November, 2024 Earnings and Yield

 

The quarterly earnings reports for the stocks I own are decent so far with more to come for November, 2024. I can see how a company is doing compared to the quarter last year and this year. The introductory write-up has an overview of what's happening and plans for the future before the number crunching.

Enbridge, ENB has moved up in price since June of this year and besides expanding into the US with natural gas acquisitions, the company has plans to build pipelines from it's Main Line to service Western Canada where natural gas is at near storage capacity and oil is pumping as usual.

With an ex-dividend date of November 15th and a current yield of 6.49%, the latest news about Enbridge.

On Friday, Enbridge reported a third-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders of $1.29-billion, up from $532-million a year earlier.

The company said the profit amounted to 59 cents a share for the quarter ended Sept. 30, up from 26 cents a share in the same quarter last year.

Manulife Financial, MFC ... is on a pace to reach it's past record high so far this year gaining over 40%, yielding 3.89% at this time and remembering that yields go opposite to stock price. The ex-dividend date is not declared yet but I expect it to land on the 21st of November. 

Investors will probably scrutinise MFC's quarterly report to be released on November 6th to look for more good news hopefully and the ability to maintain it's dividend with growth.

In books and articles, some like to give the stock market a more human personal appeal calling it Mr. Market who will reward you and then turn on you like a Grinch, where greed and fear comes in with the stocks for some investors. Mr. Market will probably be cloned in the future, becoming a microchip driven AI learning and data machine, running 24/7.

That brings me to the Telecoms, which has been lumped in with Utilities in some ETFs. Both BCE and Telus, T, being large market cap companies, are slumping this year in price but so far ... maintaining their dividends with ex-dividend dates in December. With high debt loads due to infrastructure builds, the talk is these companies may be selling off some of their assets to get back to a sort of an even keel, which BCE has already started.

Interesting to see how their quarterly reports look like later this week and their forecast for the months ahead but I expect dividend growth with these 2 stocks to slow in the future or hold at current rates unless they can right their ships over the long term. Mr. Market is giving me a thumbs down and clawing back gains for now with these stocks so I'll hold on further buying but wondering what they will look like 3 to 5 years from now for long term holders. 

By the look of the charts, many investors are not waiting around to find out and look to move those funds into more promising stocks or ETFs. Not always an easy choice to make but some keen investors already have this mapped out before selling.

October was a good month for my stocks overall and see what effect the US Presidential election on Tuesday the 5th of November has on the US markets, which usually spills over into the Canadian market for the short term.   

Mid November, I'll be looking at the financial/insurance sector once again with Sun Life Financial, SLF and Great-West Lifeco in focus and further funding.

Wealthsimple and Halloween, 2024

 

Halloween is getting techie. Walking into the local Home Depot recently I was amazed to see a Halloween display with a 7 foot tall Frankenstein and Zombie looking down at me while moving and growling. Cool! Animatronics at work. As long as they don't put learning AI in Frankie, I'm safe.

Wealthsimple sent me an email that they are celebrating their 10th anniversary and I remember when they started up. Managed portfolios with a low management fee and no commission fees for Trades plus a high interest saving account with CDIC protection But they were new and businesses go bust everyday if their product or service doesn't appeal to people.

Today they have over 50 billion under management and growing faster every year. Their next goal is a trillion under management while they evolve. I read a couple articles where Wealthsimple could be fielding some purchase offers from the big banks of Canada where it's about a growing competition. 

Watching and reading about them, I'm comfortable with Wealthsimple Trade these days, which also has options such as partial trades and a toggle off and on option for auto-repurchase into partial/whole shares from dividends or distributions paid to me.

Continuing with the Halloween theme, a snippet from their recent newsletter dated October 15th ...

Witching hour
Isn’t Halloween the best? Investors get to knock on the door of every public company, and — trick or treat! — get a Q3 earnings report tossed into their pillowcases. The frights! The thrills! This particular earnings season will be a big test for U.S. and Canadian markets, both of which notched new record highs last week. Have investors been right to be so exuberant? Or are consumers starting to cut back? And what effect, if any, is China’s quicksand economy having on companies? The answers started rolling in last Friday as the big U.S. banks reported earnings. JP Morgan, the world’s biggest bank, led the way with a so-far-so-good report, but we’ll get a lot more answers over the coming three weeks as earnings season peaks. We’ve seen enough horror movies to know how fast a keg party can turn into a bloodbath, so cue the Halloween theme song and remember: this is supposed to be fun.

I decided to buy JP Morgan's ETFs shortly after they became available here in Canada. JEPI and JEPQ, which I mentioned in my previous post. So far, so good and a gain to date on both as I await the first monthly distribution announcement.

My jump into the US market in a high yield way and I'm also interested in Schwab's SCHD, US Dividend Equity ETF with a market cap of 133 billion and a low 0.06% management fee. SCHD pays quarterly but I like the steady gains with top name company holdings like Home Depot, Blackrock, and Pepsico in the list of the current top ten holdings. I'll update on that decision.

The plan is to eventually get into some of the top US individual stocks by yield in a US portfolio but for now ... I'll do the ETF route for broad coverage and distribution income.

Meanwhile, my monthly buys into Canadian dividend paying stocks continue with companies like Enbridge, ENB and Fortis, FTS on my radar for the first half of November, 2024.