Manulife Financial (TSX:MFC)(NYSE:MFC) is one of the top insurance and financial services providers in Canada. Shares of this dividend stock have climbed 5.5% in 2022 as of mid-afternoon trading on January 31. The stock is up 12% in the year-over-year period.
Investors can expect to see the company’s fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings in early February. In Q3 2021, the company net income of $1.6 billion – down from $476 million in the third quarter of 2020. Core earnings increased 10% year-over-year to $1.5 billion. Meanwhile, APE sales climbed 5% to $1.4 billion.
Net incomes in the year-to-date period rose to $5.02 billion compared to $4.09 billion in the first nine months of 2020. The growth of the middle class in Asia has been critical in powering earnings for insurance companies like Manulife as growth in the developed world has slowed. Asia new business value was reported at $1.27 billion in the year-to-date period in 2021 – up from $1.01 billion in the first nine months of 2020. Moreover, core earnings in Asia climbed to $1.62 billion over $1.53 billion in the prior year.
Shares of Manulife currently possess a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.7. That puts this dividend stock in very attractive value territory at the time of this writing. It offers a quarterly distribution of $0.28 per share. That represents a solid 4.4% yield. Investors should look to snatch up this undervalued dividend stock as we move into February.
