

BMO stock opened at $90.78 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.98, a quick ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13. The firm has a market cap of $66.23 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.30, a P/E/G ratio of 2.53 and a beta of 1.11. Bank of Montreal has a 12-month low of $76.33 and a 12-month high of $100.12. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $89.00 and its 200 day simple moving average is $88.09.

Bank of Montreal (NYSE:BMO) (TSE:BMO) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 27th. The bank reported $2.64 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.76 by ($0.12). The firm had revenue of $8.21 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.25 billion. Bank of Montreal had a net margin of 8.50% and a return on equity of 11.23%. The business’s revenue was up .2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.08 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Bank of Montreal will post 8.06 EPS for the current year.

Bank of Montreal Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, November 26th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, October 30th will be paid a $1.123 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, October 30th. This represents a $4.49 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.95%. Bank of Montreal’s payout ratio is 72.13%.

Bank of Montreal Company Profile

Bank of Montreal provides diversified financial services primarily in North America. It operates through Canadian P&C, U.S P&C, BMO Wealth Management, and BMO Capital Markets segments. The company’s personal banking products and services include deposits, mortgages, home lending, consumer credit, small business lending, credit cards, cash management, financial and investment advice, and other banking services; and commercial banking products and services comprise various of financing options and treasury and payment solutions, as well as risk management products.