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The Nordea share could be an excellent high-yield instrument

Carlsquare
22 Dec 2022 | 2 min read

The theme of higher interest rates favours value stocks, including banks. One could find Nordea’s stock interesting among the Nordic banks, with a yield of almost 7%.

The world's stock markets have had a bad week after the central banks' (Fed and ECB) bitter announcement that the fight against inflation will continue with a higher interest rate path for longer than the stock markets had expected. The ECB's Lagarde message was overshadowed by Powell (as usual) but was more hawkish in its tone than Powell’s. The inflation rate and hence challenge (where the energy component is essential) is higher in Europe than in the US, even though interest rates are still lower in Europe.

Significant stock indices performance in one week, one month and this year

Source: www.di.se, www.cnbc.com.

Most of the 60-70 basis point decline in 10-year interest rates from mid-October to early December have been reversed. The interest rate market is discounting a recession as the 2-year rate is about 50 to 60 basis points higher than the 10-year rate in both the United States and Sweden.

Rising interest rates mean higher return requirements and, thus, declining stock prices. This is particularly evident for the Nasdaq, the worst performer of the indices in 2022 we have included in the graph above.

US 10-year Treasury Yield (in %), a five-year graph

Source: Infront. Left: Change in % compared to start date December 2017. Performance in USD

As central banks maintain a hawkish tone on policy rates, investors will look for stable stocks with good yields, we argue. The Nordic banks are in a good position, given that the market is an oligopoly. The recent rise in interest rates has given them opportunities to increase lending margins. This is particularly true for home loans.

We find Nordea to be the most attractive of the Nordic bank shares. Unlike Handelsbanken and Swedbank, the bank is not biased towards residential lending (which could be riskier in today's market). Nordea also has broad Nordic exposure in its operations, giving a stable earnings capacity.

Nordea’s dividend policy stipulates that 60-70% of net earnings should be distributed to the shareholders. Nordea declared a dividend of EUR 0.69 per share in its FY 2021 report. As of 30 September 2022, Nordea's earnings per share stood at €1.03/share for twelve months. This gives a dividend of around 67% of current earnings capacity, within the bank's policy.

Nordea (in SEK), a daily one-year graph

Source: Infront and Carlsquare. Note: Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.

The Nordea stock is trading upward and has little to go to the previous price peak, around 115 SEK. Despite the rise in the share price, the share currently offers a high yield of 6.9%, given the current dividend.

Nordea (in SEK), a weekly five-year share price chart

Source: Infront and Carlsquare. Note: Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.

The full name for abbreviations used in the previous text:

EMA 9: 9-day exponential moving average

Fibonacci: There are several Fibonacci lines used in technical analysis. Fibonacci numbers are a sequence of numbers in which each successive number is the sum of the two previous numbers.

MA20: 20-day moving average

MA50: 50-day moving average

MA100: 100-day moving average

MA200: 200-day moving average

MACD: Moving average convergence divergence

Risks

This information is neither an investment advice nor an investment or investment strategy recommendation, but advertisement. The complete information on the trading products (securities) mentioned herein, in particular the structure and risks associated with an investment, are described in the base prospectus, together with any supplements, as well as the final terms. The base prospectus and final terms constitute the solely binding sales documents for the securities and are available under the product links. It is recommended that potential investors read these documents before making any investment decision. The documents and the key information document are published on the website of the issuer, Vontobel Financial Products GmbH, Bockenheimer Landstrasse 24, 60323 Frankfurt am Main, Germany, on prospectus.vontobel.com and are available from the issuer free of charge. The approval of the prospectus should not be understood as an endorsement of the securities. The securities are products that are not simple and may be difficult to understand. This information includes or relates to figures of past performance. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.

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