The Federal Reserve announced that large banking institutions underwent a stress test and passed easily with many well above the required capital requirements.

The Federal Reserve announced last week that large banking institutions underwent a stress test and passed easily with many well above the required capital requirements. Riding on the coattails of the announcement, many large American banks announced they would increase dividends and/or share buybacks Monday, June 29th. For much of the year financials, and in particular banks, have exhibited strong signs of relative and absolute strength for the most part despite some shorter-term weakness over the past month. Most analysts did anticipate banks hiking dividends and share buybacks before the announcement, but the announcements were larger than expected. Morgan Stanley doubled its dividend as well as committing $12 billion to share buybacks until 2022, JPMorgan Chase raised its dividend by 11%, Goldman Sachs plans on boosting its dividend by 60%, Wells Fargo plans to double its dividend, and Bank of America will raise its dividend by 17% (CNBC).

All of the banks above are acceptable to buy and/or hold as all have tech attributes of 3 or above. One in particular that has a strong trend chart that is actionable is J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM). JPM is currently a 5 for 5’er that offers support at $148. The stock is actionable at current levels, trading in slightly oversold territory with a weekly overbought/oversold reading of -23%. J.P. Morgan also has the second-highest projected yield on the list of 2.60%, only behind Morgan Stanley.