The Sheep Fell for it again..."In 20/20 hindsight the concerns were overblown. Exposures across the board appear to be much lower than what the fears were and do look to be manageable," said John Aiken, an analyst at Dundee Securities.
Describing the quarter overall he added, "All things considered, it was a little bit more boring than everyone was expecting coming in, which is a great thing from my perspective."
Aiken said he was surprised that overall credit quality remained benign for another quarter, with stable provisions for credit losses.
"I think that the market is still waiting for some level of deterioration of credit quality, but realistically what we have seen to date hasn't been outside the bounds of expectations. This actually does bode very well for the banks going forward," he said.
Results at the Big Six generally beat street expectations and four of the banks increased their dividends....
With an annual div of $1.23/share, what a superb buy and hold..