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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BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA, $96.47, is a buy. The lender (Toronto symbol BNS; Shares outstanding: 1.2 billion; Market cap: $119.3 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.6%; www.scotiabank.com) is Canada’s third-largest bank.
The deal will let Telus expand service to remote regions in Canada that currently have no cellphone coverage. The company’s customers will be able to send texts, make calls and use data in Canada’s most remote locations.
With the May 2026 payment, the company will raise your quarterly dividend by 9.0%, to $0.6675 a share from $0.6125. The new annual rate of $2.67 yields a high 4.0%.
MANULIFE FINANCIAL, $47.92, is a buy. This safety-conscious stock (Toronto symbol MFC; Shares outstanding: 1.7 billion; Market cap: $80.3 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.8%; www.manulife.ca) represents one of Canada’s largest life insurers. It’s also a leading insurer in Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, and the Philippines. On December 31, 2025, the insurer had $1.70 trillion in assets under administration.
BCE will invest $1.7 billion in this facility, which should begin operating in 2027.
Crombie REal estate investment trust, $15.78, is a buy. The REIT (Toronto symbol CRR.UN; units outstanding: 110.4 million; Market cap: $3.0 billion; Rating: Average; Distribution yield: 5.8%) has 306 properties making up about 18.9 million square feet of which Retail properties account for 79.5%; retail-related industrial, 13.0%; office, 4.3%; and mixed-use residential, 3.2%. Crombie’s record occupancy rate is a very high 97.7%.
Those moves are now beginning to pay off—despite the current downturn, AT&T shares are up 5% over the past year, while Verizon’s have gained 16%. In addition, each stock is still attractively priced in relation to its earnings per share, at the same time offering above-average dividend yields. That makes them great picks for long-term investors.
You can’t fake a record of dividends. That’s why we place a high value on a sustained history of dividend payments. When you’re looking for income-producing stocks, a high dividend yield should also be one of your most important investment considerations. But that shouldn’t come at the expense of sustainability.
Our exclusive TSI Dividend Sustainability Rating System uses eight factors to determine a company’s ability to maintain its current dividend, and increase the payment over time.
With the September 2025 payment, Stanley increased your quarterly dividend by 1.2%, to $0.83 a share from $0.82. The annual rate of $3.32 yields an appealing 4.6%. The company has now raised the dividend each year for the past 58 years.