Back in March I purchased shares of Husky Energy (HSE), and wrote a detailed post on my reasons for buying this diversified oil and gas producer. Husky has also been one of my stock picks for the Dividend Growth Index.  With its generous dividend yield of 4.9%, low payout ratio of 50%, and low debt levels, it’s no wonder investors are interested in the company. Since that post, I’ve received a few emails from readers who are confused how to DRIP their shares. The confusion arises once the trade for HSE settles, and investors phone their broker and ask to have their shares of Husky enrolled in the DRIP (Dividend Reinvestment Plan). Husky (HSE) cannot be enrolled in the DRIP with the broker. So if you phone up your broker and say enrol me in the DRIP for Husky, they will tell you that Husky is not part of the DRIP program. Corporate Action Notice Each quarter on behalf of Husky, my broker TD Waterhouse mails out a Corporate Action Notice. This notice is called a Voluntary – Optional ...

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This week I’ve been working on getting my DRIPs (Dividend Reinvestment Plans) setup for BMO, Fortis, and Telus. The first step of course was to get some share certificates, and I owe a big thank you to another dividend blogger and personal friend for setting me up with those!   Today I had a bit of time in the afternoon and finally filled out the paperwork to apply for the Reinvestment Enrollment (or DRIP). That was the easy part, as the paper-work was straight forward. The next step will be to fill out the OCP (Optional Cash Purchase) forms, so I can add to my stock positions over time. While far easier to purchase shares through a discount broker, I really wanted to have a better understanding of the full DRIP process with a transfer agent. My initial experience with the transfer agent Computershare was less than stellar. As I’ll explain in my post next week, you really have to be a DIY (Do It Yourself) investor if you want to DRIP!  But if you are willing to tackle the beast by ...

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written by Hank Coleman My father-in-law was a bank executive for over thirty years at a large regional bank in the United States, and he amassed quite a bit of his company’s stock through options over his career. Now, in addition to his pension, he also has quarterly dividends that support him in retirement. That is the beauty of dividends. They are truly a passive income investment in most cases, and they can often help you to get more out of your finite investment resources than other options allowing you to more efficiently save for retirement. How Much Do You Need? I used to watch the share price of my father-in-law’s bank like a hawk. It gave me something great to talk to him about when the conversation lagged around the dinner table. I was amazed after a particularly brutal quarter of share price decline when he told me that he did not care because he was not interested in selling his shares. He only wanted the dividend and the security that the payments brought him in retirement. ...

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DRIP (Dividend Reinvestment Plan) and SPP (Share Purchase Plan) plans, are an ideal way for investors to buy shares of their favourite companies, with small amounts of initial capital. DRIPs combined with SPPs are especially powerful as they allow investors to dollar cost average their shares over the long run, avoid ongoing commissions, and to reinvest dividends into partial shares. It’s a win win for investors who have the patience and long term commitment required. As Mark points out in part-1 of the series, “There’s do-it-yourself investing and then there’s really do-it-yourself investing” .If you’re wondering why you should invest with DRIPs and SPPs in the first place, then be sure to read this superb guest post by Hank Coleman, Five Reasons I Love Investing with DRIPs, which inspired this series. Mark at My Own Advisor concludes his stellar series on investing with DRIPs and SPPs, in Getting Started with DRIPs and SPPs, Part-4. A Quick Recap… If you missed this ...

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The following is a guest post from one of my favourite bloggers, Mark at My Own Advisor.  Welcome to Part-3 in a four-part series written by yours truly, Mark at My Own Advisor, on how to get started and then invest in Canadian dividend-paying stocks with DRIPs and SPPs. In Part-1 I answered the question, what is a DRIP and SPP? In Part-2 I then explained how you can I get started with full DRIPs. In this post, Part-3 of Getting started with DRIPs and SPPs on the Dividend Ninja’s fine website, I’m going to continue sharing the process I followed to start DRIPping. This includes buying my first share via my discount brokerage account and ordering that stock in certificated form.  I look forward to sharing these details with you! First, a quick recap… In Part-2, I mentioned that you can get your first stock share from either another investor (option -1) or from a pooled-purchase/group buy (option -2).  In that article, I chose Option 3 – Do-it-yourself via initial stock ...

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