27 Dividend Increases: February 12-16, 2018 (Part 2: Financials, Consumer Discretionary, & Real Estate Stocks)

Monitoring dividend increases for stocks on my watch is one way to identify candidates for further analysis. I look for announcements from stocks in the CCC list, but I use several screens to limit the number of stocks to monitor.

In the past week, 27 companies on my watch list decided to increase their dividends, including four of the stocks I hold in my portfolio.

Part 1 presented dividend increases of stocks in the Industrials and Information Technology sectors. This is Part 2, which covers dividend increase announcements from stocks in the Financials, Consumer Discretionary, and Real Estate sectors. See the upcoming Part 3 for a summary of dividend increases from stocks in the remaining sectors.

As a bonus, I include a summary of available ex-dividend dates for the next two weeks.

The top increase in the Financials, Consumer Discretionary, and Real Estate sectors is from Lear (LEA) with a stunning increase of 40%.The company The company designs, develops, engineers, manufactures, assembles, and supplies automotive seating, electrical distribution systems, and related components to automotive manufacturers. The stock now yields 1.48% at $189.57 per share.

Four other stocks in these sectors announced double-digit percentage increases. One is Guaranty Bancorp (GBNK),  a bank holding company for Guaranty Bank and Trust Company based in Denver, Colorado. GBNK increased its dividend by 30% and now yields 2.28% at $28.55 per share.

To see all the dividend increases in the Financials, Consumer Discretionary, and Real Estate sectors, please read this article at Seeking Alpha.

As a bonus, I'm including a summary of ex-dividend dates for the next two weeks. Scan the list of stocks to see if there's a stock you want to pick up before the ex-dividend date so you can grab the next dividend.

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