dividend
A dividend is a cash payout that serves as a way for companies to share the profits they’ve accumulated through their operations. These payouts are drawn from earnings and cash flow paid to the shareholders of the company. Commonly these dividends are paid quarterly, although they may also be paid annually or even monthly as well. A dividend can produce as much as a quarter of your total return over long periods. Some good companies reinvest profits instead of paying a dividend. But fraudulent and failing companies hardly ever pay a dividend. So if you only buy stocks that pay dividends, you’ll automatically stay out of almost all the market’s worst stocks. For a true measure of stability, focus on companies that have maintained or raised their dividends during recessions and stock market downturns. These firms leave themselves enough room to handle periods of earnings volatility. By continually rewarding investors, and retaining enough cash to finance their businesses, they provide an attractive mix of safety, income and growth. Dividends are an important contributor to your long-term gains, and dividend-paying stocks tend to expose you to less risk than non-dividend-payers. That’s why the majority of your stocks should be dividend-payers at all times. As you get older and closer to retirement, you should raise the proportion of dividend-paying stocks in your portfolio, to cut risk and improve the stability of your investment results. To maximize your investment returns with the least risk, follow TSI Network and use our three-part Successful Investor strategy:
- Invest mainly in well-established companies;
- Spread your money out across most if not all of the five main economic sectors (Manufacturing & Industry; Resources & Commodities; Consumer; Finance; Utilities);
- Downplay or avoid stocks in the broker/media limelight.
Discover how to put an extra strength in your portfolio with our specific advice on how to identify high-quality dividend stocks. It’s all in our newly updated report, Dividend Paying Stocks: How High Dividend Stocks Can Supercharge Your Income Investing. And it’s yours FREE!
MICROSOFT CORP....
NORTH WEST COMPANY $45 is a buy. This retailer (Toronto symbol NWC; High-Growth Payer Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 47.6 million; Market cap: $2.1 billion; Dividend yield: 3.5%; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Above Average; www.northwest.ca) sells food and everyday products and services at 227 stores, mainly in northern communities across Canada, as well as in Alaska, the South Pacific and the Caribbean.
With the October 2023 payment, North West raised your quarterly dividend by 2.6%....
With the March 2024 payment, Brookfield raised the quarterly distribution by 5.2%....
ALGONQUIN POWER & UTILITIES CORP....
The TD Series 1 Preferred yields 3.8%. That’s lower than the 5.1% offered by the bank’s common shares.
Note, though, that preferred shares behave more like long-term fixed-income instruments than they do short-term instruments....
We expect the stock will keep rising in the next few years, thanks to Walmart’s strong attention to efficiency....
In its 2024 fiscal year, ended June 30, 2024, Diageo’s sales fell 1.4%, to $20.27 billion from $20.56 billion a year earlier....