The Modified BTSX Portfolio

 

It's confusing times as President Trump changes his mind every other day about 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico. Meanwhile, he doesn't like it but Canada added a first phase of 25% tariffs and so far ... has kept them in place since March 4th waiting on Trump's next move. Partial, different rates and reciprocal? All this has the businesses effected on both sides of the border seeing a foggy course ahead until there's some clarity to it all.

I was delaying writing this post expecting the tariff issue to be set for awhile from March 4th but it's ever changing and hopefully not for the 4 years of Trump's term. Then there's the ... I want Canada and Greenland. Oh my.

As expected, the Markets don't like it and have fallen amid a lot of selling. I'm long term so staying the course. Usually during these times, some stocks I hold and those I'm interested in, fall in price so ripe for further buying. The "Buy Low" always on my mind.

In the February 2025 Canadian Money Saver Magazine, there is an update article from Matt Poyner about Beat The TSX, or BTSX strategy. I adopted that strategy shown on his site, DividendStrategy.ca a few years back but in a modified form where I buy monthly and not the top ten in equal amounts and hold for a year. 

It works but doesn't always beat the TSX every year but over the long term with dividends included. it does. For 2024, BTSX gained 16.19% with dividends. Decent in my books while compared with the TSX 60 in the XIU ETF came in at 20.56% with dividends. 

Probably a worthy addition alongside the BTSX portfolio, Blackrock's XIU ... iShares S&P/TSX 60 Index ETF.

As Matt writes, do your own due diligence where I go through the list plus down thru the top twenty dividend paying stocks and beyond on the TSX. I filter out those I'm not interested in. For example, I never owned Algonquin Power, AQN from the start. I sold BCE last year when all the grumbling started with the company and possible dividend cuts coming. Instead, I picked companies further down the list I mention regularly on this Blog.

Moving forward, on the 14th of February, Canadian Natural Resources, CNQ.TO has an ex-dividend date and recently increased their dividend by 4.44% with a current yield of 5.63%.

I'll be buying more shares of South Bow, SOBO.TO in the latter half of this month with an ex-dividend date of March 31st, 2025

There's lots of articles and posts about oil prices swaying more than usual these days with Trump, OPEC possibly increasing production and the US 10% tariff on Canadian oil. That will weigh on Companies in that sector depending what's going on from day to day. South Bow pays their dividend in US dollars so I receive the CAD conversion much like oil companies in Canada which sell their oil in the US and convert some or all to CAD in their accounts.

On "Cut the Crap Investing" with link shown in the right sidebar here, I seen Tourmaline Oil, TOU.TO mentioned a few times and a stock held by Dale Roberts, the author.

In the news recently, I read TOU had a decent quarterly report and cash flow. Their base dividend has been increased by 43% along with a special dividend payment for this quarter. March 14th is the ex-dividend date but to receive the special dividend, shares need to be bought before closing on the 13th of March.

Mid month March is coming up fast and then I'll be looking at the big banks of Canada with the Bank of Nova Scotia, BNS.TO first up on my radar for further buying. 

I'm also looking at two high yield ETFs which surprised me from Manulife, MFC.TO where they are more about moderate to low yield. I'll debate about adding CYLD: Manulife Smart Enhanced Yield ETF and UYLD: Manulife Smart US Enhanced Yield ETF  These ETFs would be more for income and monthly distributions to add cash for buying more core stock holdings.

Interesting weighting with the Holdings starting with Treasury Bills and then lower weighting into some solid companies. More about Manulife's ETFs in my next post. 

Quarterly Reports and Lifeco in February 2025

 

I look forward to Quarterly Reports with the stocks I own, anticipating decent reports with guidance in capital and dividends to shareholders. What's been done to improve business in the past months and what they are working on currently. Hopefully that wraps up with an increase in future cash dividends to shareholders. 

Kind of like waiting to watch a new action movie release that's been advertised hoping it's good throughout and not just the highlights in the preview.

However, there's a number of issues that can arise in past months or over a year that's been weighing on a company or bank. TD bank is good example of that here in Canada and looks like it's heading in the right direction with a new CEO and brought in billions from selling a US bank stock it owned.  

TD's stock price has increased by over 10% since Jan 1, 2025. Good to see where I own the stock and had patience for the bank to work through it's US issues and slowly get back on track.

Turning to finance/insurance companies or Lifecos, Manulife, MFC ... Great-West Life, GWO and Sun Life, SLF are on my buy list with ex-dividend dates at the end of February, 2025 and into early March.

Manulife Financial will release it's quarterly report on the 19th of February. It's also in February when they have increased their dividend in past years and MFC will be announcing it's ex-dividend date for February, 2025. I'll be watching to see the results.

Sun Life Financial has been increasing it's dividend in May and November in past years. SLF's recent quarterly report fell below analysts expectations due to some impairment charges in Vietnam but offset by it's dental business and the stock took a nose dive on the 12th of February. There's more information on all that reading through their 4th quarter report for 2024.

When stocks drop due to short term fluctuations, that's when I prefer to buy. SLF's ex-dividend date is on the 26th of February, 2025 with a current 4.30% yield with the company currently valued at 54 billion.

Great-West Lifeco increased it's dividend by 10% and has an ex-dividend date of March 3rd, 2025 with a record 2024 base earnings in the companies recent reports. GWO has a yield of 4.73%

I focus on dividends with my stocks but also look for growth and using GWO for an example with a one year return of 27.87% beating the S&P/TSX Composite with 23.80%.

Heading over to the Energy sector and with an ex-dividend of March 4th, 2025 ... Suncor Energy, SU continues to put up decent numbers under CEO Kruger with a 4% yield.

As my portfolio grows and I add stocks I researched, I searched for some free portfolio sites that calculate dividends and growth among other stats and I've seen more of a shift to those metrics although filled with Ads.

Registering with Yahoo Finance which I did years ago, they now have an enhanced stock list I can build under My Portfolio and totals dividends per month. More features are available for an upgrade to Premium but the enhanced version has all the info I need. I guess a lazy approach to updating an excel spreadsheet.

On the Microsoft Edge browser ... MSN and scrolling over to Money and My Watchlist has the similar features as Yahoo Finance and more with a kind of a TradingView look.

Joining the no commission fee trend like Wealthsimple, Questrade announced last week that there are now zero commission fees for trading stocks and ETFs. Cool and funding the minimum required by Questrade, the portfolio tracker ... Passiv's upgrade is a bonus by following the sign up process.

Although Ads are included on free versions of portfolio, watchlist and dividend trackers I mentioned, there is more catering to the DIY investor than in the past in my opinion and that's how these sites make their money through Ads and upgrade subscriptions

I've highlighted Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, BIP-UN.TO on my Watchlist and I've been reading up on their business. My plan is to add that company based in Bermuda towards the end of February. The company has been spending big bucks on buying Data Centres and Cell Towers primarily in the US geared towards AI. 

Keyera Corp, KEY.TO is a Canadian mid stream pipeline based in Calgary, Alberta I've had on my Watchlist for years. Where I own PPL and ENB it was about too much concentration in that sector but with Canada debating about becoming more independent of US trade, perhaps it could be good timing to buy KEY in March. Just my opinions on all these stocks I write about as always.

February 18th: An interesting article on the Globe and Mail by Rob Carrick I can share with my subscription about 24 stocks and dividend growth from Tom Connolly. Hopefully the link will open multiple times for readers.

Dividend growth helps drive higher share prices for long-term investors