Monday, March 31, 2014

CPP

For people complaining that CPP should be an entitlement, they seemed to have forgotten that CPP started off in 1966 as a pay as you go plan. My parents voted for this plan. Do you know why? My father got full CPP pension after paying for only 10 years.

This is exactly how what we, the boomer generation, have been voting. We have voted for others people's money to be spent. This includes all sorts of social programs, like health care and OAS. We are highly in debt and putting this debt on future generations. We seemed to have voted for things that we do not wish to pay for.

I know that people say let the rich pay, but I doubt if there is enough money in the world to satisfy our wants. We have taxes that are too high and debt that is too high. Both slow down economies. So we could end up with little or no growth in our economy. Are our children going to be able to make enough money to pay off our debts? I cannot see this ending well.

CPP was only fixed in 2000 to be better at covering future liabilities by increasing the amount employees and employers must pay into the plan. At that time the message was that CPP was fixed for the next 20 years. However, I must admit that any report I have currently seen, seems to imply that CPP is solvent for now and needs no fixes in the near term.

Jamie Griff's rant against the CPP is all wrong. Yes, we have paid into CPP, but the question is have we paid enough into it? Certainly the first people to benefit from it did not. And, please note that my father did not talk about the great deal he got with CPP, instead he felt he deserved the pension because he had paid CPP premiums.

On my other blog I am today writing about TransCanada Corp (TSX-TRP, NYSE-TRP) ...continue...

This blog is meant for educational purposes only, and is not to provide investment advice. Before making any investment decision, you should always do your own research or consult an investment professional. I do research for my own edification and I am willing to share. I write what I think and I may or may not be correct.

See my site for an index to these blog entries and for stocks followed. Follow me on Twitter.

Friday, March 28, 2014

Charities and Coercion

I just got a note from the company that owns the apartment building I live in about their Spring Hope Drive for Food. Not only did this notice come with the unusual "We can make a difference" slogans, but under Tenant Instructions is "Opt-out Forms available". So if I do not care to participate they want me to fill out and sign a form? I cannot even begin to write how offensive I find this. I know that everyone feels that their favourite charity is great and everyone should support it, but this goes way beyond that. This is so arrogant that it is unbelievable.

I am assuming that they are trying to embarrass their tenants into giving something for their favourite charity. Well, I do not easily embarrass and I greatly resent the attempt. I will do what I usually do to such efforts and try to ignore them the best that I can.

Food Banks have never been my favourite charity. There are just so many charities that you can support and I feel that one must carefully pick and choose what charities you want to support. My opinion of Food Banks is that they may be part of the problem and not part of the solution for helping the poor. I find it shocking that Food Banks have a hard time getting volunteers to stock their shelves. Why are there not the people who go to Food Banks volunteering for this?

This reminds me of when I was working. I worked for a number of life insurance companies and they strongly supported the United Way. I had problems supporting the United Way. It was reported that only 70% of the money they collected went on to the charities they supported and 30% was for administration. I also did not like reports on how much the top people at this charity were making in salary.

I cannot find anything online to support the above statements. There is however, an article in the G&M in 2010 talking about salaries for charities and how high they can be. Mind you, I could not find one talking about the salaries at the United Way.

One thing I did not like about the United Way was it bragging that it helped 1 of 3 Torontonian. Why would 1 in 3 people in this city need help from them? What we need to do is help the ones who really need help. This is one reason I support the Salvation Army. I feel that they really target the truly needy. It took a lot of effort on my part of make sure my donation at the time of the United Way campaign went directly to the Salvation Army. (They obviously did not trust me to donate directly to the Salvation Army, which I did anyway because it is a charity I do support.)

On my other blog I am today writing about AltaGas Ltd (TSX-ALA, OTC-ATGFF) ...continue...

This blog is meant for educational purposes only, and is not to provide investment advice. Before making any investment decision, you should always do your own research or consult an investment professional. I do research for my own edification and I am willing to share. I write what I think and I may or may not be correct.

See my site for an index to these blog entries and for stocks followed. Follow me on Twitter.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Annuities and Bonds

The online site of Investing Daily sometimes have interesting articles and this is one of them. The article is talking about what is better in retirement, to buy bonds or annuities for an income.

I had not considered the purchasing of bonds as a retirement income instead of an annuity. The author talks about the reluctance of people to buy annuities and considered if buying bonds would be a good substitute. The conclusion that he came to was that by purchasing bond, people might run the risk of running out of money.

One objection that I would have in buying bonds is all the trouble dealing with bonds would entail. In order to get a comparable income, some bonds would have to be sold off each year. You had to consider the fact that when interest rates rise, the value of your bonds (i.e. your capital) would decrease. On each bond sale you would have to determine for tax purposes if you had a capital gain or loss.

I can see the logic of putting some or all of your retirement money into an annuity. Life annuities pay you a monthly income until you die. In Canada, where I live, annuities are safe as no insurance company has defaulted on annuities. Yes, they are not particularly flexible, but you do get a guaranteed income for life. If you buy an10 or 15 year guaranteed life annuity, you or your heirs will probably get back the capital put into the annuity if you die within the guaranteed period.

