This is my second dividend income report and I must admit, I have started to enjoy doing it! I never realized the fun of calculating your monthly passive pay check. In fact, I was too busy focusing on growth to care about how much I made last month. Still, receiving almost $200 this month in dividend definitely made me smile!
Portfolio holdings
I started this pension portfolio in September with the sum of $108,760.02. As of December 1st, my portfolio shows a total value of $118,392.67 (after my US portfolio converted into CAD).
Canadian portfolio (CAD):
| Company Name | Ticker | Market Value |
| Alimentation Couche-Tard | ATD.B.TO | $5,644.17 |
| Andrew Peller | ADW.A.TO | $5,702.10 |
| Royal Bank | RY.TO | $6,069.60 |
| Enbridge | ENB.TO | $5,349.30 |
| Lassonde Industries | LAS.A.TO | $5,291.79 |
| Shopify | SHOP.TO | $5,233.60 |
| Cash | $9,639.55 | |
| Total | $42,930.11 |
U.S. portfolio (USD):
| Company Name | Ticker | Market Value |
| Apple | AAPL | $5,302.55 |
| Disney | DIS | $4,736.25 |
| Gentex | GNTX | $4,838.64 |
| Hasbro | HAS | $4,224.64 |
| Honeywell | HON | $4,940.80 |
| Lazard | LAZ | $5,016.35 |
| Microsoft | MSFT | $5,055.60 |
| Starbucks | SBUX | $4,872.20 |
| Texas Instruments | TXN | $4,859.00 |
| United Parcel Services | UPS | $4,551.47 |
| Visa | V | $5,536.50 |
| Cash | $5,487.91 | |
| Total | $59,421.91 |
During the month of November, I did 3 transactions:
BUY 110 shares of Enbridge (ENB.TO) @ $47.40
Honestly, I’m not a big fan of the energy sector. In general, commodities are volatile and companies in these industries often post disastrous results during downturns. However, I think I can make an exception for the operator of the world’s longest pipeline.
What I like about pipelines is that they are like toll roads. The only difference is that you have no choice to take that road and pay the toll if you want to travel. Enbridge owns and operates an impressive network of liquid (OIL) and natural gas pipelines. ENB is able to transport energy from coast to coast and from north to south.
What convinced me was the impressive dividend track record doubled with a robust plan for the future. Management committed to increase its dividend by 10-12% CAGR through 2024. In other words, it will double its dividend in the upcoming years.
BUY 40 shares of Shopify (SHOP.TO) @ $127.94
When Citron Research, a hedge fund famous for dropping bombs on stocks (while short selling them), published a catastrophic analysis of Shopify, the stock plunged by about 15%. Managing editor Andrew Left basically explained how SHOP will be the next Herbalife (HLF) and will be found guilty of wrong marketing practice. I invite you to watch the video; it is quite entertaining to say the least. The guy is charismatic and you want to believe him because he puts on a good show.
However, SHOP is a legitimate business in my opinion. The company doesn’t advertise that you will become a millionaire by opening your own online shop. However, you can definitely find tons of articles about how people became millionaires through Shopify (and the like) services.
I believe the future is in online stores (obviously!). I also believe there are tons of smaller businesses that don’t have the resources to build their own online stores. I believe many of those will do just well online if they have a tool like Shopify. This is why this company is doing so well. I know it doesn’t pay dividend, but this is my “gamble pick” for this portfolio. The reason why I bought it was because I got rid of my previous gamble pick… Qualcomm!
SELL 80 shares of Qualcomm (QCOM) @ $64.90
Qualcomm is the perfect example of what I mean when I explain that my portfolio is divided into 2 categories: Core holdings that I will hold until I die (or at least 10 years) and growth holdings that are held with an investment horizon of 12-18 months. The key is to pick companies that are into some kind of troubles (like being countersued by the largest company of the world!), but that shows ways to survive and get back on track (leadership in the market, strong business model, plenty of clients).
The reason why I sold QCOM within weeks of purchasing it is quite simple; it bounced by 30%! To be exact, I made 29% within 5 or 6 weeks. I would have been more patient on this one if the Citron Saga didn’t happen at the same time. Since both happened almost during the same week, it was a no brainer. In the end, my SHOP holding is up by about 10% after I made 29% on the previous trade. Not bad.
Please note that I didn’t use QCOM sell proceeds to buy SHOP. I had non-invested CAD in my account. Therefore, I have now increased my position in cash in my USD account. s
Dividend income: $198.07
When I reported my first dividend income report in October, I completely forgot that the dividend that was paid in USD. I realize that now since I received both CAD and USD dividend this month. Therefore, from now on, I will post the dividend received by each company in their currency, but use a total dividend payout in CAD. The conversion rate will be mentioned at each time for transparency purposes.
Canadian Holdings payouts:
Royal Bank: $54.60
U.S. Holding payouts:
Lazard: $16.73 + special dividend of $25.09 = $41.82
Apple: $19.53
Hasbro: $26.22
Texas Instruments: $31.00
Total payouts: $198.07 CAD
*I used a USD/CAD conversion rate of 1.21.
November was definitely a great month compared to October. It shows me that I can really make money while doing nothing. However, the true power of this graph will be in a few years from now where I can compare each month with the previous years.
Total Return
Then again, my total returns don’t mean much yet, but I like to compare them to see where I am at compared to dividend ETFs. This is more like a fun exercise than anything else.
Canadian portfolio: +6.2%
XDV: +8.72%
Added Value: -2.52%
U.S. Portfolio: +11.1%
VIG: +10.96% (8.63% in USD, converted at CAD rate of 1.27)
Added Value: +0.14%
Final thoughts
At the time of writing this article, I still have about $9.6K CAD and a little over 5.4K USD to invest. This means I can buy 3 more stocks to be fully invested. I am not in a hurry as I was before though since most of my money is already working for me now. However, I would like to complete my portfolio by the end of the year to start 2018 with a fully invested pension account. On the U.S. side, CVS Health (CVS) is tempting….
Hello,
pretty nice result in November.
I see that you are considering CVS. Do you think it is a good option for dividend investors despite the merge with Aetna? That will cost them and I am a bit concern about the future dividend increase.
Regards
Hello Adrian,
You are right; this is what I dislike about mergers: you don’t know what will happen with the dividend policy! From the market reaction, I guess it didn’t like it! We’ll see, I’m not in a hurry to invest the rest of my money.
Cheers,
Mike
As a relatively new investor who also lives in Canada with all of my funds in a TFSA Direct investing account and the rest RRSP Direct investing account my question is if its worth it to purchase US stocks within a TFSA. I know due there are great upsides to the amount of diversity you get from the US companies especially in the Tech sector but due to the 15% with holding tax would I better of doing the majority of my investing within my RRSP account and treating them as a sort of combined portfolio?
Hello Ryan,
In an ideal world, you would have all your US stocks in a RRSP or other retirement accounts (LIF, LIRA, etc) and your Cdn stocks in your TFSA and cash accounts.
It’s not as easy, but combining your portfolio with 1 strategy is definitely the best solution. It requires a little bit of handwork (entering all information in an excel spreadsheet for example), but your portfolio would be tax-efficient.
Cheers,
Mike