TSX Market News - BCE, BPY, CM, BIP, EMA, PLZ

Hey guys! The business week is over and I would like to summarize important news about the stocks I own, or the stocks on my watchlist. Here’s the list of business news from September 23 to September 27, 2019.

BELL (BCE.TO)
Bell Mobility announced that wireless broadband service is now available to all 25 communities in Nunavut. This is positive news for Canada’s largest communications company as they will be able to reach more customers in remote locations.

Brookfield Infrastructure to become a Canadian Corporation and Split 9 to 1

Brookfield Infrastructure will convert to a Canadian corporation and will have a reverse stock split of 9 to 1. If you own Units in BIP.UN, they will be converted into BIPC Class A shares once the transaction is complete. For every 9 shares of BIP, you will receive 1 share of BIPC. The dividend will remain the same.

There are some benefits of the creation of BIPC. This will increase demand from U.S. investors due to more favorable tax attributes, and an increase demand from investors that normally do not invest in partnership units. Which means that there will be more money chasing the shares, potentially increasing the share price.

Sold Dream Global REIT (DRG.UN.TO). Invested in Northland Power (NPI.TO) and Genworth MI Canada (MIC.TO)

The Buyout of Dream Global REIT

If you're a shareholder of Dream Global REIT (DRG.UN.TO), you're probably know by now that the company will be acquired in December 2019. Last week, the company received a buyout offer, consequently I decided to sell my shares today and reinvest in other solid companies.

I've been a shareholder of DRG since early 2016. DRG is a pure European play. This was my only exposure to European real estate. I really liked their properties. I had 225 shares at an average cost of $9.05 per share. I sold all shares today for $16.57 and locked in $1,692 of capital gain. I also received over $500 in dividends for holding the stock for three years. Overall, my total return was around 100% thanks to the acquisition. Although, it's a great return, it's still sucks to see it go. It's the second REIT from my portfolio being bought this year. If you recall, a few months ago, Pure Multi-Family REIT was in a buyout deal as well.

What do you do for a living? Manage a 350K Portfolio

Today I'm going to share a story about my work colleague from my previous job. Going back to 2010, I knew a guy at my work who quit his job with a 350K stock portfolio. For the purpose of this article, I will call him John (not his real name). For dividend growth investors, a 350K portfolio is very small and it would be almost impossible to achieve financial independence unless your living expense is under a $1,000 per month. In my case, a 350K portfolio would generate approximately $1,450 per month which is not enough to cover my cost of living. My cost of living in Montreal city with two kids is around $4,000 per month. So how did John succeeded to make a living from his portfolio?

Portfolio Value Update - August 2019

Hello everybody. Welcome back to my blog. I’ve been very busy lately and I apologize for delaying my August update. In terms of portfolio progress, August was a great month, no complaints here. On a personal note, my wife and I celebrated our birthdays together. We’re August birthday people with one week apart so we celebrate our birthdays together. And to spoil the wife, we got her a brand new Samsung s10+. It’s a nice phone! Anyway, let’s dive into the numbers and see how my portfolio did in August.