Canada Day, Eh for 2025

 

July is one of those slower months with my quarterly dividend stocks compared to June ... watching ex-dividend dates and potential additions. That's when I tend to look over the ETFs more that interest me for additional monthly income.

TD Bank is the main stock I'll be further buying in the first half of July with an ex-dividend date of July 10th, 2025. I mentioned in a past article that I expected TD to breach the $100 mark per share and it's there currently with a yield of 4.22% where yield goes inverse to stock price. 

The Graham Number a fair value measure I use to think about a stock being over or undervalued and TD.TO is around $97 so there could be a pullback in price where many an investor rely on data and metrics to make decisions. TD could go as high as $110 with market momentum but as always ... it's only predictions and investors should assess the risk involved when buying overvalued stocks.

I'm a long term holder so where the price is peaking with TD, I'll do a "dollar cost averaging" buy. Banks, pipelines/energy and the financial/insurance are the sectors where I have my top holdings. I plan keep accumulating into full retirement for income with my TFSA. Withdrawing cash provides additional room for the following year, tax free.

ZWB, BMO Covered Call Canadian Banks is my go to ETF where the holdings include the big six banks in Canada with some getting expensive to buy as an individual stock. ZWB also puts more weight to it's ZEB holding, BMO Equal Weight Banks Index ETF. 

With a yield of 6.40% currently, ZWB is popular with a market cap of 3.13 billion and pays distributions monthly.

With the US stocks, I added to JP Morgan Canada's JEPI and JEPQ ETFs for July's increased distribution payment where they vary from month to month. 

JP Morgan Canada has been adding to it's ETF list with the latest being JCOR. JPMorgan US Core Active ETF, looking to outperform the S&P 500 with related holdings. There's no information about yield yet where it's new and I have not bought to date. I know that it will pay quarterly distributions.

ETFs that focus mainly on growth usually come with low yields, if any so for income seekers ... that's something to ponder about and I suspect JCOR is in that category.

With 1600 ETFs in Canada and growing, there's lots of picks out there from the ultra high US tech related yields to All In One ETFs and everything in between with their holdings.  

Continuing from my original plan is to build on the stocks for growth and dividends as well as add to some ETFs solely for income and flip most of the distribution into more stocks. 

There's a lot of Blog discussion and on social media about investing for buy low sell high gains compared to dividend investing. Seems to be a great divide with some. I prefer dividend investing and price growth happens with the ups and downs in the Markets with the majority of my stocks. As they say, one can't time the Markets but I try and buy low when the opportunity happens but rarely sell unless I see an issue with a stock

TD I highlighted today had a low of $73.29 and a high of $100.19 for the year so I'm pleased with that, currently at $100.16. I'll take the dividend as well they provide.

In the 2nd half of July, there are more Banks to consider buying or adding to ZWB and/or RCDC along with a utility I own that's getting overweight in my portfolio, Emera: EMA.TO.

Invested Ladies Revisited in June, 2025

 

I wrote an article entitled Invested Ladies back in April, 2022 and I receive monthly newsletters from Our Life Financial in my inbox I mentioned in that post.

I look forward to reading the latest thoughts from an experienced lady in investing and living in Ontario, Canada. Included is a spreadsheet of stocks with the current data such as current price, yield, dividend and Graham Number I find handy when planning my next buy. Her goal is getting up to $50,000 a year in dividends by the end of 2025 and she mentions she's on target.

On Instagram, We Invest Challenge is updated monthly by searching for Our Life Financial with a $100 monthly funding to show how the portfolio can build over time. It's worthwhile to check it out and see in a snapshot how dividend paying stocks have performed over the years. 

Recently I read an inspiration that reminded me that compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world and a powerful force ... from a quote by Albert Einstein. With patience and keeping calm during market downturns, compounding works over time.

An original stock in that We Invest Challenge, added in 2020 is Power Corporation of Canada, POW.TO. In the May 2025 summary and highlighted in June's newsletter, POW.TO has doubled in price so far since originally bought, along with yearly dividend increases.

POW.TO has a current yield of 4.70% with an ex-dividend date of June 30, 2025. There's a recent dividend increase of 8.89% in March of this year and on my calendar to buy more shares.

In a recent post by Cut the Crap Investing, Dale shows POW.TO listed in his wife's portfolio with a 5% weighting in a recent June article about Canadian Stock Portfolios. Great article to compare portfolios and performance. 

South Bow Corporation, SOBO.TO is another stock on my radar before June 30th to further invest in. A pipeline company running down into the US to supply US refineries. South Bow is also a new addition to Our Life Financial's portfolios. 

I don't expect to see any dividend increases with South Bow for awhile where the yield is currently high at 7.50% after a recent spin off from TC Energy, TRP.TO. South Bow started paying dividends after the spin off in January of this year. 

To date, the S&P/TSX Composite Index has been on a steady increase since the lows of April of this year when tariffs made headlines and still do today. To date, the index climb is good news for the stocks I hold within while some sectors perform better than others. 

Looking ahead, there are interesting articles from Morningstar and the Globe and Mail about ETFs that pay decent distributions plus 5 year growth figures in the teens. 

One mention is XDIV, iShares Core MSCI Canadian Quality Div Index ETF with monthly distributions, yield of 4.1% and a 5 year annual return of 17.5% with a low management fee of 0.11. 

A topic certainly worthy of additional posts and compare to owning individual stocks with dividend growth. The hybrid approach used by many investors today with a mix of stocks and ETFs is also a popular theme.