Big Banks in December, 2025

 

The first week in December brings the much anticipated big bank earnings on my end with the Bank of Nova Scotia/Scotiabank reporting first, being the 2nd of December as I write this. 

With an impressive gain of 31% in the last 6 months, BNS.TO posted a good quarterly report and beat estimates earning $1.93 per share today after making some changes for the better.

Scotiabank is the first major bank to release earnings for the three months ended Oct. 31. Royal Bank of Canada RY-T and National Bank of Canada NA-T will report results on Wednesday. Toronto-Dominion Bank TD-T, Bank of Montreal BMO-T, and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce CM-T will wrap up earnings week on Thursday.

The first site I normally go to when I want to see how a stock or ETF is performing and what the dividend growth (if any) is currently at, is the updated version of Dividend History which is a free, no subscription required dividend information tool I use with it's newly added price and dividend charts I find informative.

Dividend History provides me with a quick overview before moving on to do further research to check up on or add a stock to the portfolio. Ex-dividend and Payment dates are displayed for handy viewing.

TD Bank, TD.TO is the next bank to report on the 4th of December which I'm interested in after Scotiabank. TD has been levelling off over the last month at around $117 CAD after the bank gained over 50% for the year to date. Both banks have ex-dividend dates in January, 2026. 

Financials including insurance companies are core holdings in the portfolio such as Manulife and Great-West Life with plans to add more.

With their yearly dividend increase and a yield just shy of 5%, I'll be looking to add to Canadian Natural Resources, CNQ.TO before the 12th of December with some key points:

• Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNQ) has a strong track record of increasing dividends for 25 consecutive years, currently offering a yield of 4.99%.
• The company's diversified portfolio in oil and natural gas, along with majority ownership of its assets, enhances its operational flexibility and capital allocation.
• CNQ's robust balance sheet allows for strategic acquisitions, exemplified by the US$6.5 billion purchase of Chevron's Canadian assets, which can drive revenue growth.

The second half of December will be busy with Christmas approaching and 5 stocks on my radar with 4 in the portfolio. Energy, pipeline, conglomerate and power sectors with month ending ex-dividend dates plus a new addition from my watch list, Rogers Sugar, RSI. I consume the sugar daily along with my Tim Horton's coffee addiction. Sugar is certainly tough to cut back on at times. They say one should understand the fundamentals of a company and what it provides before buying and I've been doing that first hand and on their company site.

Where I'm invested with 3 different brokers, I've tried a few different share and dividend tracker sites and compared plans plus what's available as a free member. I like free but that usually comes with limited features

I settled on Snowball Analytics with reasonable subscription costs and more cool features than I was expecting after looking over their site for awhile. A visual snapshot as I added my holdings and transactions. Just my opinion and experience being satisfied with Snowball.

 

Staying in the Market, Mid November 2025

 

Living in Canada, we share out border with the USA, the largest economy in the world so when there is some upheaval in their market place, the selling spills over into our stock market as collateral damage which is currently happening and the growing doubt in some investors minds about the billions of dollars being pumped into the AI craze with more talks of it being a bubble. Just one of a few issues that collided to bring down the markets for mid month November.

I keep up on the news coming up from the south but in my long term horizon, staying in the market is my goal with what I call, quality stocks for compounding returns into the future

It's different from the Dotcom bubble crash back in 2000, where the top tech companies today are already swimming in cash and it's about going with companies investors feel will benefit the most now and in the future with all the high valuations bringing on more risk.

I don't own these companies individually referred to as the MAG 7 but hold them in a NASDAQ based ETF for the monthly distributions, JEPQ.TO. I'll let the managers do the shuffling of companies based on weighting in their top ten.

With the financial/insurance sector in Canada, Manulife Financial had a record high 3rd quarter with more focus on India. MFC.TO has a rounded off 9% gain for the YTD and an ex-dividend date of November 26th. 

Always welcome is the increase in dividends from Sun Life Financial after SLF.TO posted their 3rd quarter reports, a boost of 4.55% with the same ex-dividend date as MFC.TO.

Most of my stock holdings do business in the US such as banks, pipelines, energy and insurance for example. When they convert from USD to the lower CAD these days ... the additional currency exchange looks good on their books.

I plan to add 2 stocks to my portfolio keeping in mind the additions could dilute performance. Brookfield Energy Renewable Partners, BEP.UN.TO with a current 5% yield and dividends are in USD with a November 28th ex-dividend date.

ATCO will be an addition in early December. ACO-X.TO is the parent company of Canadian Utilities CU.TO.  ATCO is an energy and infrastructure company doing business globally such as ATCO Australia. The stock has a gain of 16% over the last year.

Both companies I mentioned in my previous two articles are good additions for the Energy sector of the portfolio.

Upcoming in December, I'll be interested in and anticipating the Canadian big bank earnings reports. Normally with the Big 5 banks, there's usually a bank that's under performing compared to the rest which I focus on for additional buying but still bringing in billions in revenue.

For example, Bank of Nova Scotia with a welcome boost of 22.63% YTD after coming off a low in April of 63.50 to the current $94.66, perhaps looking to break that $100 plateau, depending on another favourable quarterly report. 

I'll see what that all looks like in December, 2025 while there's many a bank related ETF which holds all the banks plus National Bank, NA.TO in equal weighted holdings or what managers work out in top to bottom weighted holdings plus covered call ETFs which usually produce more in distributions but less in performance returns compared to a non covered call ETF.