Intro..
For those of you new to this website, in this post, I discuss the recent changes I made in my dividend portfolios, and sometimes I discuss my portfolio diversification strategies as well.
Another month passed with amazing results. My dividend portfolios continue to make progress in the right direction.
Weather-wise, I hate February, but in investment point of view, I love the month. Most of my big holding have reported their Q4 results last month and also hiked dividends.
Recent purchases and dividend hikes helped to boost my estimated passive income (EPI) by over $400. I didn’t expect this kind of growth in my EPI, but it happened.
Actually, I am very happy about the results and a couple of steps closer to my long-term goals.
Last month, I just made two purchases in my Canadian portfolio. It is getting harder to find bargains as the market continues moving higher and higher.
So, I simply reinvested the dividends and put more focus on improving my buying power. This way I could hunt bargains when the market swings back to the south. This strategy works well for me for the last couple of years.
In my U.S portfolio, I continue to de-risking by selling individual stocks and using the money to buy favorite dividend growth ETFs.
As you can see, my U.S portfolio is relatively small compare to Canadian portfolio, which is only 17.12% of my investment. Also, due to the unfavorable currency exchange rate, I little hesitate to move money into the U.S market.
Thus, having individual stocks in a smaller size portfolio is very risky and hard to diversify. So, I decided to keep the money in 4 different dividend growth ETFs for a while.
In addition, I am looking for a way to invest in the U.S market using some Canadian dollar (hedged) ETFs. BMO US Dividend Hedged to CAD ETF (TSE: ZUD) is my radar. I will continue to see other options as well.
I had 31 Unilever PLC (NYSE: UL) shares in my U.S dollar TFSA account. I decided to sell it for a hefty profit and brought the money back to Canadian dollar TFSA to purchases ZDH ETF. I had a good gain with the trade, plus the added benefit of U.S dollar appreciation against CAD.
Plus, I separated international investments from Canadian & U.S portfolio for reporting purpose.
So, I created a new page for the international holdings. After the sale of Unilever, I have just two ETFs in this section.
Currently, I have around $8900 in international investment, which is only 3.5% of my investment assets. I will continue adding money into this section to diversify my investment assets.
Here are the changes I made in my dividend portfolios in February 2019:
Disclaimer..
Please note the information posted on this website is the opinion of my own and should not be considered as professional financial advice. I am not a financial professional, and I can buy, sell, or hold any investment at any time.
Any transactions I publish on this website are not recommendations to buy or sell any securities or investments.
Please do your own research or consult with a qualified financial professional before even considering using the information obtained from this website.
The changes made in my Canadian portfolio in February 2018.
- Added 10 shares of BNS at $73.25
- Added 20 shares of KEY at $27.75
The changes made in my U.S dividend portfolio in February 2019.
- SOLD 15 shares of WFC at $49.18
- Added 2 units of SDY at $97.61
- Added 2 units of NOBL at $65.65
- Added 3 units of DGRO ETF at $35.93
The changes made in my My International dividend portfolio in February 2019.
- SOLD 21 shares of UL at $54.80
- Added 120 units of ZDH at $21.75 (average price)
- Added 11 units of IDV at $30.80
With recent changes and massive dividend hikes in February helped to my boost my yearly estimated passive income (EPI) to $10600, with year-to-date gain around 5.62%.
I have updated the portfolio pages with these changes.
Commission FREE ETF purchases
Are you wondering how I can execute small orders of ETSs? Thinking about commission fees?
Actually, I use Questrade for all my ETFs purchases. There are no commission fees for ETFs purchases at Questrade. Therefore, we could buy one or any number of ETFs without paying any commission fees.
This is a great way to deploy cash and invest for more cash-flow as soon as they come in.
For those looking to start investing with little money, Questrade is one of the good options to consider because of their commission-free ETF program and minimum requirements to open an account.
If you have a plan to open an account with Questrade, please accept my gift and take advantage of this $50 trade commission rebate.
There is a trading charge of $4.95 when you sell ETFs. All the details are at the time of writing. If you have a plan to open an account at Questrade, please check all the information (including current commission fees) on their website and see if it is suitable online brokerage for your needs.
Disclosure: Please note above is an affiliate link. Therefore, I will earn a commission if you use the above links to open an account at Questrade (at no additional cost to you).
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Charles says
Hey first of all i wants to congrats you for your website it is verry interesting!
As you talked up here you wants to invest by hedging on US market with CAN curency, my questions is about the fiscal strategie you use for your US ETF because as you already said on another page it is better for taxation exemption to own US stock in RRSP
Is it the same strategie to use for CAN $ hedged?
And also do you know if there is a difference in taxation if the US market tracking ETF is trading at TSE? and also in wich registred account chose to invest in that case?
Thanks you verry much for your help
Charles says
Also what type of acccount you prefer for international stock (no US/CAN)
And just a suggestion for your blog, as i follow you evry month it is hard to know wich part of your net worth update came from your job/blog income and wich part from your investissement would be nice to get a breakdown if you dont feel it too intrusive π
Finance Jouneny says
Hello Charles,
I invest in international stocks (non-US/CAN) using two ETFs (IDV & ZDH). I keep IDV ETF in my RRSP account as it is trading in the US market and hold my ZDH in my TFSA account. So, I donβt need to worry about the tax rules for international investments.
Regarding net-worth update β I donβt track my net-worth that much details. Whenever I get money (from salary or dividend income or from blogging) I either invest or pay down some debts, and calculate everything at the end of the month and compare the results with the previous month. Just to make life simple π
Cheers,
Finance Jouneny says
Hello Charles,
Thank you for stopping by,
I am really sorry! I am not a tax expert to answer those questions correctly. To my knowledge, if you hold U.S stocks or ETFs (trading in U.S market) in your RRSP, then you could avoid the withholding tax for 15%; however, if you hold US ETF trading at TSE, then you will be paying the U.S to withhold tax as the amount already has deducted. So, there is no point of holding them RRSP. You could use TFSA as well.
Again, I am NOT a tax expert, so please consult with a qualified professional before making any decision.
Cheers,