Dividends can produce as much as a third of your total return over long periods, and you can even retire on dividends.
There are 4 key stock dividend dates that are involved with dividend payments:
1- The Declaration Date is several weeks in advance of a dividend payment—it’s when company’s board of directors sets the amount and timing of the proposed payment.
2- The Payable Date is the date set by the board on which the dividend will actually be paid out to shareholders.
3- The Record Date is for shareholders who hold the stock before the payable date and receive the dividend payment. That date is set any number of weeks before the payable date.
4-The Ex-Dividend Date is two business days before the record date and it’s when the shares begin to trade without their dividend. If you buy stocks one day or more before their ex-dividend date, you will still get the dividend. That’s when a stock is said to trade cum-dividend. If you buy on the ex-dividend date or later, you won’t get the dividend. The ex-dividend date is in place to allow pending stock trades to settle.
We think very highly of stocks that have been paying dividends for five or more years, at TSI Network. Many of these stocks fit in well with our three-part Successful Investor philosophy:
1- Invest mainly in well-established companies;
2- Spread your money out across most if not all of the five main economic sectors (Manufacturing & Industry; Resources & Commodities; Consumer; Finance; and Utilities);
3- Downplay or avoid stocks in the broker/media limelight.
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This Los Angeles-based bank focuses on wealthy individuals and lending to businesses in the entertainment, technology and health care industries. Royal plans to merge it with its U.S. wealth management operations.
Royal will pay $5.4 billion U.S. (50% in cash and 50% in shares). Assuming City National shareholders and regulators approve, Royal expects to complete the purchase by the end of 2015. It will start contributing to Royal’s earnings in two years.
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We continue to recommend that investors aim to own two or more of Canada’s big five banks. But we also feel that conservative investors should further diversify their Finance-sector holdings with stocks like Great-West Lifeco.
GREAT-WEST LIFECO (Toronto symbol GWO; www.greatwestlifeco.com) has reported strong results in its latest quarter and raised its dividend.
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AT&T INC. (New York symbol T; www.att.com) is the largest wireless provider in the U.S., with 120.6 million subscribers. Wireless accounts for 55% of AT&T’s revenue and 75% of its earnings.
The remaining 45% of revenue and 25% of earnings comes from its wireline division, which sells phone services, television packages and high-speed Internet access to 34.4 million customers.
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to bring in new rules forcing power plants to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030.
Alliant is upgrading its facilities in response. Regulators will probably let it pass along most of the extra costs to customers in the form of higher rates. We feel Alliant is in a good position to handle the new regulations.
ALLIANT ENERGY CORP. (New York symbol LNT; www.alliantenergy.com) sells electricity and natural gas to 1.4 million customers in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota.
The company has earmarked $5.2 billion for plant upgrades and replacing older transmission lines and pipelines between 2014 and 2018. These funds include $750 million for a gas-fired plant that should replace some of its older coal facilities (coal accounts for about half of Alliant’s electricity production).
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New projects boost revenue
Since 2008, Enbridge has spent $20 billion on 39 new pipelines and other projects. Thanks to these investments, the company’s revenue soared 164.1%, from $12.5 billion in 2009 to $32.9 billion in 2013. Its revenue probably increased to $37.7 billion in 2014....
For 2015, Imperial expects to spend $4.0 billion on capital projects. Most of that will go toward expanding Kearl, as well as its Cold Lake oil sands property. These projects will last decades, so the recent drop in oil prices will have little impact on their long-term prospects.
Imperial Oil is a buy.
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