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
When your choose investments from the Resources sector, it’s a mistake to zero in on any one commodity, such as oil. Far better to give yourself exposure to several different commodities. Diversification within the sector cuts your risk without hurting your profit potential. In addition, remember that you can profit from the ongoing Resources boom by investing in companies that sell to businesses in the sector. Here are five top buys for exposure to the boom in Resources....
Our Successful Investor Hotline is a key part of our three-part service (including the monthly advisory and Portfolios supplement). The goal of our Hotline is to keep you up to date with our market outlook and changes in our advice. The Hotline is available to our subscribers by phone and email. We update it 44 or more times per year. To make our Hotline even more useful, we have begun including it in our Index of stocks and subjects that we analyzed in the year to date. The latest edition of the Index goes out with this issue....
Torstar and other top North American newspaper stocks have been poor performers in the past few years. Most are losing classified ad revenue to Internet auction sites like eBay, or free online ad sites like Craigslist. Circulation revenues are also falling, as readers, particularly young people, get more information from TV and the Internet. That makes newspapers a less appealing vehicle for advertisers. We feel some newspaper publishers will survive the current transition period and thrive all the more when good times return. That’s especially true of well-established companies like Torstar that are embracing the Internet and spreading out into related areas. Torstar’s Harlequin subsidiary also gives the stock hidden value. Risk is limited at current levels and the current 3.5% yield eases the pain of waiting for the turnaround. TORSTAR CORP. $21 (Toronto symbol TS.B (old symbol TS.NV.B); Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; SI Rating: Above average) is one of Canada’s top media companies. It’s best known as the publisher of The Toronto Star, the largest daily newspaper in Canada. It also publishes over 150 daily and weekly newspapers in Southern Ontario....
MANITOBA TELECOM SERVICES INC. $46 (Toronto symbol MBT; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Utilities sector; SI Rating: Average) provides local, long distance and wireless communication services to 1.8 million customers in Manitoba. In 2004, the company acquired Allstream Inc., a national provider of telecom services to businesses, as part of a plan to cut its reliance on Manitoba. Allstream now accounts for around 55% of Manitoba Tel’s revenue, and 30% of its profit. However, the business telecom market is highly competitive, and falling rates have hurt Allstream’s revenue and profits....
NORTEL NETWORKS CORP. $2.96 (Toronto symbol NT; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; SI Rating: Speculative) has completed a review of its accounting policies, and restated its results for the past three years. Most of the problems stemmed from the timing of revenue from some major contracts. The company’s former management improperly recognized some revenue to meet certain profit targets. Nortel lost $0.59 a share (total $2.6 billion) in 2005, compared with a loss of $0.05 a share ($207 million) a year earlier (all amounts except share price in U.S. dollars). However, the 2005 loss included $2.5 billion to settle class-action lawsuits, and $217 million in other special charges. Revenue rose 10.5%, to $10.5 billion from $9.5 billion. While the restatement helps lift some of the uncertainty over Nortel, it still faces some major costs in 2006. It will contribute $335 million to its employee pension plan this year. Lawsuit settlements will cost it a further $575 million, and it plans to spend $380 million on capital upgrades....
MAPLE LEAF FOODS INC. $14 (Toronto symbol MFI; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; SI Rating: Average) has teamed up with a genetic testing firm, Clinical Data, Inc., to develop a way to track hogs using DNA markers. That should make it easier for inspectors to trace unhealthy animals back to the farm they came from. Demand for this system should be strong in light of growing concern over mad cow and other diseases, and Maple Leaf aims to someday licence it to other pork processors. If successful, the two companies aim to adapt the system for other animals and agricultural products. Maple Leaf Foods is a buy.
PETRO-CANADA $53 (Toronto symbol PCA; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; SI Rating: Average) has suspended production at its Terra Nova offshore oil platform near Newfoundland due to mechanical problems with a generator. Petro-Canada owns 34% of Terra Nova, and operates it. The company had already planned to shut down Terra Nova for about five weeks this summer for maintenance. But this latest setback will delay the rig’s restart until the fall. Terra Nova accounted for 8% of Petro-Canada’s daily production in 2005. However, rising oil prices should cushion the impact of the lost production....
Canadian bank stocks have moved down in recent weeks, mainly due to fears that rising interest rates will hurt demand for mortgages and other loans. While that is a possibility, the banks are in a much better position to handle a drop in loan volumes than they were a few years ago. Tighter credit policies have cut the risk of big loan write-offs. The banks’ entry into new businesses such as insurance and mutual funds has cut their reliance on traditional banking operations. Growing overseas operations also cut their geographic risk. We still like the long-term prospects of all five of Canada’s big banks, and recommend that every Canadian investor aim to own at least two of them....
Our Successful Investor Hotline aims to keep you up-to-date on our advice in between our monthly editions, particularly for fast-changing situations — like these takeovers. The Hotline is a free service for our subscribers. We update it 44 or more times per year, generally on Friday after 7 PM Toronto time (any changes in timing are always announced in the previous Hotline). The current Hotline number always appears at the top of the first page of each issue. You can also receive the full text of each Hotline automatically, by email, at no extra charge. For email delivery, send an email with the name and address under which you subscribe to service@thesuccessfulinvestor.com. Subscribers can also view the last four Hotlines at www.inner-circle.ca, using the user name and password that also appear at the top of page one each issue....
When the Resources sector is booming, as it is now, it’s easy to think we’ve entered a new era of eversoaring prices. That’s a common belief today, due to growing demand for resources in China, India and other developing countries. However, as the saying goes, “The best cure for high prices is high prices.” For instance, copper prices have risen nearly five-fold from lows of a few years ago. You can bet that copper users are looking for ways to use less copper, with product re-design or by switching to cheaper materials....