Month: July 2017

Recent Buy – Brookfield Asset Management

A new purchase in Baby R2R‘s portfolio this time. Regular readers may be aware that I started a two-part portfolio for Baby R2R earlier this year. The first part is related to her education fund that is invested in index funds and I make regular monthly contributions to that fund and dollar-cost average over time. The second part of the portfolio is what I call her Nest Egg Fund.

The Nest Egg Fund

The idea behind the Nest Egg Fund is simple and straightforward. Contribute $100/month and let the investment compound over the next few decades. Instead of going with a taxable account in her name, I have earmarked a portion of my tax free investment account, so that I can avoid paying dividend and capital gain taxes.

Continue reading

Top Dividend Raises & Cuts for June 2017

Dividend growth investing is a popular model followed by the investing community to build assets. Companies which not only pay dividends, but raise them year after year have been shown to perform better overall for investor returns. On the flip side, it is also important to keep an eye on the dividend cuts, which could signal troubling times ahead for a company. This post captures the announcements of changes in dividend amount for the week – both increases and cuts.

Note that only $2B+ (Midcap+) companies are included in this list.

Continue Reading Here >

2 Recent Buys – KL, AQN

BuySell

A quick update on a couple of purchases in my portfolio adding to my existing positions.

  • Last week saw some tumultuous time in the resource sector and almost all gold miners took  a hit. The fundamentals havent changed for most of these companies and have in fact improved significantly for some. A 5% drop in share prices provided me with a decent valuation to add to my already largest stock position in my portfolio. I added 100 shares in Kirkland Lake Gold (KL.TO) @ C$11.30. For people who arent familiar with the space, KL is the newly merged company and is on track to become a heavyweight in the mid-tier space of the gold mining business. The company is headed by none other than the legendary Eric Sprott and is sitting on some amazing resources. The Fosterville project has proven to be a literal goldmine as better results keep coming month after month improving the prospects. KL has been on a tear this year and the YTD performance has been approx 65%. Nevertheless, I am so bullish on this company that I do not intend to sell and take profits but looking to add to my position on any pullbacks. KL also recently initiated issuing dividends and announced a buyback program.
  • Yesterday, I also made a purchase adding to one of my long term dividend growth stock holding. I added 100 shares in Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp (AQN.TO) @ C$13.00. I have owned shares in AQN for a few years now and have been extremely pleased with the performance. The company yields approx 4.7% and adds US$46.6 annually (dividends are paid in US$). I am a big fan of this business, which owns assets in all three major subsectors – electric, gas and water…which as far as I am aware, is the only utility company that provides exposure in all three subsectors. AQN also has a renewable energy division, which is a nice growth area to gain exposure in.

Full Disclosure: Long AQN.TO, KL.TO. Our full list of holdings is available here.

Quarterly Update – Q2 2017

Welcome to the quarterly update for Q2 2017. This is part of  a series where I track our financial progress on a quarterly basis. I present three parts in this series: (i) Investment & Portfolio Update, (ii) Passive Income Update, and (iii) Goals Update.

1. Investment & Portfolio Update

Q2 2017 saw very little activity in our portfolio.
We added to the following positions.

We continued adding to the following funds

  • BMO S&P/TSX Capped Composite Index ETF (ZCN.TO)
  • Vanguard All-World Ex-Canada Index ETF (VXC.TO)
  • BMO Aggregate Bond Index ETF (ZAG.TO)
  • BMO Emerging Bond Index ETF (ZEF.TO)
  • Vanguard Emerging Market Bond ETF (VWOB)
  • US Equity Index (Seg) Fund
  • Intl Equity Index (Seg) Fund
  • Scotia Monthly Income (Mutual) Fund

Reduced/Closed positions: We reduced/closed positions in the following in Q2 2017

Q2 saw 4 dividend increase announcements in our portfolios. The companies from our portfolios increasing their dividends and details of portfolio changes are summarized below.

Passive Income Update – June 2017

Welcome to our monthly passive income update for June 2017. This is part of the scorecard series where we track our dividends and other sources of passive income. We also include changes and updates related to our investments during the month – showing the overall progress.

Passive Income  Update

Passive income for the month of June 2017 was C$677.54. The passive income for the month comprised of US$193.07 and C$426.55 (exchange rate is US$1 = C$1.30).

Passive income change is +0.29% QoQ and -41.14% YoY for the month. The passive income YTD is $4,226.77 and achieves 42.2% of our annual goal of earning $10K.

Continue reading