All Time Highs in July 2025

 

Since April of this year, 2025 and looking at the my stock charts, many have had a steady climb in price and the TSX has reached all time highs. 

A common stock market quote: Last years highs are this years lows. Lows being a starting point for the year to hopefully track higher with stocks and indexes. The odd correction comes into it although with a shorter recovery time frame these past years, I find it a good time to buy at lower prices before they start moving up in price again after a correction.

July is a fairly quiet month for my Quarterly paying dividend stocks which are picked out of the top thirty by dividend yield in the TSX 60. Those stocks that have a dividend yield of 3% and up. The rankings change as stock price and dividend yield change opposite to each other. I want to see dividend growth as well every year. 

Both top 5 Canadian banks, Bank of Montreal, BMO.TO and Royal Bank of Canada, RY.TO have ex-dividend dates in the next couple of weeks. RY.TO is on the 24th of July with a 4.05% increase added in and BMO.TO is on July 30th with a 2.52% increase factored in. This is the 2nd increase for both of these banks in 2025.

Expensive stocks but the popular partial share buying makes it affordable to accumulate over time. I'll buy additional ZWB.TO as well to boost income on a monthly basis with that bank ETF.

Another ETF that holds those 2 banks in it's top 10 holdings is RCDC, the RBC Canadian Dividend Covered Call ETF I've mentioned in past posts and recently increased it's distribution with a yield of 6.81%.

With covered call ETFs, you risk additional growth compared to an ETF like XEI, iShares S&P/TSX High Dividend Composite Index with a Total Return of 21.59% for 1 year (Total Return includes the monthly distributions) compared to RCDC with a 1 year total return of 18.1% but not too shabby. Your also getting more Return of Capital with RCDC which limits price growth some.

I don't dwell on those stats much as long as the ETFs are performing as I expected and provide monthly income.

I look forward to August when I'll be looking over some of my top yielding stocks with further buying such as the pipeline, Enbridge, ENB.TO.

There are multiple ways to build a portfolio and opinions on how to do it are many but I find what I call my Modified Beat The TSX is the plan for me with tweaks and additions along the way. It keeps me interested and invested and always learning while repurchasing with dividends and ETF distributions until either satisfied with the monthly income coming in or just keep accumulating.

To read up more on how the Beat the TSX portfolio has performed over the years, a great post here by Dale on Cut The Crap Investing about Picking Up the Pace in 2025 

As I mentioned, I hold a modified version of the portfolio where I haven't owned AQN and sold BCE before the expected dividend cut. BCE.TO is back on my Watchlist to see if their finances improve going ahead adding subscribers and infrastructure in the US instead of paying down debt which many a BCE investor wanted see happen at the time instead of the US aquisition.

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.