Q1 2013 Earnings Call

April 26, 2013 10:00 am ET

Executives

Trisha Voltz Carlson

Carl J. Chaney - Co-Chief Executive officer, President, President of Hancock Bank of Mississippi, President of Hancock Bank of Louisiana, President of Hancock Bank of Florida, President of Hancock Bank of Alabama, President of Hancock Bank and Director

Michael M. Achary - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Samuel B. Kendricks - Chief Credit Officer and Executive Vice President

Analysts

Kevin Fitzsimmons - Sandler O'Neill + Partners, L.P., Research Division

Jefferson Harralson - Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc., Research Division

Emlen B. Harmon - Jefferies & Company, Inc., Research Division

Ken A. Zerbe - Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Matthew T. Clark - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division

Jennifer H. Demba - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc., Research Division

Matt Olney - Stephens Inc., Research Division

Peyton N. Green - Sterne Agee & Leach

By Serkan Unal

Investors in pursuit of undervalued stocks or those that have the potential to outperform the broader market should look into insider purchase transactions as sources of investment ideas. Insiders generally accumulate stock in their own company when they believe the prices of their holdings will appreciate in the future. Mimicking insider purchases as a strategy has proven to be effective in generating alpha over time. The following is a selection of dividend-paying stocks with yields above 2.0% that have had notable insider buying over the past week. These stocks may serve as a starting point in investment research for investors interested in pursuing the strategy based on insider acquisitions.

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AbbVie Inc. (ABBV), the recent spin-off from Abbot Laboratories (ABT), is a high-yielding S&P Dividend Aristocrat. The company is a research-focused pharmaceutical giant, which is expected to grow its EPS at a robust

Q4 2012 Earnings Call

January 25, 2013 10:00 am ET

Executives

Trisha Voltz Carlson

Carl J. Chaney - Co-Chief Executive officer, President, President of Hancock Bank of Mississippi, President of Hancock Bank of Louisiana, President of Hancock Bank of Florida, President of Hancock Bank of Alabama, President of Hancock Bank and Director

Michael M. Achary - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Samuel B. Kendricks - Chief Credit Officer and Executive Vice President

Analysts

Matthew Clark - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division

Jefferson Harralson - Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc., Research Division

Michael Rose - Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division

Kevin Fitzsimmons - Sandler O'Neill + Partners, L.P., Research Division

David J. Bishop - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc., Research Division

Jennifer H. Demba - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc., Research Division

Matt Olney - Stephens Inc., Research Division

Peyton N. Green - Sterne Agee

Here is a current overview of the best yielding stocks with a market capitalization over $2 billion that have their ex-dividend date on the next trading day. So if your broker settles your trade today, you will receive the next dividend. A full list of all stocks with ex-dividend date can be found here: Ex-Dividend Stocks on August 31, 2012. In total, 19 stocks and preferred shares go ex-dividend - of which 9 yield more than 3 percent. The average yield amounts to 2.75%.

The ex-dividend date is a major date related to the payment of dividends. If you purchase a stock on its ex-dividend date or later, you will not receive the next dividend payment. Instead, the seller gets the dividend. If you purchase before the ex-dividend date, you get the dividend. It is important that your broker settles your trade before the ex-dividend date.

These are the

Investing in dividends that offer moderate to high yields is a path that many investors have found to be a standard approach to building wealth over time. To find stocks that provide reliable yields, today we screened for companies that have managed to hold down their debt. Minimal debt typically indicates a company has other key factors like profit and effective management in place. We further narrowed the list of dividend stocks to include those that have a recent 'Buy' or better rating from analysts. The list below provides you with a place to start your research process.

The Long Term Debt/Equity Ratio is a variation of the traditional debt-to-equity ratio; this value computes the proportion of a company's long-term debt compared to its available capital. By using this ratio, investors can identify the amount of leverage utilized by a specific company and compare it to others to help analyze

The past year or so has not been a kind one for First Niagara Financial Group (FNFG) shareholders. Over the past 18 months, the company's share price has tumbled, losing half of its value and leaving investors feeling like the poor turtle in this video.

That said, the turtle survived to live another day, and both investors and First Niagara endure as well. There is no easy balm to soothe a 45% drop in value, but getting back in and making some of that money back helps. First Niagara has fallen into a position to provide value to shareholders, and investors should take notice.

