20 Dividend Increases: February 26-March 2, 2018 (Part 1: Consumer Discretionary And Financials Sectors)

I monitor dividend increases for stocks on my watch list of dividend growth stocks to identify 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 to monitor:
Market cap ≥ $500 million No stocks that are being acquired No Over-The-Counter or Pink Sheet stocks Dividend Yield ≥ 1.5% for Challengers Dividend Yield ≥ 1.0% for Contenders and Champions In the past week, 20 companies on my watch list decided to increase their dividends.
The table below presents dividend increases from stocks in the Consumer Discretionary and Financials sectors. See the upcoming Part 2 for dividend increase announcements from the remaining sectors.
The table is sorted by the percentage increase, %Incr. Dividends are annualized and in US$, unless otherwise indicated. Yield is the new dividend yield for the market close Price on the date listed. Yrs are years of consecutive dividend increases, while 5-yr DGR is the compound annual growth rate of the dividend over a 5-year period. 1-yr %Incr is the percentage increase from the year-ago dividend. (Some companies increase their dividends more than once a year, so this puts the most recent dividend increase in context.)
Summary of Dividend Increases: February 26-March 2, 2018

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