7 Dividend Increases: March 5-9, 2018

I like monitoring dividend increases for stocks on my watch list of dividend growth stocks because I consider such stocks to be candidates for further analysis. Companies that regularly raise their dividends show confidence in the potential growth of future earnings.

I look for announcements from stocks in the CCC list, but I use several screens to limit the number of stocks I monitor. For example, I require yields greater than 1% for Dividend Champions and greater than 1.5% for Dividend Contenders and Dividend Challengers.

After an exciting earnings season with lots of dividend increases, the number of dividend increases is down significantly from recent weeks. Last week, only seven companies on my watch list decided to increase their dividends. I own two of these stocks.

The top increase is from Vail Resorts (MTN), a company that operates mountain resorts and urban ski areas in the United States. MTN announced a spectacular increase of 40%! The stock now yields 2.66% at $226.99 per share.

Two more stocks announced double-digit percentage increases, including one of the stock I own, General Dynamics (GD) with an increase of 11%. GD is DivGro's best performing stock with total returns over 250%.

To see details of all the dividend increases announced last week, please read this article at Seeking Alpha. I include three F.A.S.T. Graphs to illustrate the impressive earnings and dividend growth rates of some of these stocks.

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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