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!
ALGONQUIN POWER & UTILITIES CORP. $11 is a buy for long-term gains. The company (Toronto symbol AQN; High-Growth Dividend Payer Portfolio, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 688.7 million; Market cap: $7.6 billion; Dividend yield: 5.2%; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Average; www.algonquinpower.com) has two main businesses: the Regulated Services Group provides regulated electricity, gas, water distribution and wastewater collection services in Canada, the U.S., Chile and Bermuda; and the Renewable Power Group produces electricity from about 47 clean-energy plants in North America.
To conserve cash for its planned purchase of Kentucky Power Co....
The TD Series 1 preferreds yield 5.3%. That’s higher than the 4.5% offered by the bank’s common shares.
Note, though, that preferred shares behave more like long-term, fixed-income instruments than short-term instruments....
Thanks to those predictable revenues, TC has now raised its dividend each year for the past 23 years....
In response, Emera has shut down most of its coal-fired power plants. It’s also aggressively building new wind and solar projects....
The company is the world’s largest computer software firm. Its main product is the Windows operating system, which powers about 85% of the world’s personal computers....
The company is the second-largest wireless carrier in the U.S. after AT&T (see below), with 143.3 million subscribers (consumers and businesses) as of March 31, 2023.
Verizon has raised its dividend each year for the past 16 years....
The company is Canada’s second-largest wireless carrier (after BCE) with 12.16 million subscribers. It also sells landline phone, Internet and TV services in B.C., Alberta and eastern Quebec.
With the July 4, 2023, payment, Telus increased your quarterly dividend by 3.6%, to $0.3636 a share from $0.3511....