About Me

Hey! I’m glad to see you here! My name is Mike and I’m the author of The Dividend Guy Blog since 2010. I didn’t create this blog, I bought it because I loved it! Yes… I buy blogs among other things!

My Story

First things first; I am French Canadian. While everything I write on this blog is edited by a good friend of mine whose English is better than mine. Therefore, pardon my funny expressions that you will read from time to time! If you are reading this page, it’s probably because you are an investor and want to learn more about me. So let’s start with a little story about how I started investing…

I will remember this day forever; I applied for a $20,000 line of credit back in 2003. I just started my job at the bank and 10 days later, I’m in front of a banker asking for a $20K line of credit. I didn’t tell him what it was for; leveraging. A month later, I had $19,500 invested in the stock market, all provided by the bank which employs me! Three years later, I generated over $70,000 in profit and purchased my first house using $50,000 in cash down from my trading successes.

Nope, I’m not an investing guru and have since learned the hard way. Strong from my first three years or success on the stock market, I started to take additional risks. Toward the end of 2006, I lost 50% of my account on a single trade. I then realized investing is not gambling and you can lose real money. Then, 2008 happened and I was hit again. I was lucky that time as most of my money was used to purchase my house and funds in my investment account wasn’t that high at that time.

The problem I had after 2006 was that I started to lack the time necessary to trade diligently. At the beginning of my investing career, I was an aggressive trader and spent countless hours studying the market. But a few years down the road and my plate was full. I got married, three kids and a demanding job. I couldn’t spend a few hours a day on the stock market as I used too.

I was reading The Dividend Guy Blog since its creation in 2005 and noticed the previous author slowed down his writing pace. I was already running other websites at that time and enquired about buying his blog. A month later I became The Dividend Guy. Following his investment philosophy, I started to switch my portfolio toward dividend investing. I like dividend stocks because they are more stable companies and therefore, don’t demand that I look at the markets every day.

Where I Am NOW

I’m married to my lovely wife (it’s been 18 years together and 11 years of marriage!) and have three beautiful children; they are the main reasons to do what I do each day. Born in 1981, I quickly understood how to make money. I hit a 100K salary at the age of 28 but started to spend it all at the same time! I can’t say I regret it as driving an RX-8, vacationing in Hawaii and living in a big house is interesting and fun… for a while anyways.

In 2016, I decided to take a leap of faith and left everything behind to travel across North America and Central America with my family. We drove through nine countries and stayed three months in Costa Rica before returning home. At the age of 35, I gave myself the most precious gift of all; I’ve spent an entire year with the people I love and lived a thousand incredible experiences. If you are curious about this trip; I’ve documented this life-changing adventure here.

How did I finance this trip? Did I live frugally for 5 years to pay for my one year vacation? Did I inherit or come from a wealthy family? None of the above. Instead, driven by my passion for financial markets, I built a dividend investing platform to simplify and improve DIY investors life. This site is called Dividend Stocks Rock (DSR). Most investment membership websites will show you a very serious guy in a suit & tie. I decided to quit the classic financial world and live on my own terms. This is how I created DSR based on the conviction investing principles should be easy to understand. The truth is that you should not pay someone else 2% of your portfolio to manage your money. You do it because you lack time mostly. DSR has been built to make investment decision easy. No more dilemmas between buying and selling decisions. No more struggling to enter or exit the market upon the most recent news.

My Investing Philosophy

Throughout the years, I’ve studied, researched and tried many different investing styles. Since 2010, I’ve become a dividend growth investor, but not the classic buy & hold guy. I divide my portfolio into two distinct sections: a core portfolio and a growth portion.

The core portfolio looks like the classic dividend buy & hold with solid (and boring) companies. I expect to hold these companies for a very long time, if not forever. The growth portion contains stocks with a strong growth potential over a relatively short period (18 to 24 months). My investing process is summarized in 7 investing principles:

- Principle 01: High Dividend Yield Doesn’t Equal High Returns

- Principle 02: Focus on Dividend Growth

- Principle 03: Find Sustainable Dividend Growth Stocks

- Principle 04: The Business Model Ensure Future Growth

- Principle 05: Buy When You Have Money in Hand – At The Right Valuation

- Principle 06: The Rationale Used to Buy is Also Used to Sell

Principle 07: Think Core, Think Growth

You can read the fruit of my research that has led me to my a straightforward strategy.

If you are curious to know what my portfolio looks like, here are my holdings in detail.

My Goals

RETIRE YOUNG. When I launched my first blog in 2006 with my best friend and partner in my online company, our goal was to become millionaires at the age of 35. This means that in 2016, I want to be worth $1M. This didn’t happen, unfortunately. However, something even better did. At the age of 35, I reached financial independence and retired from the corporate world. As I value time spent with my family and friends as well as more life experiences than can be had just working for a big corporation, I decided to change my life to reach financial independence at a really young age to see where it would lead me.

LEARN ANOTHER LANGUAGE. Among my personal goals, I want to learn Spanish. I’m already pretty good in both French and English and I acquired basic Spanish skills during my trip in Central America. I now want to improve those skills.

STAY FIT. I want to be an example of health and wealth to my children. Therefore, I must keep working hard to show them that it’s possible to grow older and stay fit. I currently work out 4 times a week, running roughly 25K/week and lifting weights. On October 1st 2017, I ran my first half-marathon!

HELP. I believe that those who are blessed by life but return the favor back. This is why I want to help as many people as I can. This blog is a good example. I indeed earn income from my websites, but I think I help more people invest and educate them than just make money.

Countries I’ve Visited so Far…

When I was younger, I participated in a foreign student exchange where I studied in Europe for 6 months. I actually traveled and didn’t study much! So far, I’ve seen the following countries: Canada, USA, Dominican Republic, France, Spain, Germany, UK, Scotland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, and Italy.

Then, I visited Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica during my one-year RV trip.

In 2020, I visited Vietnam for a month.

In 2022, I climbed Kilimanjaro and visited Zanzibar.

In 2023, I’ll spend a month in Portugal.

Let’s Keep in Touch

I like to discuss everything about the stock market! If you have any questions, don’t be shy to email me at dividendustries at gmail. You can leave comments on this blog and register to my newsletter to get more free stuff . Click on the icon below follow me on various social media: