5 Dividend-Growing Regional Bank Stocks To Buy Now

Regional banks get pummeled when the yield curve inverts, and right now, the yield curve is strongly inverted.
However, the yield curve should un-invert in the coming months.
The five regional banks detailed below are based across the country, from Maine and Rhode Island to Kentucky and West Virginia to the Lone Star State of Texas.
Their dividend yields range from 2.85% to 4.75%, but each has good dividend safety and growth prospects.
Image Source
The noble community bank has certainly seen better days. Its basic business model is to borrow short for relatively low interest rates and lend long at relatively high interest rates, pocketing the spread. Simple enough, right?
Well, that simple business model is made much harder when the yield curve (the level of various interest rates from short to long duration) flattens or inverts. In the past twelve months, interest rates have flattened to the point of significant inversion twice: once around August 2019, and now again this past week.
It has gotten so bad that even the 30-year Treasury rate is offering almost the same yield as the effective Fed Funds rate (aka the "overnight" rate):
Data by YChartsFor your humble community bank trying to turn a profit by borrowing (or accepting deposits) short and lending long, this is an extremely undesirable situation. Borrowers are flooding their doors to refinance their loans at lower rates, and meanwhile, they still have to pay the same rates to their depositors and on their own short-term borrowings. Margins are getting squeezed.
Perhaps this is why we've seen five of my favorite high-quality, dividend-paying regional bank stocks get pummeled over the last several months:
Data by YChartsThe good news is that inverted yield curves tend not to last very long. Economic conditions inevitably shift such that either the short end of the yield curve falls below the long end, or the long end rises above the short end — or both simultaneously. I suspect... Read more