I am not into annuities, nor bonds, as a matter of fact. I like making dividend income to live off of. However, annuities provide safe guaranteed no hassle monthly income for those that purchase them. The problem currently is that interest rates are much lower than normal so monthly income under currently purchases annuities would be lower than normal. However, interest rates will not be low forever. There are also lots of varieties of annuities now to choice from.

On my other blog I am today writing about Richelieu Hardware Ltd (TSX-RCH, OTC-RHUHF) ...continue...

This blog is meant for educational purposes only, and is not to provide investment advice. Before making any investment decision, you should always do your own research or consult an investment professional. I do research for my own edification and I am willing to share. I write what I think and I may or may not be correct.

See my site for an index to these blog entries and for stocks followed. Follow me on Twitter.

Monday, March 24, 2014

Rich not Wealthy

I was just reading an interesting article on the blog of Out of your Rut. This article is called "10 Ways to be Rich Without Being Wealthy". This is an article worth reading. Yes, you need money to live well, but money is not everything.

One of the items is talking about the ability to quit a bad job. I did not have that particular experience, but it was rather similar. When I company I worked in was downsizing, I was far less stress out that a lot of the other staff because I had no debt and had some investments. If I lost my job it would not be nice, but it also would not have been a catastrophe either. I did not lose my job as other did, but perhaps being calm and carrying on helped save my job?

On my other blog I am today writing about TransAlta Corp. (TSX-TA, NYSE-TAC) ...continue...

This blog is meant for educational purposes only, and is not to provide investment advice. Before making any investment decision, you should always do your own research or consult an investment professional. I do research for my own edification and I am willing to share. I write what I think and I may or may not be correct.

See my site for an index to these blog entries and for stocks followed. Follow me on Twitter.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Stock Prices- Updated

Sorry, but my original table had the wrong dividend yields. Table has been updated as have some wording.

A stock priced at $60 is not necessarily cheaper than a stock priced at $70. Stock prices are relative. It is like all stocks are priced in different currencies and you need to know the currency exchange rate to determine if a stock is relatively cheap or expensive. That is you need a common point of reference.

One simple way is to use the dividend yield. So if you wanted to find the cheapest, say bank stock, you could look at the dividend yield of all the banks and the one with the highest dividend yield would probably be the one that is relatively cheaper. This is not an exact science.

Below I have listed all the big five Canadian banks and ordered them by dividend yield. For dividend yield, the higher the yield generally, the lower the relative price. The other ratios I have looked at are Price/Earnings, Price/Sales and Price/Book Value. For the other ratios, generally the lower the ratio is the lower the relative price.

The Bank of Montreal has the highest yield so is the cheapest as far as yield goes. However, the CIBC has a lower P/E Ratios, so that on a P/E Ratio basis it is the relatively lowest priced bank. The price per share is the highest of the 5 banks. I pulled these figures from a website on March 23, 2014.

Stock Symbol Div Yield P/E P/S P/B Price
Bank of Montreal TSX-BMO 4.16% 11.7 2.9 1.7 $73.05
CIBC TSX-CM 4.09% 10.4 2.9 2.3 $95.88
Bank of Nova ScotiaTSX-BNS 3.95% 12.4 3.6 1.9 $64.86
Royal Bank TSX-RY 3.94% 13.0 3.3 2.3 $72.16
Toronto-Dominion Bank TSX-TD 3.65% 14.3 3.9 1.9 $51.54


On my other blog I am today writing about TransAlta Corp. (TSX-TA, NYSE-TAC) ...continue...

This blog is meant for educational purposes only, and is not to provide investment advice. Before making any investment decision, you should always do your own research or consult an investment professional. I do research for my own edification and I am willing to share. I write what I think and I may or may not be correct.

See my site for an index to these blog entries and for stocks followed. Follow me on Twitter.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

International Exposure

A great way of getting international exposure in investing is to invest in Canadian companies that do business worldwide. It is better if your company or companies are in lots of geographical areas. It is usual that some areas are always doing better than other. You might end up with a company or companies that can always turn a profit somewhere, even when we are having problems in Canada.

On my other blog I am today writing about RioCan Real Estate (TSX-REI.UN), OTC-RIOCF) ...continue...

This blog is meant for educational purposes only, and is not to provide investment advice. Before making any investment decision, you should always do your own research or consult an investment professional. I do research for my own edification and I am willing to share. I write what I think and I may or may not be correct.

See my site for an index to these blog entries and for stocks followed. Follow me on Twitter.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Sorry no Blog on Friday

I am sorry there was no blog on Friday. I should be back on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

If I Knew Then

When I was starting off investing, I tried out many things including mutual funds. However, if I knew then what I know now about investing I would never have bought mutual funds. I would have bought only big dividend paying blue chip stocks. I would have done a lot better.

