It’s tempting to dismiss massive, venerable financial institutions such as J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM) as slow and stodgy. Don’t make that mistake, asserts Richard Moroney, editor of Dow Theory Forecasts.

Yes, J.P. Morgan is a giant. It operates more than 5,000 branches, controls assets of $2.74 trillion (tops among S&P 500 Index companies), and is the second-largest mortgage originator in the U.S.

Yet for all its size, J.P. Morgan continues to post hearty growth, with per-share profits up at least 10% in each of the last 11 quarters and 10% annually over the last five years. Revenue rose at least 2% in each of those last 11 quarters, capping off five-year annualized growth of 5%.

The stock earns a Quadrix Overall score of 94 (out of 100), supported by ranks of 74 or higher in all six category scores. Only 15 stocks in our research universe of nearly 5,000 manage such across-the-board strength.

J.P. Morgan seems poised to continue its "growthy" ways. Analysts project increases of 5% for revenue and 11% for per-share profits this year, followed by respective gains of 2% and 6% in 2020.

At 11 times the 2019 profit target, J.P. Morgan trades at a 6% discount to the median bank in the S&P 1500 Index. In part because its projected long-term-profit-growth rate of 11% exceeds that of the median bank (8%), J.P. Morgan’s price/ earnings-to-growth (PEG) ratio of 1.0 is among the lowest in the group.

Aggressive buybacks have helped boost per-share metrics, with J.P. Morgan spending $60 billion on repurchases over the last five years, reducing the share count 13%. However, improved efficiency also deserves some of the credit for J.P. Morgan’s long-running profit growth.

In the 12 months ended March, the company generated a 12.8% return on equity, up from 9.9% three years ago and 7.8% five years ago. The company’s operating profit margin has widened to 31.4% over the last year from 27.5% three years ago and 17.7% five years ago.

J.P. Morgan agreed to acquire InstaMed in a deal worth more than $500 million, the bank’s biggest acquisition since the financial crisis. With a cloud-based platform that automates medical billing, InstaMed processed $94 billion worth of transactions last year.

In other news, the European Union fined J.P. Morgan and four other banks a combined $1.2 billion after their traders were found to have been manipulating foreign-exchange markets from 2007 through 2013. Both J.P. Morgan and Citigroup (C)  agreed to pay $78 million each.

We’ll close out this profile with three trends you might not know about:

1) In the March quarter, J.P. Morgan had 34.4 million customers actively doing business on mobile devices, up 11% from a year earlier. We expect the mobile-customer count to continue rising.

2) The bank is tightening its credit standards on auto loans and consumer mortgages. This change will weigh on top-line growth but should also keep credit losses low; J.P. Morgan has proved it can boost profi ts without much sales growth.

3) Last June, the company boosted its quarterly dividend 43%. While a similarly large increase this year seems unlikely, we do expect J.P. Morgan to raise the payout in coming weeks. Over the last nine years, since the Federal Reserve started approving dividend hikes for the big banks, J.P. Morgan has hiked its quarterly dividend nine times, to $0.80 from $0.05.

Long-term buy rated J.P. Morgan, which yields 2.9%, is being added to the Focus List.

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