Bank of Montreal (BMO) Stock Price & How to Invest

Bank of Montreal is Canada's oldest bank, founded in 1817, with its head office in Montreal and executive offices in Toronto. Management describes it as the eighth largest bank in North America by assets, with roughly $1.5 trillion CAD of total assets as of April 30, 2026, and about 53,200 employees. The business runs in five reporting segments: Canadian Personal and Commercial Banking, U.S. Banking, Wealth Management, Capital Markets and Corporate Services. The US franchise is unusually large for a Canadian bank, built on the old Harris Bank in Chicago and expanded materially by the 2023 purchase of Bank of the West, which added a California and Western US branch network. BMO reports under IFRS in Canadian dollars on an October fiscal year end, which means the quarter labelled Q2 fiscal 2026 ended April 30, 2026.

The investment picture in August 2026 is a bank two years into fixing a return problem it created for itself. Credit costs on the US commercial book spiked through fiscal 2024 and 2025 and pushed reported ROE down to 10.6% for fiscal 2025, well below what the Canadian Big Six normally earn. Provisions are now falling, fee income across Capital Markets, Wealth Management and payments is growing, and Q2 fiscal 2026 reported net income of $2,630 million CAD was up 34% against the prior year. At the March 2026 Investor Day, management committed to a sustained ROE above 15% exiting fiscal 2027. The market has re-rated the shares hard on that: BMO closed at $185.86 USD on August 14, 2026, an all-time high, against a 52-week low of $112.21 USD. Two portfolio decisions sit in the near-term numbers, an agreed sale of Transportation Finance and Vendor Finance to Stonepeak that carries a roughly $1.1 billion CAD pre-tax charge in fiscal Q3, and the August 10, 2026 announcement that BMO and RBC are selling their jointly owned Moneris payments business to Francisco Partners. Q3 fiscal 2026 results are scheduled for August 25, 2026.

The largest near-term risk is valuation rather than fundamentals: at about 19 to 20 times trailing reported earnings and roughly 2.3 times book, BMO trades well above the multiple Canadian banks have historically carried, and the shares sit at a 52-week high after a run of roughly 43% in 2026 in US dollar terms, so the ROE plan is substantially priced in. Credit could turn again, and investors should note that the Q2 improvement leaned on a near-zero performing-loan provision driven partly by model changes, which is not a repeatable source of earnings. Currency is a second, separate exposure: BMO earns and reports in Canadian dollars while the NYSE line is quoted in US dollars, so a weaker Canadian dollar reduces the US-dollar value of both the share price and the dividend regardless of how the bank performs. Fiscal Q3 2026, reporting August 25, includes an expected pre-tax charge of about $1.1 billion CAD on the agreed Stonepeak sale of Transportation Finance and Vendor Finance, treated as an adjusting item but real for reported results. BMO also faces ongoing Canadian consumer litigation, including a $100 million CAD settlement of a long-running registered-plan fee class action, and a 2024 US plaintiff-firm press release announcing an investigation of potential securities claims, which as of August 2026 has not produced a filed securities class action complaint.

3 analysts publish price targets on BMO, averaging $163.95 against a $185.81 price as of August 2026, or -11.8%. The published targets run from $143.80 to $180.89, a narrow spread, and the ratings split 5 buy, 6 hold, 3 sell. Over the last six months there has been 1 raise and 0 cuts among the published actions. A price target is what an analyst published on a date, not a prediction, and sell-side ratings skew positive across the whole market.

Read the full BMO forecast and price target for the target table, the recent rating actions by firm, and how the consensus has shifted.

We give no verdict on Bank of Montreal. Both cases are real, which is why the question is contested at all, so here is the strongest version of each.

The case for buying. The return-on-equity repair plan. At its Investor Day on March 26, 2026, BMO laid out a path to a sustained return on equity above 15% exiting fiscal 2027, bridged by roughly 250 basis points of core operating improvement on about 6% revenue growth per year, around 100 basis points from credit normalising, and around 50 basis points from share repurchases. The most optimistic published target, $180.89, assumes this works close to its best case.

The case against. The largest near-term risk is valuation rather than fundamentals: at about 19 to 20 times trailing reported earnings and roughly 2.3 times book, BMO trades well above the multiple Canadian banks have historically carried, and the shares sit at a 52-week high after a run of roughly 43% in 2026 in US dollar terms, so the ROE plan is substantially priced in. The most pessimistic target, $143.80, is roughly what BMO is worth if this bites instead.

Read the full bull and bear case on BMO, including what would have to change to break either one. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

A simple financial snapshot. These are approximations and refresh quarterly; for current figures see Bank of Montreal's investor relations page or your broker.

• Net interest income (Q2 FY2026): ~$5.27B CAD (~$21.9B CAD trailing twelve months)
• CET1 ratio (April 30, 2026): ~13.0%
• Return on equity (Q2 FY2026): ~13.0% reported, ~13.5% adjusted
• Provision for credit losses (Q2 FY2026): ~$739M CAD, down from ~$1,054M CAD a year earlier
• Dividend (annualized) and yield: ~$6.84 CAD per share (~$4.93 USD), ~2.7%
• P/E (trailing) and price-to-book: ~19x earnings, ~2.3x book

BMO closed at $185.86 USD on the NYSE on August 14, 2026, a 52-week high against a low of $112.21 USD, for a market capitalisation near $131 billion USD (roughly $182 billion CAD at the August 14 rate of about 1.39 CAD per USD). Trailing twelve-month revenue is about $37.7 billion CAD and trailing reported diluted EPS about $13.03 CAD, or roughly $13.65 CAD on an adjusted basis, putting the annualized $6.84 CAD dividend at a payout near 50%. The most recent reported quarter is Q2 fiscal 2026, ended April 30 and released May 27; Q3 fiscal 2026 results are scheduled for August 25, 2026 and Q4 for December 2, 2026.

Other names that sit close to BMO: same theme, named as a direct competitor, or held beside it in the same funds. Each entry says which. Worth a look if you are thinking about diversification within a thesis rather than concentration on one ticker.

There are three common ways to get BMO exposure. Buy shares (or fractional shares) directly at any major broker. Hold an ETF that includes it, which spreads the position across many companies. Or build it into a focused thematic portfolio, so BMO sits alongside other stocks that express the same thesis.

Walnut takes the portfolio route. Describe a thesis where BMO fits (for example “AI infrastructure” or “dividend-growth large-caps”) and the AI proposes 5 to 6 constituents with target weights. You review the plan and fund it through your own broker when you're ready.

New to this? Start with how to invest in stocks, see how to analyze a stock with AI, or compare the best AI stock analyzers.

BMO in August 2026 is a Canadian bank executing a credible return-on-equity repair, priced as though a good deal of that repair has already been delivered.

Whether BMO is worth buying today depends more on your time horizon and what you already hold than on any single call. We walk through valuation, what would have to go right, and the risks in is BMO a buy or a sell?, and where the stock could go from here in the BMO stock forecast.

For income investors, whether BMO pays a dividend and how the payout looks is covered in does BMO pay a dividend? And to weigh BMO against a peer, read the full side-by-side comparisons: BMO vs RY and BMO vs D.