My Investment City

Hey guys! I used this picture from the game called SimCity and I tried to apply all of my investments on the map. My investment philosophy is very simple. I invest in businesses that people use everyday. As years go by, my investments will grow and so is the city.

Here is My Investment City. And for the fun of it, I'm challenging you to do the same. Pick a downtown picture that you like, plug in your investment companies, and post it on your blog. This will take some time, but it's fun to see all your investments laid out on the map.

3 Dividend Raises (QSR, CT, FN)

Restaurant Brands International (TSE:QSR) announced a dividend increase of 5 cents per share and the stock went up by $6. I’m not sure why the market is so excited about this increase. This increase was expected and it should have been already reflected in the share price. The dividend increase represents 11.11 percent. I have 11 shares of QSR, meaning my yearly dividend income will be increased by $2.75 if calculated in Canadian currency.

The company just paid a quarterly dividend in January, consequently the increase will be reflected in April’s payout.

Apart from QSR dividend increase, CT REIT (TSE:CRT.UN.TO) and First National (TSE:FN.TO) also raised their dividends by 3.97% and 2.75% respectively. With 220 shares of CT and 85 shares of FN in my portfolio, my yearly dividend income will be increased by $6.36 and $4.32.

Combined dividend increases will add $13.43 per year of free cash flow. That equals to $275 of fresh capital that I did not have to invest to increase my income. That's the power of compound growth!

These increases are small, but as long as I get them, they will help me reach my 2019 dividend goals.

Let me know if you own any of the stocks that I mentioned above. It’s time to celebrate!

February 2019 Stocks Consideration

So far the month of January of 2019 was the exact opposite of December 2018. This is a perfect “V” shape rebound. Anybody who does swing trading are laughing all the way to the bank. It’s certainly will be harder to pick good quality stocks after a recent bull run. Some stocks are up 10% or more within a month. Great deals go fast! 

Anyway, prior to market rebound, bank and energy stocks were trading at historically low valuations. I made a buy list of what I wanted to buy in 2019. The list is not big, but these are the companies that I still don’t have in my portfolio – TD, BNS, BMO, ENB, BIP.UN, and BEP.UN. 

All of those stocks are lot higher now.

Toronto Dominion Bank (TD) is up by 9% from $66 to $72 per share.

Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) is up by 10.6% from $66 to $73 per share.

Bank of Montreal (BMO) is up by 11.6% from $86 to $96 per share.

Enbridge (ENB) is up by 17.5% from $40 to $47 per share.

Brookfield Infrastructure (BIP/UN) is up by 13.3% from $45 to $51 per share.

Brookfield Renewables (BEP/UB) is up by 8.8% from $34 to $37 per share.



Some stocks are still good deals but not great deals. Hopefully there will be a little correction in February to buy these stocks cheaper.


Meanwhile, looking at my portfolio, I identified a few lagging positions that did not appreciate as much. I have small positions in Freehold Royalties, Artis, and Cominar.

Freehold Royalties leases land to operators and collect royalties in return. It’s an interesting business because they earn money regardless of how the oil price is doing. There are less risk involved compared to drillers. I own 25 shares of FRU and my average cost is $14.21. Right now the shares are trading below $9 and it would be a great opportunity for me to average down on my cost basis. I can potentially reduce my average to $10. 

Artis REIT is another small position that I have. I have 70 shares and my cost average cost is $13.76 per share. These days, Artis is trading at around $10. I have a chance to double my position and lower my cost average to $12. 

Cominar is one of my favorite undervalued REIT. I only have 70 shares of Cominar and my average cost is $18.08 per share. I particularly favor the company for its industrial and retail properties. At the moment, Cominar is trading at $12 per share. I can double my investment in Cominar and reduce my cost average to $15 per share.



So these are the three potential companies that I can average down in February if bank and energy stocks don’t pull back.

A Little Favor For My Wife

Elena

Hey guys! I have a little favor to ask. My wife, Elena, runs an Etsy shop. She makes handmade banners as a hobby and sells on Etsy. She recently started a YouTube channel to showcase her work. The channel is new and requires at least 100 subscribers to unlock some of the features to help grow the channel.

So if you have a Gmail account, it would help a lot if you could subscribe to her YouTube channel. You don’t have to watch the videos. And you can unsubscribe when she reaches 100 subscribers threshold.

Right now. she only has six subscribers so every new subscriber would be a great help. 

I did not tell her that I asked you the favor. So it’s a total surprise for her!

Here's Her YouTube Channel

So how is the stock market these days? Is your portfolio up this month?

New Buy: Royal Bank of Canada

Today I made my first stock purchase of 2019. I mentioned in my previous post that in 2019 I will focus more on Bank stocks. Hence, I started my shopping spree with the Royal Bank of Canada.

The Royal Bank of Canada (TSE:RY) is the largest Canadian bank with market capitalization of $139 billion. RBC serves over 16 million clients and has 80,000 employees worldwide.

Today I purchased 10 shares of RBC and paid $96.85 per share. It’s a new position for me and I plan to add to it when opportunities arise. It would be nice to own at least 50 shares, but that may take a while to accumulate.

The current dividend yield is 4%. This purchase will add $39.20 to my yearly income. Its current payout ratio is 45%, making the dividend payments very safe. The bank has a great track record of dividend raises. For example, in 2018, RBC raised the dividend twice - from $0.91 to $0.94 and then to $0.98. I expect them to do the same in 2019 since their revenues are growing at an average rate of 6.9%.

The ex-dividend date for RBC is January 23, 2019. Since I bought the stock before ex-date, I will get my first dividend payment on February 22, 2019.

What do you think about RBC? Do you own it? Let me know what you plan to buy in January.

A simple trick to get Great Deals!!!

You probably tried a lot of good tricks to save money on groceries, clothing, electronics, and so on. I’m not going to waste your time saying to buy things on sale. That’s obvious and everybody knows that. 

Here’s a trick I use all the time to squeeze out more savings from my purchases. Before I shop at any specific store, I look online for gift cards. There are plenty of people who want to get rid of their gift cards that they received as a birthday gift or whatever. I use the most popular classified ads website called Kijiji to look up for "gift cards" or “carte cadeau” in French since I live in a French province.

If you live in Canada, you will find plenty of gift cards on Kijiji. If you live in US then you can try Craigslist or any other local classified website. You can find really great deals and that’s the reason I wanted to share with you guys, because the more you can save, the more you can invest into… you guessed it… dividend paying stocks!!!

Here are some great deals I was able to find last week:

Portfolio Value Update - December 2018

Welcome back to my blog! How does it feel to be in 2019? Time flies. 2018 is officially behind us and here’s the last monthly update of last year.

Portfolio Value 
As of December 31, 2018 my investment portfolio balance stood at $60,126. That’s a decrease of $2,058 from last month. December was the worst performing month of all times. Take a look at the graph below. The TSX was 15,200 points on December 1st and ended up with 14,300 points by December 31st. So the whole market took a hit, again. The last three trading days, stocks rallied which helped my portfolio to close above $60K mark.