Category Archives: Dividend Ideas

Thanksgiving Day: 3 Dividend Stocks I’m Grateful I Own

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Happy Thanksgiving Day, Canadians! Our American neighbours will be celebrating Thanksgiving on November 25. This is due to Thanksgiving was originally set for celebrating good harvest and since Canada is more up north, Canadian farmers would harvest sooner.

While enjoying stuffed turkeys, it’s a good time to reflect on things we’re grateful about. In terms of dividend stocks, I’m thankful to have the following holdings in my portfolio. I also want to thank you for reading this blog. :3

Source Image by J Lloa from Pixabay 

Fortis Stock

I used to trade in and out of stocks, looking for quick profits. More recently, I was able to refrain from selling my Fortis (TSX:FTS)(NYSE:FTS) stock even though I knew it was fully valued at the time. The thing about investing is there’s no absolute right or wrong answer. The path is only clear in hindsight.

I remember last time I traded out of Fortis stock, it did pull back. But eventually, it worked its way steadily higher. That’s the type of business it is. If you’re looking for a dividend stock that will increase its dividend year after year, Fortis is a solid pick, as a regulated utility that earns stable and predictable returns.

I’m thankful that Fortis stock remains a part of my dividend portfolio. And if it becomes cheap enough again, I’ll pick some more shares up if I have excess cash. It’s the kind of dividend stock that doesn’t require much monitoring.

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Merck: Our Recent Dividend Stock Purchase

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Thank God we have maintained a diversified portfolio. Although we feel a bit queasy to see our growth stock holdings fall a lot recently, it’s nothing we’ll lose our sleep over. Besides, my stable dividend stocks have been resilient with some that have appreciated recently! That stability has helped keep us calm despite the growth stock volatility.

Here’s a comparison. Shopify (TSX:SHOP)(NYSE:SHOP) stock has fallen about 20% from its all-time high in about 2.5 months and Converge Technologies (TSX:CTS) has declined about 26% in about 5 weeks. 

pug feeling down

While the main stock we’ll talk about in this article, Merck (NYSE:MRK), has popped about 15% in roughly 2 weeks. First, we’ll go over why we started a position in the dividend stock. Second, we’ll discuss why it recently popped.

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The Joy of Receiving Dividends

Dividend income is very useful. It can be used to pay for food, your hobby, your kids’ education or hobby, a wonderful vacation, a new car, rent or mortgage payments. 

Common stock dividends aren’t made equal. Dividends paid from cyclical stocks like oil and gas producers or gold/copper miners are volatile. When the underlying commodity prices rise, they will increase their dividends. Similarly, when the underlying commodities drop in price, they will likely cut their dividends.

There are some energy or gold stocks, such as Enbridge (TSX:ENB)(NYSE:ENB) and Franco-Nevada (TSX:FNV)(NYSE:FNV), which provide more trustworthy dividends. 

Personally, regardless of the dividend yield, I would only determine an investment acceptable if it provides satisfactory expected returns for the risk I’m taking. Oftentimes, it boils down to buying stocks at a margin of safety.

All that being said, I love receiving dividends.

The joy of receiving dividends

One of my most enjoyable activities is receiving dividends. Thankfully, I don’t need to manually calculate how much I receive from dividends. My bank keeps track of that. I simply download the data and use the SUM() function in my spreadsheet program to, well, sum up the dividends I receive every month. 

Come to think of it, September is one of my favourite months for dividend collection. In fact, so are March, June, and December. In these months, I receive the biggest amount of dividends!

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