June Dividend Income Report

In September 2017, I received slightly over $100K as a result of the commuted value of my pension plan. I decided to invest 100% of this money into dividend growth stocks. Each month, I publish my results. I don’t do this to brag, I do this to show you it’s possible to build a portfolio during an all-time high market. The market will crash… eventually. In the meantime, I’d rather cash some juicy dividends!

Portfolio holdings

Numbers are as at June 30^th 2018:

Canadian portfolio (CAD)

As you can see, there was a lot of movement over there. Yup, I sold my positions in both Canopy Growth (WEED.TO) and Shopify (SHOP). Besides that, I can tell I’m happy about Enbridge which is finally showing a positive return in my portfolio. Last week, the company announced they received approval for their Line 3 project. This means that the $7B project will go ahead and my 10% dividend raise will happen in 2019!

Trades: SELL 40 shares of SHOP.TO @ $200

I previously explained how I use stop sells from time to time. I use this strategy mostly to protect my profit when I make riskier trades. Around 90% of my portfolio is built around my 7 dividend investing principles. However, I use a few dollars as “play money” when I see a good opportunity. This is what happened when I saw Shopify shares falling from the sky after the Citron report back in fall of 2017. Now that the stock has surged by more than 50%, I had no intention of keeping volatile tech stocks that doesn’t pay dividend. This is why I put a stop sell order at $200. If the stock kept going up, I would have just smiled. Now that it has dropped, I’m still smiling!

Trades: SELL 185 shares of WEED.TO @ $40

The same thing happened with my shares of Canopy Growth. This was just a pure play on the cannabis industry hype. This stock went up and down in my portfolio several times. After making 33% within 5 months, I told myself it was good enough. Another reason why I put those two stop sells was that I’m taking time off during summer time, and I didn’t want to follow those two companies.

Numbers are as of June 30^th 2018:

U.S. portfolio (USD)

Nothing much important happened during the last month with my US portfolio. Disney has entered into a bidding war against Comcast (CMCSA) for the Fox assets. DIS rose its price and passed another step in the process with regulation approval (conditional of selling some FOX sport network assets). It looks like the deal is going through and DIS will become a serious player in the streaming business in a couple of years. That’s exciting news!

Starbucks (SBUX) shares plummeted in June after the company announced the closing of 150 stores. Keep in mind that SBUX is opening 600 new stores per year in China, the 150 closing is just optimizing its presence in US territory. On top of that, management announced a robust dividend raise (again!).

Dividend income: $319.10 CAD

This was another great month with over $300 in dividend payments. After 6 months in 2018, my portfolio generated over $1,400 in dividends. I’m getting closer to an average dividend payment of $250/month. Now that I have $15,000 to invest in dividend paying stocks, I should be able to boost that number! Let’s take a look at which company paid me this month:

Canadian Holdings payouts: $197 CAD

• Fortis: $42.08
• Enbridge: $108.03
• Magna Intl: $29.88
• Lassonde: $17.01

U.S. Holding payouts: $93.21USD

• Visa: $10.50
• UPS: $33.67
• Honeywell: $23.84
• Microsoft: $25.20

Total payouts: $319.10 CAD

*I used a USD/CAD conversion rate of 1.31.

Since I started this portfolio in September 2017, I have received a total of $1,733.30 in dividend.

Final thoughts – Going on Vacation!

I’m taking 2 weeks off to travel across the Atlantic provinces with Freefall, our beloved RV. I’ll use this time cool off with my family, do some hiking and enjoy lobsters and crabs! I’ll be back mid-July with more stories and dividend plays! Enjoy!

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