Bank of Montreal (TSE:BMO) Sets New 52-Week High – Still a Buy?

Shares of Bank of Montreal (TSE:BMO) (NYSE:BMO) reached a new 52-week high on Thursday . The company traded as high as C$191.21 and last traded at C$191.00, with a volume of 983208 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at C$187.66.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on BMO. National Bankshares lowered shares of Bank of Montreal from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and boosted their target price for the company from C$173.00 to C$181.00 in a research note on Monday, November 17th. Natl Bk Canada lowered shares of Bank of Montreal from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, December 1st. CIBC upped their target price on shares of Bank of Montreal from C$192.00 to C$199.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 11th. TD Securities raised their target price on shares of Bank of Montreal from C$182.00 to C$184.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, December 5th. Finally, Desjardins boosted their price target on Bank of Montreal from C$180.00 to C$189.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, December 18th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have given a Buy rating and nine have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of C$183.08.

Bank of Montreal Stock Performance

The firm’s fifty day moving average price is C$179.01 and its 200 day moving average price is C$171.86. The firm has a market cap of C$135.51 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.71, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.71 and a beta of 1.39.

Bank of Montreal (TSE:BMO) (NYSE:BMO) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 4th. The bank reported C$3.28 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. The firm had revenue of C$9.34 billion for the quarter. Bank of Montreal had a net margin of 13.57% and a return on equity of 9.04%. As a group, analysts expect that Bank of Montreal will post 9.6514585 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Bank of Montreal Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, November 26th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, November 26th were given a $1.63 dividend. This represents a $6.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.4%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 30th. Bank of Montreal’s payout ratio is presently 56.29%.

About Bank of Montreal

Bank of Montreal is a diversified financial-services provider based in North America, operating four business segments: Canadian personal and commercial banking, U.S. P&C banking, wealth management, and capital markets.