4 Dividend Increases: January 1-12, 2018

Monitoring dividend increases is one way to identify candidates for further analysis. Companies that regularly increase dividends show confidence in future earnings growth potential.
A Quick Review of 2017 In 2017, I reported on more than 500 such dividend increases. In this summary article, I calculated the average dividend increase (8.89%) and the average yield (2.83%) of the stocks in question.
In the article, I also extracted 24 stocks with year over year dividend increases above 7.5%, yields above 2.75%, and at least 10 consecutive years of higher dividend payments. These stocks yield 4.09%, on average, while the average dividend increase and the average streak of higher dividend payments are 10.87% and 17.7 years, respectively. I think the 24 stocks would make an interesting portfolio!
On to 2018! To create the dividend increase reports, I search for dividend announcements from companies in the CCC list of dividend growth stocks. I use the following screens to compile my watch list:
Market cap ≥ $500M No stocks that are being acquired. No over-the-counter or pink sheet stocks Dividend Yield ≥ 2% for Challengers Dividend Yield ≥ 1% for Contenders and Champions In the past two weeks, four companies on my watch list announced dividend increases. The following table provides a summary of these increases.
The table is sorted by the percentage increase, %Incr. Dividends are annualized and in US$, unless otherwise indicated. Yield is the new dividend yield... Read more