Dividend stocks portfolio – recent changes – October 2018

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.

Markets..

October was a rollercoaster month for most investors. This correction was widely expected by many analysts. Finally, we had a chance to experience it last month.

Based on past history, correction is pretty normal and it happens at least twice a year. I usually take this as an opportunity to build my positions for lowest possible prices.

Therefore, I was quite busy selling some overpriced or low-quality assets and buying some undervalued & high-quality investments.

My investments assets lost some value last month but compared to overall market my portfolios did quite well, thanks to some defensive stocks and ETFs.

The changes..

Let’s look at the changes I made in my portfolios.

Sold Saputo Inc.

I sold my entire position of Saputo Inc (TSE: SAP) last month. I purchased this stock in August 2013 for $23.45 (split-adjusted price). It was one of my earliest investments, and it performed well and doubled in 2016.

Since then, it’s been trading almost sideways. Also, its dividend yield is fairly low (around 1.6%), and its dividend growth rate is slowing for the last few years.

So, I decided to exit the position with hefty profits. The proceeds raised from the sales were used to invest in a few different companies (all in my existing positions).

Actually, Saputo Inc is a great company. To my knowledge, there is nothing wrong with the stock. I just sold it because of its low dividend yield. And, I may consider buying them back if its share price takes hit for a temporary bad news (depends on fund availability).

In U.S Portfolio

I sold few positions with good profit and added my favourite dividend growth ETFs using the proceeds.

As I mentioned in my previous post, my U.S portion is relatively low compared to Canadian investments.

Thus, for diversification purpose, I will continue to buy these U.S dividend growth ETFs for a while until the Canadian dollar gains some value against U.S dollar.

Thanks to Questrade for commission free ETF program. At Questrade, you could purchase one or many ETFs without paying a dime for trading commission.

Using Questrade, I am able to deploy dividends as soon as they come in by buying ETFs, and build my cash-flow for more income.

Liquidated my small-cap growth portfolio with a small loss.

I sold all my positions in my small-cap growth portfolio with a small loss. A year ago, I built this small portfolio with $2500 investment for an experiment purpose.

I was willing to lose all the money in this experiment; however, I just lost around $200 as some of the investments performed well, while others did totally opposite.

In reality, one year is a very short period to determine the performance of any investment. Anyways, I decided to drop the experiment and focus only on my core dividend growth strategy.

Regarding my Altagas Inc (TSE: ALA) holding.

So far, Altagas Inc (ALA) is my worst performing stocks in my Canadian portfolio. I lost almost $2000 (including dividends) or 50% from my investment (paper lost).

Many analysts are predicting a massive dividend cut from ALA. I expect it could around 50% to 60% dividend cut.

As of this writing, ALA represents around 1.05% of my overall portfolio. Even if the stock goes to zero, overall portfolio damage will be minimal. Even the stock was representing less than 2% of my entire portfolio before it started to slide down after the overvalued acquisition in U.S.

For now, I am not planning to sell this stock, and I understand the risk I am taking. I invest for the longer term, and most of the investments I made have paid me really well. And, I have had some losses to too. But, overall my gains have been much higher than any loss.

Altagas Inc. has some great assets. I feel the issue is temporary. Thus, I may consider adding more shares if its share price comes down significantly low from here.

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.

Here are the changes I made in my dividend portfolios in September 2018:

The changes made in my Canadian portfolio in October 2018.

• SOLD 100 shares of SAP at $40.10
• Added 10 shares of TRP at $49.40
• Added 20 shares of BNS at $69.60
• Added 10 shares of BCE at $51.42
• Added 10 shares of RY at $94.25
• Added 10 shares of TD at $72.35
• Added 05 shares of CM at $112.25
• Added 10 shares of EMA at $40.57
• Added 25 shares of VNR at $19.38
• Added 10 shares of T at $44.84
• Added 10 shares of CU at $30.53
• Added 13 units of ZDH at $21.97 (average price)

The changes made in my U.S dividend portfolio in October 2018.

• SOLD 10 shares of WMT at $101.10
• SOLD 12 shares of PG at $89.30
• SOLD 5 shares of MCD at $175.25
• SOLD 15 shares of WBA at $73.15
• Added 5 units of IDV ETF at $30.50
• Added 15 units of NOBL ETF at $62.76 (average price)
• Added 10 units of SDY ETF at $92.92 (average price)
• Added 21 units of DGRO ETF at $35.03 (average price)
• Initiated 13 units of VIG at $102.55 (average price)

Small Cap Growth stocks SOLD all the positions in October 2018.

With recent changes and dividend hikes helped to my boost my yearly estimated passive income (EPI) to $9820, with year-to-date gain around 16.71%.

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 requirement 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).

If you haven’t done so..

Please don’t forget to join our FREE newsletter below to stay informed & get inspired.