Month: January 2011

Creating Monthly Dividend Income

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Dividend Investors all share the same goal – to obtain a passive revenue stream from dividend income.  The combination of both consistent dividend payments (say 3% to 4% average), and the potential capital appreciation of those investments is a winning strategy. Every dividend investor has his or her own strategy. My strategy is more of a value play. I like to obtain stocks that are near their 52 week lows, have been punished for bad earnings or unforeseen events (Bad News Investing), and have low PE and LE ratios. But the end result is the same for most dividend investors …

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How to Bake a Potato (Ninja Style)

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If you found this post because you don’t know how long to put a potato in the microwave for, then you are definitely on the wrong blog! I’m talking about the Couch Potato investment strategy, or basically “Passive Index Investing”, made popular by the Canadian Couch Potato. Why Bother Baking a Potato? Recently, Andrew Hallam (a well respected investment blogger) made a large scale move in his portfolio, selling some 700K of winning stocks to reinvest into Index ETF’s. Why? Good question. Basically he feels he cannot continue to beat the market year after year with an “Active” stock picking …

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From Natural Gas to Big Macs

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A lot of interesting developments occurred last week on some stocks I have been watching and/or holding.  I have noticed a significant increase in my holdings: Encana, Rogers, Royal Bank, and Shaw Communications etc. are all advancing.  I was hoping to have published this post over the weekend, since it was last week’s news. So here goes better late than never! Bank of Montreal (BMO) BMO is on the move! Back on December 20th BMO share prices had slumped down from approx $59 to $56.60 per share following missed earnings expectations and Moody’s Downgrade after BMO purchased Marshall & Ilsley …

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Max Out Your TFSA, and Forget the RRSP!

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With RRSP season approaching, and the chaotic frenzy that ensues in January and February, I thought I would jump to the front of the queue and get the RRSP ball rolling for 2011. The premise of this article is that everyone should max out their TFSA’s first, and then consider whether they need to contribute to an RRSP.  Both investment vehicles grow tax free. The main advantage of the TFSA over the RRSP is you don’t have to pay taxes on the amounts you withdraw.   Conventional Wisdom Conventional wisdom says to make the maximum contribution you are able to …

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