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Here's Why Principal Financial (PFG) Stock is an Attractive Bet

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Principal Financial Group, Inc. (PFG - Free Report) has been favored by investors on the back of its growth in invested assets, higher premiums and positive net cash flow.

Growth Projections

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2021 and 2022 earnings per share is pegged at $6.28 and $6.9, indicating year-over-year increase of 27.1% and 9.9%, respectively.  You can mention the LTG

Estimate Revision

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2021 and 2022 has moved 3.8% and 0.7% north, respectively in the past 60 days. This should instill investors' confidence in the stock.

Zacks Rank & Price Performance

Principal Financial currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). The stock has rallied 29.5%, outperforming the industry’s increase of 25.1% year to date

Zacks Investment ResearchImage Source: Zacks Investment Research

Style Score

The company has an impressive Value Score of A. Our research shows that stocks with a Value Style Score of A or B when combined with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 offer the best opportunities in the value investing space.

Business Tailwinds

Top-line growth continues to be driven by increased premiums and other considerations, fees and other revenues and higher net investment income across the company’s segments.

Given favorable relative market performance on required regulatory investments in Latin America business, favorable U.S. market performance on certain alternative investments and growth in invested assets, net investment income is likely to rise in the future.

Furthermore, Principal Financial remains focused on the launch of various actively managed ETFs to provide diversified and outcome-oriented solutions to the investors. In the second quarter, Principal Financial has launched three multi-factor ETFs to address the increasing client demand for adaptive risk ETFs.

These ETFs drive management fee revenues, which, in turn, fuel top-line growth of the company.

Total company assets under management (the base through which the company generates management fee revenues) surged to a record $820 billion at first-quarter end owing to positive net cash flow. The company achieved record PGI managed and PGI sourced AUM of $508 billion and $250 billion, respectively in the first quarter.

Moreover, Principal Financial maintained solid liquidity positions with $2.8 billion of excess and available capital, which include $1.8 billion at the holding company, more than double the target of $800 million to cover the next 12 months of obligations, $575 million in excess of targeted 400% risk-based capital ratio at the end of the year, which was estimated to be 437%, and $400 million of available cash in its subsidiaries.

In April 2021, its board of directors hiked its quarterly cash dividend by 9%, which aided the company to maintain its targeted 40% dividend payout ratio. Its current dividend yield of 3.8% is higher than the industry average of 2.4%.

Other Stocks to Consider

Some other top-ranked stocks from the finance sector include Franklin Resources, Inc. (BEN - Free Report) , Blackstone Group Inc. (BX - Free Report) and Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (AMP - Free Report) , each carrying a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Franklin Resources surpassed estimates in three of the last four quarters and missed in the other one, the average beat being 5.35%.

Blackstone surpassed estimates in each of the last four quarters, the average beat being 16.34%.

Ameriprise surpassed estimates in three of the last four quarters and missed in the other one, the average beat being 3.88%.

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You know this company from its past glory days, but few would expect that it’s poised for a monster turnaround. Fresh from a successful repositioning and flush with A-list celeb endorsements, it could rival or surpass other recent Zacks’ Stocks Set to Double like Boston Beer Company which shot up +143.0% in a little more than 9 months and Nvidia which boomed +175.9% in one year.

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