6 Dividend Increases: March 26-30, 2018

Monitoring dividend increases for stocks on my watch is one way to identify candidates for further analysis. Companies that regularly raise dividends show confidence in the potential growth of future earnings.

I monitor a selection of David Fish's CCC stocks using several screens to limit the number of stocks to monitor. For example, I require yields of at least 1.5% for Dividend Challengers and yields of at least 1.0% for Dividend Contenders and Dividend Champions.

Six stocks on my watch list announced increases last week. Three stocks announced double-digit percentage increases.

The top increase is from Banner (BANR), a bank holding company that of Banner Bank and Islanders Bank. BANR announced a stunning increase of 40% and now yields 2.52% at $55.49 per share.

The runner-up is Oxford Industries (OXM), an apparel company that designs, sources, markets, and distributes products of company-known brands like Tommy Bahama and Lilly Pulitzer. OXM announced an impressive increase of 26%, now yielding 1.82% at $74.56 per share.

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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