American Express Set To Touch $66 By 2013

By Robert Gordon American Express Company (AXP) is one of the world’s leading financial companies, with its ubiquitous credit and non credit cards. It has two major divisions: all things card-related, and everything else. That “everything else” is a leading travel agency, and a publishing company. The credit card company is the fourth largest in the world. AXP became a bank holding company in late 2008, in order to take advantage of the government’s TARP bailout loans, of which AXP received a little under $4 billion. The amount has been repaid in full. AXP had long owned a small savings bank, but the assets of that bank made up a small fraction of AXP’s assets. By including all the assets of the company under a bank holding company, AXP was eligible for more TARP money. AXP stock was trading recently at about $48 per share, and, as we predicted had a great 2011. Its 52-week range is from $53.80 to $41.30, and it has a market capitalization of $56.2 billion. It has a P/E of 12.1 and pays a quarterly dividend of $0.18, for an annual yield of 1.5% AXP has been recovering nicely since the economic depression caused 2009…