Columbia Management's [see profile] parent heard some good news from an analyst last week. On Thursday Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analyst Jeffrey Schuman upgraded his outlook for Ameriprise from "market perform" to "outperform" and raised his target price for the brokerage from $61 to $67 per share -- at the time Ameriprise shares cost $41.56 each.

"While the 3Q market decline was a setback, we've been impressed by AMP's progress against asset management and advice and wealth management margin targets and expect further improvement," Schuman wrote in KBW's Q3 2011 earnings preview report on the broad "life insurance" market. "Given AMP's business mix, general account asset leverage and interest rate risk are low."

Ameriprise bought back $761 million in shares in the first and second quarters of this year, and Schuman expects the company to buy $600 million more back in the third and fourth quarters of 2011, followed by $1 billion more in 2012.

"We view AMP as an attractive vehicle to add some beta exposure within the group without taking much downside balance sheet/interest rate exposure," Schuman added. 

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