These two fast-food chains continue to invest in their stores and menus, which is helping them draw more customers. Both have also just announced dividend increases.

This month, we are updating our WSSF Aggressive Growth Portfolio for Investors.

This portfolio is a good starting point for investors who need income. It’s also a starting point for conservative investors, since regular dividends are an indicator of investment quality.

Check our Ratings

All investors should invest mainly in stocks from our “Average” or higher TSINetwork Ratings.

RTX CORP. $176 is a buy. The company (New York symbol RTX; Conservative-Growth Payer Portfolio; Manufacturing sector; Shares outstanding: 1.4 billion; Market cap: $246.4 billion; Dividend yield: 1.5%; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Above Average; www.rtx.com) has three divisions: Collins Aerospace makes aircraft control systems, navigation equipment and cabin interiors (33% of revenue in the latest quarter, 44% of earnings); Pratt & Whitney makes jet engines (36%, 26%); and Raytheon makes a variety of military equipment such as missile defence and radar systems (31%, 30%).

These two legacy technology firms have moved up lately as they add artificial intelligence (AI) features to their existing products. Their rising earnings also bode well for even more dividend increases.

CHOICE PROPERTIES REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST $15 is a buy. Canada’s biggest REIT (Toronto symbol CHP.UN; Cyclical-Growth Payer Portfolio; Manufacturing & Industry sector; Units outstanding: 723.8 million; Market cap: $10.9 billion; Distribution yield: 5.1%; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Above Average; www.choicereit.ca) owns 703 properties, with 68.1 million square feet of retail, industrial, mixed-use and residential space. Investors also benefit from its high 97.8% occupancy rate. George Weston Ltd. (Toronto symbol WN) owns 61.7% of the trust.

These two renewable power providers continue to invest in new projects and upgrades. That will help them benefit from rising power demand, including from AI datacentres; it will also support their high dividend yields.

PIZZA PIZZA ROYALTY CORP. $16 (Toronto symbol PZA; Shares outstanding: 33.4 million; Market cap: $534.4 million; Dividend yield: 5.9%; www.pizzapizza.ca) holds certain trademarks and trade names used by Pizza Pizza restaurants in Canada.


Those exclusive names are licensed to Pizza Pizza for 99 years. In return, it pays the royalty fund 6% of the revenues from its pizza restaurants (9% from Pizza 73 restaurants). There are 696 Pizza Pizza and 104 Pizza 73 outlets across the country.

Dividends from oil companies tend to be less reliable than payments from other industries. That’s because their revenue and cash flow depend on volatile commodity prices.


To cut your risk, we recommend investors stick with integrated oil producers like Suncor as its refineries benefit from lower crude prices. The company is also improving its efficiency and cutting its operating costs, which will help it avoid trimming its dividend when oil prices decline.

We first recommended AbbVie in August 2020 at $97.70 a share.


Of course, we liked that it was a spinoff. Over the years, we’ve found that spinoffs are about as close as you can get to a sure thing in investing. Statistics show that after a company sets up one (or more) of its businesses as a separate entity and “spins it off,” the shares of both the parent and the spinoff generally do better than comparable firms for a number of years, if not decades.