Image Source: Unsplash

Northwest Bancshares Inc has the ticker symbol NWBI and is a small-cap member of the financial services sector as a regional bank. This is my third report on Northwest Bancshares for this Vista folio. I last reported on this stock on November 24.

Northwest Bancshares Inc is a stockholding company for Northwest Bank. Northwest Bank is a stock savings bank and a community-oriented financial institution offering personal and banking business solutions, investment management, and trust services, and insurance products. 

It also offers consumer finance loans through a wholly-owned subsidiary. The bank's loan portfolio segment consists of personal banking and business banking loans. Personal banking includes residential mortgages, home equity loans, and other consumer loans. Business banking loans consist of commercial real estate loans and commercial loans. 

Net interest income is the company's primary contributor to revenue.

As of December 31, 2020, it operated 170 community-banking locations in central and western Pennsylvania, western New York, and eastern Ohio. 

Northwest Bancshares, Inc. was founded in 1896 and is headquartered in Warren, Pennsylvania.

Three key data points gauge dividend equities or funds like Northwest Bancshares Inc:

(1) Price

(2) Dividends

(3) Returns

Those three basic keys best tell whether a company has made, is making, and will make money. 

NWBI Price

Northwest's price per share closed at $14.22 yesterday. One year ago its price was $10.22. Thus, the price per share has grown over 39% as it recovered from last year's Covid market slump. 

Should Northwest Bancshares Inc stock trade in the range of $10.00 to $16.00 this year, its recent $14.22 price might rise by $0.78 to reach $15.00 by May 5, 2022. My estimate is $0.12 higher than the median of six estimates from analysts tracking NWBI.

NWBI Dividends

Northwest's most recent quarterly dividend of $0.20 is payable May 17th and equates to $0.80 annually yielding 5.63% at yesterday's $14.22 closing price. Northwest has paid annually increasing quarterly dividends for 11 years. 

NWBI Returns

Adding the $0.80 annual Northwest Bancshares Inc forward-looking dividend to my $0.78 price upside estimate shows a $1.58 potential gross gain, per share, to be reduced by any costs to trade the shares.  

If we put little under $1,000.00 today in Northwest Bancshares Inc at $14.22 per share, we'd buy 70 shares.

A $10 broker fee (if charged) would be paid half at purchase and half at sale and might cost us about $0.14 per share.

Subtract that maybe $0.14 brokerage cost from my estimated $1.58 gross gain per share results in a net gain of $1.44 X70 shares = $100.80 for a 10.1% net gain on a $995.40 investment.

Thus, Northwest Bancshares Inc shows a possible 10.1% net gain including a 5.63% forward-looking dividend yield. 

Over the next year at this time, a $1000 investment in NWBI could generate $56.30 in cash dividends. And a single share bought at yesterday's closing price was $14.22! So, if NWBI is your kind of regional bank investment, NWBI is showing a share price four times less than the expected annual dividend income from $1,000 invested. This suggests now may be a good time to add Northwest Bancshares Inc to your holdings.     

All of the estimates above are speculation based on the past history of Northwest Bancshares Inc. Only time and money invested in this stock will determine its worth.