Source: Unsplash 

The portfolio of stocks I started building on September 8, at a one stock per week pace for the next year, is named Vista. I will select its twelfth stock this weekend. Vista is the sixth portfolio I've built (at a one dividend dog per-week pace) since 2014. Six portfolios = VI for Vista!

Vista is planned to Look Ahead for Outstanding, Proven, Dividend Winners. (Like Aristocrats)

Today we'll review the second of four financial services sector stock candidates vying to be that twelfth selection and second of nine financial services members of the Vista portfolio.

My subject today is a small-cap regional bank, named Northwest Bancshares Inc. Its trading ticker symbol is NWBI. This is my first report on Northwest Bancshares Inc for Vista of any of my five previous portfolios.

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, 2019, it operated 181 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.

I use three key data points to 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 $12.00 yesterday. A year ago its price was $16.76. Price fell $4.76 or about 28.4% last year.

If Northwest's stock trades in the range of $9 to $15 this next year, its recent $12.00 price might rise by $0.50 to reach $12.50 by November 24, 2021. 

NWBI Dividends

Northwest's most recently declared quarterly dividend was $0.19 paid November 16th. Dividends are estimated to total $0.76 per share annually and yield 6.33% at yesterday's $12.00 closing price.

NWBI Gains?

Adding the $0.76 annual anticipated dividend to my $0.50 optimistic estimate of Northwest Bancshares Inc's price upside shows a $1.26 potential gross gain, per share, to be reduced by any costs to trade the shares.  

Put little under $1,000.00 today in Northwest Bancshares Inc at $12.00 and we would buy 83 shares of NWBI stock.

A $10 broker fee (if any) paid half at purchase and half at sale could cost us about $0.12 per share.

Subtract that $0.12 brokerage cost from my estimated $1.26 gross gain per share results in a net gain of $1.14 X 83 shares = $94.62 for a 9.5% net gain on a $996.00 investment.

So it goes that Northwest Bancshares Inc shows a possible 9.5% net gain including a 6.33% dividend yield. It could be more, it could be less.        

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.