The Story So Far - One Dive Too Many

First Niagara has long been a favorite of analysts. The Buffalo-based bank has been a classic small regional bank in the Northeast, a perennially strong economic area. The bank grew steadily with acquisitions that

If I am doing right by our clients, subscribers, and online readers, it is my responsibility to advise what in my opinion should be avoided, as well as that which should be considered.

To wit: After repeated admonitions to all to avoid US money center banks and brokerages, JPMorgan (JPM) declared that, oh, whoops, we lost $2 billion + of the shareholders' money on a "risk management" issue. The biggest risk is what takes place between the ears of big bank/brokerage senior leadership's ears and there is clearly no management of those functions whatsoever. Morgan would have you believe this is just a one-off event that could never happen again. Like Lucy and Charlie Brown with the annual football-kicking trick, somehow they get away with it. These guys are playing with fire, and they could yet destroy any hope we might have of a market recovery.

All analysts and reporters,

We are all aware of the ongoing crisis in Europe and its knock-on effect on the markets around the world. I am always interested in hearing what experts have to say and Rebecca Lipman of Kapitall.com reported on an interview with Jim Kee, Chief Economist and President of South Texas Money Management.

Its investing strategies:

Value and growth, which appeals to me provided it doesn't result in too much volatility.

Kee's definitions are:

• Growth: acceleration in sales and earnings, top and bottom line growing over the near term - usually three-year periods.
• Value" is determined by a low price to cash flow and price to sales ratios, as well as a history of consistent cash flow generation.

Given that, I thought it would be worth looking at its top 10 holdings to see how that selection of stocks is faring.

STMM's portfolio's top 10 holdings:

• Technology Select Sector of

A diversified portfolio remains the best way to limit the gambling nature of investing. By spreading the risk around, an investor may be limiting the high end of his/her possible gain, but s/he is also limiting the downside of everything going bad. The diversity can be spread across different market capitalization sizes, between growth and value stocks or dividend payers and speculative high-flyers, and among the different sectors of the market.

Such is the argument for sticking with financial stocks despite the lumps the cohort has endured over the past few years: diversity, dividends, and capturing a big part of the market (financials constitute 14.7% of the S&P 500, the second largest sector after info tech).

There are better ways and worse ways to play the sector. In the current regulatory and economic environment, playing the oversized banks like JP Morgan (JPM) or Bank of America (BAC), or an

Here is a current overview of the best yielding stocks with a market capitalization over USD 2 billion that have their ex-dividend date on the next trading day. If your broker settles your trade today, you will receive the next dividend. A full list of all stocks with ex-dividend date can be found here: Ex-Dividend Stocks June 01, 2012. In total, 20 stocks and preferred shares go ex-dividend of which 6 are yielding above 3 percent. The average yield amounts to 3.66 percent.

The ex-dividend date is a major date related to the payment of dividends. If you purchase a stock on its ex-dividend date or later, you will not receive the next dividend payment. Instead, the seller gets the dividend. If you purchase before the ex-dividend date, you get the dividend. It is important that your broker settles your trade before the ex-dividend date.

These are the results

Here is our latest update on the stock trading technique called 'Buying Dividends'. This is the process of buying stocks before the ex dividend date and selling the stock shortly after the ex date at about the same price, yet still being entitled to the dividend. This technique generally works only in bull markets. In flat or choppy markets, you have to be extremely careful, and may need to avoid the technique during those times.

In order to be entitled to the dividend, you have to buy the stock before the ex-dividend date, and you can't sell the stock until after the ex date. The actual dividend may not be paid for another few weeks. WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has compiled a downloadable and sortable list of the stocks going ex dividend during the next week or two. The list contains many dividend paying companies, all with market caps over $500 million, and

In the learning to fish series, we provide investors with suggested guidelines for choosing a potential candidate and one candidate is selected as our play of choice. We provide reasons for this choice and in doing so hope to impart some understanding to those who are new to the field of dividend investing. A lot of ratios will be used throughout this article, and it would be best for investors to get a handle on some of these ratios as they could prove to be very useful to the selection process. Some of the more important key ratios are listed below.

We generally base our choice on the following factors.

Net income - It should be generally trending upwards for the past 3-4 years.

