Dividend Stocks
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.
[text_ad]
Read More
Close
Dividend Stocks Library Archive
SUNCOR ENERGY INC. $34 (Toronto symbol SU; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 1.6 billion; Market cap: $54.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.3; Dividend yield: 1.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.suncor.com) produced an average of 361,000 barrels of oil per day at its oil-sands projects in February 2012. That’s up 1.7% from 355,000 barrels in January 2012. Suncor aims to expand its oil-sands production by 10% a year. That will help it reach its goal of producing over 1 million barrels (including conventional oil and natural gas) per day by 2020. Suncor is a buy.
TRANSCANADA CORP. $44 (Toronto symbol TRP; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 703.0 million; Market cap: $30.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.3; Dividend yield: 4.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.transcanada.com) is expanding its Tamazunchale pipeline, which pumps natural gas from Mexico’s state-owned oil company to gas-fired power plants. This extension will cost $500 million U.S., which is roughly equal to 30% of the $1.6 billion (Canadian), or $2.23 a share, that TransCanada earned in 2011. The company expects to complete the project in 2014. The company has a 25-year supply deal with the state-owned power company, which cuts the risk of this project. Mexico continues to convert oil-fired power plants to gas, and TransCanada’s expertise should help it win more pipeline contracts....
MAPLE LEAF FOODS INC. $12 (Toronto symbol MFI; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 139.5 million; Market cap: $1.7 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.3; Dividend yield: 1.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.mapleleaf.ca) is starting to see the benefits of its a major restructuring plan, which mainly involves closing older meat-processing plants and bakeries and shifting their operations to modern facilities. Excluding all unusual items, earnings per share would have risen 38.4%, to $1.01 in 2011 from $0.73 in 2010. Sales for the year fell 1.5%, to $4.9 billion from $5.0 billion. If you disregard operations that the company sold and unfavourable foreign currency rates, sales would have risen by 4.7%. The company plans to raise its selling prices, which will help it offset rising ingredient costs. The savings from the restructuring plan, which Maple Leaf expects to complete in 2014, will also help it absorb these higher costs....
LOBLAW COMPANIES LTD. $35 (Toronto symbol L; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 281.4 million; Market cap: $9.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.3; Dividend yield: 2.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.loblaw.ca) is Canada’s largest food retailer. George Weston Ltd. (Toronto symbol WN) owns 64% of the company’s shares. Loblaw continues to make progress with its multi-year plan to streamline its supply chain and avoid product shortages. These actions mainly included closing 11 distribution centres and opening eight new ones, and installing new computer systems. The company claims that about 99% of its products are now in stock at its 1,000 supermarkets across Canada.
Big restructuring starting to pay off
...
TECK RESOURCES LTD. $36 (www.teck.com) plans to sell $1 billion U.S. of new long-term bonds. It will use the cash to redeem $1.05 billion U.S. of its existing debt. The company will record a one-time, non-cash charge of $340 million U.S. in connection with the early redemption. However, this move will cut Teck’s annual interest costs by $55 million U.S.; in 2011, Teck earned $2.5 billion (Canadian), or $4.18 a share. Buy. ROYAL BANK OF CANADA $56 (www.rbc.com) has completed the sale of its struggling U.S. retail-banking business, which consists of 424 branches in six southeastern states. That will free up cash that the bank can invest in its more profitable banking operations in Canada and the Caribbean. Royal also raised its quarterly dividend by 5.6%, to $0.57 a share from $0.54. The new annual rate of $2.28 yields 4.1%. Buy. TORONTO-DOMINION BANK $80 (www.tdbank.com) is looking for new ways to cut its costs, as low interest rates have shrunk the revenue the bank earns from loans. However, its credit losses continue to fall as more borrowers repay their loans on time. That let TD raise its quarterly dividend by 5.9%, to $0.72 a share from $0.68. The new annual rate of $2.88 yields 3.6%. Buy.
SNC-LAVALIN GROUP INC., $40.00, Toronto symbol SNC, fell 18% this week after the company warned that its 2011 earnings will be $80 million, or 18% below its earlier forecast. In 2010, SNC earned $437.0 million, or $2.87 a share. The earnings drop is partly due to $35 million in unusual payments related to certain construction contracts. Because of the recent civil war, SNC will also write down the value of its Libyan operations, including a prison, an airport and a water treatment system, by $23 million. The company did not say if the unusual payments are connected to its Libyan projects. SNC is working with its external auditors and legal advisors to examine these payments and certain other contracts. The company still aims to report its 2011 earnings by March 30, 2012. However, the stock will likely remain under pressure until SNC clarifies the nature and extent of these payments....
TELUS CORP., Toronto symbols T $57.22 and T.A $56.71, wants to merge its common shares and its non-voting class A shares into a single class. Telus created the non-voting shares in 1998, when U.S.-based Verizon Communications Inc. (New York symbol VZ) held a major interest in the company. The move let Telus comply with regulations preventing foreign control of Canadian telecom firms. Verizon sold its non-voting shares in 2004. Right now, non-Canadian investors hold less than 20% of Telus’s stock. The company currently has about 174.9 million common shares and 149.9 million non-voting shares outstanding. Under the terms of the proposal, each non-voting share will become one common share. Investors holding two-thirds of each share class, voting separately, must approve the plan at a special meeting on May 9, 2012....
CENOVUS ENERGY INC., $38.73, Toronto symbol CVE, spent $2.7 billion on capital upgrades in 2011. That’s up 28.7% from $2.1 billion in 2010. The company used about a third of this money to expand its 50%-owned Foster Creek and Christina Lake oil sands properties in Alberta; U.S.-based ConocoPhillips (New York symbol COP) owns the other 50%. As a result, Cenovus’s oil sands production rose 12.7% in 2011, to 66,533 barrels a day from 59,045 barrels in 2010. That helped offset a 3.5% drop in conventional oil production. Overall oil production rose 3.9%, to 134,239 barrels a day from 129,187 barrels. Natural gas production fell 11.0%, mainly because Cenovus sold some of its gas properties in 2010....
CANADIAN TIRE CORP., $65.95, Toronto symbol CTC.A, rose 3% this week after the retailer reported better-than-expected earnings. In 2011, the company earned $467.0 million, or $5.71 a share. That beat the consensus estimate of $5.43 a share. The latest earnings are also up 5.2% from $444.2 million, or $5.42 a share, in 2010. Sales in 2011 rose 12.7%, to $10.4 billion from $9.2 billion in 2010. That’s largely due to the company’s August 2011 purchase of The Forzani Group Ltd., which sells sporting goods through over 500 stores in Canada, including SportChek and Athlete’s World. If you exclude the cash held by Forzani, Canadian Tire paid $739.9 million for this acquisition....
Enbridge continues to invest heavily in its pipelines and other businesses. Since 2008, it has started up over $12 billion worth of new growth projects. That’s equal to 39% of its market cap. The company now wants to take advantage of rising oil sands production by building the Northern Gateway pipeline, which would pump crude oil from Edmonton to a proposed storage terminal in Kitimat, B.C. From there, the oil would be shipped by tanker to refineries in Asia. At $5.5 billion, Northern Gateway is the single biggest pipeline project in Enbridge’s 63-year history. If regulators approve, the line could start up in 2017....