Going with Experience in a Ghastly Trend

 

October, 2023 is ending scary for those investors into decent Canadian stock dividend yields with a sea of red like last week, bloody looking.

It will test some investor's risk appetite while trying to keep the inner mind chatter down... No, I'm not selling, I think to myself and tend to read more posts from the experienced who have been through the ups and downs before and carry on for the long term.

The Connolly Report since 1981 on dividendgrowth.ca. Well worth the $50 CDN life time subscription cost and others like Your Ever Growing Income by Henry Mah.

Holding stocks for the long term and gaining with compounding dividend cash payments is behind what Tom and Henry write about while seeking price appreciation over the years. 

I make my own decisions about the stocks to hold and keep up on the news about them. Yesterday I bought more Emera, EMA and read over the Fortis, FTS 3rd quarter report which shows increased net earnings and earnings per share are up compared to 2022's 3rd quarter report. 

Fortis, FTS has an ex-dividend date of November 16th, 2023 with a payment date of December 1, 2023.

Lifeco type financial stocks are on my radar coming up in mid to latter November with ex-dividend dates. Manulife Financial, MFC and Sun Life Financial, SLF.

What topic comes up a lot lately in the financial news and Blogs? Enbridge, ENB, which has morphed into mainly 50/50 Pipelines and Natural Gas between Canada and the US, while taking on more debt recently. The companies dividend rate hike has slowed lately making some eyebrows and moustaches twitch nervously. Kind of like a slow flashing yellow caution light?

Some figure the stock will split in two... Pipelines and Gas and will be in good shape while others figure a possible dividend cut or ENB will slow future increases even more. 

A lot of "ifs" and it's up to a holder of the stock to decide what to do. It is a huge company but as they say ... not too big to fall. Currently, I'm in between buying more ENB or holding for now and wait for further news/developments to come.

I prefer 'no noise' stocks like Fortis I mentioned but one always needs to be prepared for the worst with the stock world and have an alternate stock/ETF in mind for a possible troubled stock sell.

 

Staying Invested for October, 2023

 

Stay invested and one can't time the Markets sticks in my mind looking at the short term market swings but with long term goals and compounding dividends.

However, with the constant media noise about inflation and interest rates depressing many an equity stock and those that pay dividends ... I feel it's a good time to Buy while stock prices are down on those I'm interested in when other investors are selling ... moving cash over to so called "safe havens". GIC's, high interest savings accounts and gold.

Nothing new there with the up and down cycles of the Markets in the past ... the fear and greed thing driving many an investor.

It looks like possible further hikes have gone more to central banker talk about how long will we keep interest rates at this high level? Be a lot of media discussion about that going forward I'm sure.

Besides investor concerns when companies take on more debt at higher interest rates, costing more money to operate and Banks dealing with bad loans/mortgages that will probably increase heading into 2024, central bankers and interest rates are the biggest downers for now and weigh on the Markets in my opinion.

It's the middle of October and with the top five banks ... Royal Bank (RY-T) and Bank of Montreal (BMO-T) have ex-dividend dates on the 26th and 27th for this month with current dividend yields of 4.71% for RY and 5.34% for BMO. I figure they are decent buying opportunities while their stock prices are down and flat currently

Those banks and others will be releasing earnings reports in the next few weeks for the past quarter. I don't expect much difference from the last earning reports except probably directing more money to cover possible loan defaults. Better days ahead when central bankers decide to slowly drop rates, which could take awhile unfortunately.

Doing some research and googling, there are several Canadian ETF's that hold all these top banks plus more financials but besides the lure of enticing cash dividends, I wouldn't expect much ETF price appreciation for now but some will increase over time eventually such as BMO's ETF ... ZWB.