Cash flow per share - It should be trending upwards for the past three years.

Total cash flow from operating activities - It should be trending

For over a year, banks have increased their lending activity for commercial and industrial borrowers. These businesses have been tapping cheap rates to build capacity as demand returned. Here's the chart of total commercial

Many analysts believe that the smart money is moving out of dividend paying stocks and into riskier growth stocks. Lower unemployment numbers and solid growth forecasted for 2012 may be indicating that it's time to move out of defensive stocks. Despite that opinion, these five dividend stocks have been upgraded in the last week. Each stock has a dividend yield of 2% or more.

Stocks have been roaring higher lately, but analysts believe these dividend stocks still have room to go. We've listed the reason for the upgrade and the new price target for each upgrade.

Hercules Technology Growth Cap (HTGC)

Stifel Nicolaus upgraded Hercules Technology on February 3rd, 2012 to a buy and set a price target of $11.50. They cited significant portfolio growth and increased VC activity.

Hercules has a dividend yield of 8.1% and has been paying dividends since 2005. The company increased its dividend in

Southwestern banks and thrifts led the nation in showing signs of a turnaround based on key ratios related to profitability and asset quality. In contrast, financial institutions in the Southeast saw far less improvement, with banks in the region ranking at or near the bottom on both measures.We reviewed holdings of nonperforming loans as a percentage of total loans and return on average assets (ROAA) for more than 7,400 financial institutions to identify geographic areas where the health of the banking industry may be improving.

While nationwide, nonperforming loans as a percentage of total loans declined slightly year over year from 4.35% in third quarter 2010 to 4.30% in 2011, Southwestern banks saw a much more significant improvement, reporting the lowest nonperforming loan ratio in the nation of 2.65%, compared to 3.37% the year prior. Institutions including Prosperity Bank (PB), and Whitney Bank, a unit of Hancock Holding

Morgan Stanley analysts Ken Zerbe, Josh Wheeler, Jonathan Katz, and Giselle Cheung published a report entitled “Mid Cap Banks” on December 9, 2011. They believe that these banks are currently “in a much better position than the market gives them credit for”. These banks have little, if any, exposure to the European crisis and have been “moving on macro events”. Overall, net interest margin for most of the banks is expected to decrease whereas net interest income is likely to remain stable. Loan growth may improve slightly and the share buybacks is going to triple.

We are discussing the stocks in a series of articles. This is the second (see Part 1).

Cullen/Frost Bankers (CFR) has been given an underweight rating by Morgan Stanley (MS) despite the company’s solid credit quality. Its net interest margin will continue to decline due to a decrease in asset yields and an increase

Here is our latest update on the stock trading technique called 'Buying Dividends'. This is the process of buying stocks before the ex dividend date and selling the stock shortly after the ex date at about the same price, yet still being entitled to the dividend. This technique generally works only in bull markets. In flat or choppy markets, you have to be extremely careful, and may need to avoid the technique during those times.

In order to be entitled to the dividend, you have to buy the stock before the ex-dividend date, and you can't sell the stock until after the ex date. The actual dividend may not be paid for another few weeks. WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has compiled a downloadable and sortable list of the stocks going ex dividend during the next week or two. The list contains many dividend paying companies, all with market caps over $500 million,

Defensive investors like high dividend paying stocks because these stocks can protect them from inflationary risks. We are concerned about the Fed’s inflationary monetary policy and therefore we encourage investors to play defensively and invest their money in stocks with strong dividend yields.

Additionally, corporate insiders have material non-public information and they sometimes invest based on such information. Other times they have an edge because they know their companies and industries better than almost all other investors. We believe that by imitating the investments of insiders, investors are more likely to beat the market in the long term.

Here is a list of high dividend stocks insiders have recently been buying. All companies have a market cap of at least $2 billion, a dividend yield over 3% and were purchased by at least one insider during the past 30 days.

Corporate insiders have material non-public information and they sometimes trade based on such information. Other times they have an edge because they know their companies and industries better than almost all other investors. We believe that by imitating the investments of the insiders, investors are more likely to beat the market in the long term.

Below we compiled a list of stocks insiders are buying right now. All stocks have at least $2 billion market cap and were purchased by at least one insider during the past seven days.

Alcoa, Inc. (AA): Alcoa Inc is engaged in the