After selling RIM (thank God!), I’ve taken a few weeks to look at my portfolio. I was pretty happy with the companies I bought since the beginning of this year (HSE, CVX, JNJ, BNS, and a covered call etf; ZWB). While the market is moving sideways, I’ve built a solid core of great dividend paying stocks. In fact, the average dividend yield of these stocks on the market is 4.91% (thx to ZWB at 10%…).
More trades during the summer
I’ve debated this for a long time before making any moves on Paladin Energy (PDN). I do believe in uranium and nuclear energy but since what happened in Japan, I feel that the stock will be left for dead for a few years. As I truly want to move forward and build a solid dividend portfolio, I’ve decided to sell it as well.
I was heavily invested in both RIM and PDN at one point and it had hurt my investment returns in 2010 and again in 2011 to date. I am now ready for a fresh new start and I have looked at other possible trades.
Diversifying my portfolio once again
After analyzing KO (Coca-Cola) and PEP (PepsiCo), I decided to add a position in KO. I consider Coca-Cola as solid as municipal bonds for the moment ;-). Since bonds are paying peanuts, I would rather buy a great dividend aristocrat! If I could, I would have bought more shares of KO but I wanted to diversify my portfolio more than anything else. In fact, I had been hit seriously enough by RIM and PDN that I don’t want to have my portfolio concentrated in a scant few stocks anymore!
So I made another move!
This time, I looked on my side of the border; into Canadian Dividend Stocks. You already know that I am a big fan of Canadian banks. But there is another market structured as an oligopoly (only a few big players); telecom!
The biggest telecom players in the Canadian industry are as follows:
Rogers: RCI – 3.80% dividend yield
Shaw: SJR – 4.30% dividend yield
BCE: BCE – 5.50% dividend yield
Manitoba Telecom: MBT – 5.40% dividend yield
Telus: T- 4.10% dividend yield
As you can see, they are all pretty good dividend payers. My pick was Telus as they are showing interesting growth and a well diversified portfolio of products and services. They are pretty active in the industry and have a strong balance sheet too. I thought that telecom would certainly be an interesting sector to add to my portfolio. In order to do so, I sold all my Canadian index fund units. I don’t expect to put more money into my retirement account until January when I usually make my annual RRSP contribution (coming from my year-end bonus, yeah!).
I’ll update my dividend holdings in the upcoming weeks to disclose my current portfolio.