Saturday, April 1, 2023

Banking on April, 2023

 

The end of March was "buy the dip" for yours truly with the Canadian Banks with all the selling fear spawned by a few US Banks having troubles plus Credit Suisse, now bought out. Currently, the Bank situation is getting somewhat back to normal. 

With some other positive factors, The Canadian TSX registered gains in the last week of March. Green ...  is good.

Banks here with their billions in profits and high yields are popular picks along with associated ETF's. 

The Feds with their latest budget last week are apparently going to take 1% of those Bank profits. CEO's probably yelling out ... foul play!

April is a quarterly ex-dividend month for many of these top Banks.

I would say the most volatile sector is the Tech industry (Nasdaq) and the reason it is so popular among investors who follow it. Down in the beginning of the year for many Tech stocks, recently zooming back up with an average of 15%. Timing that market is not a good idea but some are lucky and buy low.

For the quarter, the Nasdaq jumped 16.8% in its biggest quarterly percentage increase since the three months ended June 2020. 

Is the US legal eagle digging it's talons too deep into crypto exchanges south of the border? Is that the reason top Exchangers are crossing the border into Canada to expand? Not sure the reason but both Coinbase and Kraken have now filed paper work with the Canadian SEC departments to register for legal operation. 

There are strict rules up here now with more to come no doubt. A major one I like is that customer/member's deposited funds/coins are to be kept separate from the Exchanger's coffers or ... funds/wallets. The Bermuda based FTX comes to mind with billions routed elsewhere that went under and that will all come to light with a future court case involving the owner and his staff.

Saturday, March 25, 2023

March and Changes, 2023

 

Spring and Fall are my favourite times of the year compared to the heat and humidity of the summer here. Although the winters are getting milder somewhat on the east coast of Canada, in tends to wind up with a few weeks of bone chilling cold winds. I tend to feel it more as I get older.



With my Blog, I'm going to switch to monthly posts starting in April, 2023 and do add-ons thru the month with updates. Sort of a running summary with info and my approach to investing. Keeping in mind, it's all on a personal perspective from a do-it-yourselfer investor ... tweaking as I go with a long term approach.

The stock market is a life long learning curve with good times and more than usual curve balls sent my way from 2020 to 2023 so far by the Market gyrations as they move with current news.

However, nothing unusual from Market downs of the past, just different circumstances and causes.

Heading into the last week of March, 2023 ... international banking contagion fear continues outside of Canada and as per usual ...  the press and social media tend to amplify the fear. 

I read and see what's going on but continue on my long term path of portfolio growth and adding decent dividend paying companies. 

It's impossible to have 100% good picks. No one has done it thru their investing careers. Learn by mistakes or usually a case of the unknown issues within a company suddenly made public, sparking fear and selling. There will be the odd loss going forward with the risk factor involved.

There are a lot of high dividend/yield stocks and ETF's/Funds going ex-dividend next week. On my radar is TC Energy (TRP) with a current yield of 7.251% and listed in the BTSK portfolio. 

There's been a lot of news about TC Energy and their mega project costing in the billions with their construction of a natural gas pipeline in British Colombia to feed a LNG plant. Their target to completion is by year's end.

The Coastal GasLink project is a 670-km pipeline spanning northern British Columbia. It will carry natural gas across the province to the LNG Canada processing and export facility in Kitimat, B.C.

Two top 5 banks in Canada go ex-dividend in early April ... Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) and TD Bank (TD) with high dividend yields. 

These picks are also holdings in the Royal Bank's ETF I bought this month and will add to it with a ticker of ... RCDC. Sounds like the name of a rock band when you say it. Has a ring to it.



Happy New Year 2025 and the Big Banks

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