36 Dividend Increases: April 23-27, 2018 (Part 2: Financials Sector Stocks)

Companies that regularly increase dividends show confidence in future earnings growth potential. Monitoring dividend increases for stocks on my watch list helps me 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.

This week, 36 companies on my watch list declared dividend increases, including four of the stocks I own. Part 1 presented dividend increases for stocks in the Energy and Utilities Sectors. This is Part 2, which presents dividend increases for Financials Sector stocks. Please see the upcoming Part 3 for dividend increases from the remaining sectors.

Ten out of eighteen increases from stocks in the Financials sector are double-digit increases! In fact, three stocks announced increases of 20% or more!

The top increase is from Webster Financial (WBS), a bank holding company for Webster Bank, National Association, which provides financial services to individuals, families, and businesses in the United States. WBS announced an increase of 27% and now yields 2.17% at $60.73 per share.

Evercore (EVR) and Zions Bancorp (ZION) announced increases of 25% and 20%, respectively. EVR is an independent investment banking advisory firm that provides advisory services to prominent multinational corporations on significant mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, restructurings and other strategic corporate transactions. The stock now yields 1.99% at $100.55 per share. Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, ZION is a financial services company that provides banking and related products and services in the western United States. The stock now yields 1.73% at $55.60 per share.

To see all the dividend increases in the Financials sector, 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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