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.
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Dividend Stocks Library Archive
TRANSCONTINENTAL INC. $13 (Toronto symbol TCL.A; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 81.0 million; Market cap: $1.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.5; Dividend yield: 4.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.tctranscontinental.com) is the largest commercial printer in Canada and the fourth-largest in North America. It also publishes newspapers and magazines. Transcontinental also has over 1,000 websites, which supply 16% of its total revenue. These websites will become more important to its growth in the next few years as advertisers spend more on the Internet than print products. The company recently swapped its printing plants in Mexico for six facilities in Canada. If you exclude the contribution from the Mexican plants and other unusual items, such as goodwill writedowns, Transcontinental earned $161.7 million, or $2.00 a share, in its 2011 fiscal year (which ended October 31, 2011). That’s up 3.7% from $155.9 million, or $1.93 a share, in fiscal 2010. Sales rose 0.8%, to $2.04 billion from $2.03 billion....
These two utilities have strong businesses in the Maritime provinces, but they continue to expand in Canada and overseas. That enhances their long-term prospects. Still, only one is a buy right now. FORTIS INC. $33 (Toronto symbol FTS; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 186.9 million; Market cap: $6.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.7; Dividend yield: 3.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.fortis.ca) is the main electricity supplier in Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island. It also operates power plants in other parts of Canada, the U.S. and the Cayman Islands. Fortis had hoped to buy Central Vermont Public Service Corp. (New York symbol CV), which distributes electricity in Vermont, but it was outbid by Quebec natural gas distributor Gaz Metro LP. As a result, Fortis received a breakup fee of $11 million (after tax). Fortis also sold a 40% stake in its power poles in Newfoundland for $46 million. This cash will help the company pursue more acquisitions in the U.S....
BANK OF MONTREAL $58 (Toronto symbol BMO; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 639.0 million; Market cap: $37.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.1; Dividend yield: 4.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.bmo.com) currently pays quarterly dividends of $0.70 a share. The bank will now let shareholders reinvest their dividends in additional shares at a 2% discount to the market price. Previously, it did not offer a discount. As well, shareholders can buy up to $40,000 of additional common shares at the market price directly from the bank each year. Bank of Montreal is a buy.
FINNING INTERNATIONAL INC. $23 (Toronto symbol FTT; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 171.6 million; Market cap: $3.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.7; Dividend yield: 2.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.finning.com) saw its sales jump 26% in the first nine months of 2011. That’s because higher commodity prices spurred demand for heavy equipment, such as bulldozers and trucks, from oil-exploration and mining companies. However, Finning expects its 2012 sales to rise by just 5%, as slower growth in China and India could dampen resource prices. However, based on its strong order backlog, the company expects its sales to rise by 10% in both 2013 and 2014. As well, Finning expects its earnings to rise faster than its sales as it continues to expand its repair and service businesses. In the third quarter of 2011, Finning got 39% of its revenue from selling product-support services. Finning is a buy....
TORSTAR CORP. $9.43 (Toronto symbol TS.B; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 79.2 million; Market cap: $746.9 million; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.5; Dividend yield: 5.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.torstar.com) has agreed to buy 25% of privately held Blue Ant Media Inc., which owns three specialty TV channels that focus on music, comedy and travel. Blue Ant is also in the process of buying High Fidelity HDTV Inc., which owns four high-definition specialty channels, including Oasis HD (nature programming) and HIFI (music and arts programming). Blue Ant’s purchase of High Fidelity requires regulatory approval. After the deal closes, Torstar will invest $22.7 million in Blue Ant. To put that in context, Torstar earned $25.2 million, or $0.32 a share, in the three months ended September 30, 2011....
MANITOBA TELECOM SERVICES INC. $30 (Toronto symbol MBT; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 65.7 million; Market cap: $2.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.1; Dividend yield: 5.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.mtsallstream.com) has 1.3 million telephone and wireless customers in Manitoba. This business now accounts for 55% of the company’s revenue. The remaining 45% comes from its Allstream division, which provides integrated telephone, Internet and other communication services to businesses across Canada. Revenue fell from $1.9 billion in 2006 to $1.8 billion in 2010, largely because the Allstream division lost a big client. Strong competition from cable companies has also hurt demand for the company’s traditional phone services....
AGRIUM INC. $76 (www.agrium.com) has raised its dividend for the first time since 1996. The new semi-annual payout of $0.225 U.S. a share, up 309.1% from $0.055 U.S., has an annualized yield of 0.6%. The company should also continue to benefit from rising crop and livestock prices, which give farmers more money to spend on seeds, fertilizers and other products that Agrium sells in its retail outlets. Buy. SNC-LAVALIN GROUP INC. $54 (www.snclavalin.com) has won a contract to design a plant to process bitumen from the MacKay River oil sands project in northern Alberta. The company didn’t reveal how much the contract is worth, but it should enhance SNC’s reputation in this fast-growing area. Buy. LINAMAR CORP. $15 (www.linamar.com) earned $0.39 a share in the third quarter of 2011, up 44.4% from $0.27 a share a year earlier. These figures exclude costs to integrate Linamar’s recent purchase of three French plants that make cylinder heads, gears and other parts for European carmakers. Thanks to these new operations, sales rose 30.4%, to $725.6 million from $556.3 million. Linamar is also seeing strong demand for its other products, such as parts for farm equipment and wind turbines. Buy.
In next week’s Successful Investor Hotline, we’ll reveal our #1 stock pick for 2012. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to profit. CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY LTD., $69.08, Toronto symbol CP, rose 4% this week on media reports that Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P. is pressuring the company to replace its current chief executive officer with Hunter Harrison, the retired CEO of rival Canadian National Railway Co. (Toronto symbol CNR). Pershing Square is an activist investment firm that is now CP’s largest shareholder. CP’s shares have gained 8.3% since October 28, 2011 when Pershing Square said that it had bought 12.2% of the company on. Pershing Square now owns 14.2% of CP....
PLEASE NOTE: This is our last Hotline for 2011. Our next Hotline will go out on Friday, January 6, 2012. TRANSCANADA CORP., $44.05, Toronto symbol TRP, is buying nine solar-power projects in Ontario from Canadian Solar Inc. (Nasdaq symbol CSIQ). TransCanada will pay $470 million for these projects. That’s 12.7% more than the $417 million, or $0.59 a share, that it earned in the three months ended September 30, 2011....
RESEARCH IN MOTION LTD., $13.97, Toronto symbol RIM, earned $667 million, or $1.27 a share, in its fiscal 2012 third quarter, which ended November 26, 2011 (all amounts except share price in U.S. dollars). These figures exclude several unusual items, such as a $356-million (after-tax) writedown of its inventory of unsold PlayBook tablet computers and a $40-million charge for the October 2011 BlackBerry service outage. On this basis, RIM’s latest earnings beat the consensus estimate of $1.22 a share. However, the latest earnings are down 26.8% from $911 million, or $1.74 a share, a year earlier. Revenue fell 5.9%, to $5.2 billion from $5.5 billion. However, revenue is up 24.0% from $4.2 billion in the second quarter. Hardware sales accounted for 79% of RIM’s revenue in the latest quarter, followed by services (19%) and software (2%)....