It is not that I did not make money in mutual funds, because I did. Everyone was making money as I was investing in the great period from 1982 to 2000. However, it is just I would have done much better just buying big dividend paying blue chip stocks.

On my other blog I am today writing about Enbridge Inc. (TSX-ENB, NYSE-ENB) ...continue...

This blog is meant for educational purposes only, and is not to provide investment advice. Before making any investment decision, you should always do your own research or consult an investment professional. I do research for my own edification and I am willing to share. I write what I think and I may or may not be correct.

See my site for an index to these blog entries and for stocks followed. Follow me on Twitter.

Monday, March 10, 2014

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Something to Buy

There is always something to buy in the stock market. On Monday, I put out a list of the stocks that I covered and showed what stock might be a good deal based on dividend yield. Now I am trying to categorize what sorts of stocks may be a good deal based on dividend yield.

Categorizing stocks is not as simple as it might seem. Every site you go to has categorized stocks a bit differently. I try to keep this as simple as possible. See my spreadsheet at here. As in other spreadsheets, you can highlight a line or a number of lines for better viewing.

A number of Consumer Staple stocks seem to be cheap. Examples would be Dorel Industries (TSX-DII.B A) and Metro Inc. (TSX-MRU). This has not changed from last month. (Please note that Canada Bread (TSX-CBY) is being bought out.) A number of energy stocks also seem cheap. Examples are Canadian Natural Resources (TSX-CNQ); Cenovus Energy Inc. (TSX-CVE) and Suncor Energy (TSX-SU) and this has not changed from February.

There are not that many cheap companies in Finance, but the banks mostly seem on the cheaper side. However, I note that Bank of Montreal (TSX-BMO) is no longer cheap. There are not many companies cheap in the Tech sector except for small companies like Calian Technologies Ltd (TSX-CTY) and Evertz Technologies (TSX-ET) and this is the same as for February 2014.

The infrastructure type utility companies are still not cheap. What utility companies that are cheap, seem to be cheap for a good reason. A current example is Atlantic Power Corp (TSX-ATP). TransAlta Corp (TSX-TA) is not only cheap looking at the 5 year median dividend yield. This company has just cut their dividend.

On my other blog I am today writing about Canadian Tire Corp (TSX-CTC.A, OTC-CDNAF)...continue...

This blog is meant for educational purposes only, and is not to provide investment advice. Before making any investment decision, you should always do your own research or consult an investment professional. I do research for my own edification and I am willing to share. I write what I think and I may or may not be correct.

See my website for stocks followed and investment notes. Follow me on Twitter or StockTwits.

Monday, March 3, 2014

Dividend Stocks March 2014

The theory is that you should use the dividend yield to see if a dividend stock is selling at a stock price that is relatively cheap. A stock price is considered cheap if it is selling at a dividend yield higher than the historical high yield or higher than the historical average yield. See my spreadsheet at dividend growth stocks that I just updated for March 2014.

I am showing whether a stock is relatively cheap based on historical high dividend yields (P/Hi), historical average dividend yields (P/Ave) or on 5 year median dividend yields (P/5Yr). See these fields on the right side of the file. You can highlight a particular stock using your cursor to highlight the appropriate line.

There are always some stocks to buy because they are priced reasonably. There are always stocks to currently avoid because they are overpriced. Looking at dividend growth stocks that are selling at stock prices that give them a dividend yield above the historical average dividend yield are probably the best bet.

The stocks that are selling at prices that give them a dividend yield above the historical high yield could be good stocks to buy. However, these stocks may be selling so cheap because of current troubles, especially financial troubles and should be treated with caution. Do not forget that I have all the stocks I follow on this spreadsheet and some are much better investments than others.

However, you should always investigate a stock before you buy. Sometimes different stocks in certain sectors are just out of favour or the stock market is just in one of its declines. However, a stock may be relatively cheap because it has problems. That is why you should always investigate a stock before buying.

Looking at stock this way is equivalent to a stock filter. A main problem I know of is for the old income trusts. They are generally lowered their dividend yields forever and they will probably never get back to the old dividend yield highs they made as an income trust company. For these stocks, you might be better comparing the current dividend yield to the 5 year median dividend yield.

Also, on some stocks I have a lot more information years in my spreadsheets than for other stocks. So, finding a stock on the list as "cheap" is only the first step in finding a stock to buy. This is the same with any other sort of stock filters that you can use.

The last thing to remember is that I have entering figures into a spreadsheet. I could put them in incorrectly, I can transpose figures and I can misread figures. This is another great reason why you should check a stock out before investing. As this is just a filter, it works better on some stocks than on others.

See my entry on my methodology in establishing the historical dividend yield highs and lows for the stocks that I cover. You might want to look at my original entry on Dividend Growth Stocks.

On my other blog I am today writing about Canadian Real Estate Investment Trust (TSX-REF.UN, OTC-CRXIF) ...continue...

This blog is meant for educational purposes only, and is not to provide investment advice. Before making any investment decision, you should always do your own research or consult an investment professional. See my site for an index to these blog entries and for stocks followed. Follow me on Twitter.