Safe Dividend Investing
In 2000, I lost $300,000 in mutual funds that an investment advisor had put my lifesavings into.... I lost it because I had entrusted it to an industry that does not educate investors nor encourage them to look closely at what that industry is doing with their money..... I set out to find a better, safer way to invest..... My podcasts relate to what I learned in creating a generous, reliable income and in growing my wealth.... A few of the more important lessons I learned and explore are:.... (1) It is critical that you become a self-directed investor.....(2) If you can not easily measure the risk and potential in an investment, then do not invest in it. This excludes from your portfolio bundled investment devices, like mutual funds, ETFs and Index funds,..... (3) Financially strong companies who have paid “good dividends” for decades will continue to stay strong and continue to pay good dividends because it is both part of their "character" and in their executives selfish interest.....(4) Diversification is critical. Investing equally in the best 20 strong dividend stocks is the ideal.....A portfolio of 20 limits your risk in any one stock to 5% of your wealth..... No matter how strong you think a stock is, do not fall in love with it..... I have lived very well off my steady dividend income for 18 years, through two market crashes and one pandemic. I have watched my portfolio’s capital more than triple from where I started, despite taking out a generous dividend income every year to live on... In charts, for my second investment book,(Safer Better Dividend Investing), I spent months scoring all 628 dividend stocks paying dividends of 6% or greater traded on the TSX, NYSE and the NASDAQ. I discovered dozens of stocks that can provide not only a generous dividend income but outstanding capital growth.....Financial independence is realizable for careful, patient, dividend investors.
Safe Dividend Investing
POCAST 228 - OUTSTANDING STOCKS - T C ENERGY -COPA HOLDINGS - MAGNA INTERNATIONAL
Welcome to Podcast 228 on 28thof June, 2025:
This week’s 10 outstanding high dividend stocks are in the attached podcast’s narration and transcript.
5 U.S STOCK SELCTORS USED (1) common shares (2) dividend yield + 5% (3) # shares traded over 1M price gain +1%.
QUALIFIERS’ STOCK SYMBOLS & THEIR SCORES: (1) APAM Score 47(2) CPA Score 68 (3) MSB Score 44 (4) NVEC Score 56 (5) ITRN Score 55.
5 CANADIAN STOCK SELCTORS (1) common shares (2) dividend yield + 5% (3) # shares traded over 51K (4) operating margins +3% (5) share prices $12.00 (6) weekly share price gain +1%.
QUALIFIERS’ & SCORES (1) TRP Score 71 (2) RCI.B Score 60 (3) MG Score 65 (4) CCA Score 64 (5) SIA Score 45.
DATA USED FOR ALL STOCK SCORE CALCULATIONS: (1) Price $ (2) Price 4yrs ago $ (3) Book Value $ (4) Advisor Buys # (5) Advisor Strong Buys # (6) Dividend. Yield % (7)Operating Margin % (8) Share Volume Traded # (9) Price/Earnings Ratio.
CNADIAN SCORE CALCULATIONS (K=thousand M=million)
STOCK 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
TRP |67.00| 56.14 |26.55 |8|0| 5.07| 43.84| 21M| 17.5x
RCI.B |39.87| 66.27| 19.40| 5 |0| 5.02| 22.40| 1.5M |12.2x
MG |52.76 114.92| 55.72| 3| 0 |5.14 4.13 | 2M| | 9.6x
CCA |69.23| 121.39 | 70.59| 4| 0 | 5.33 |27.88 |47K |8.9x
SIA |18.79 16.36 |5.82| 2 | 0 | 4.98| 9.40| 284K | 44.4x
US SCORE CALCULATIONS
| APAM |44.55 | 51.03 | 4.84 | 1 | 0 | 6.11 |3 3.39| 1.3M| 12.3x
| CPA | 108.04 | 74.65 | 57.63| 4 | 0 | 5.96 | 21.75 | 333K | 7.4x
| MSB | 24.99 | 36.00 | 1.78 | 0 | 0 | 28.81 |96.23| 82K | 3.5x
| NVEC | 74.03 | 73.41 |12.87 | 0 | 0 | 5.40 | 61.81 | 169K | 23.8x
| ITRN | 37.75 | 26.90 | 7.89 | 1 | 0 | 5.30 | 21.56 | 63K | 13.6x
For information on my 6 investment books go to www.informus.ca.
Ian Duncan MacDonald
Author and Commercial Risk Consultant,
President of Informus Inc
2 Vista Humber Drive
Toronto, Ontario
Canada, M9P 3R7
Toronto Telephone - 416-245-4994
New York Telephone - 929-800-2397
imacd@informus.ca
Safe Dividend Investing
28 June 2025
Podcast 228
Greetings to listeners all around the world. Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing’s Podcast # 228, on June 28 of 2025. My name is Ian Duncan MacDonald.
The objective of this weekly podcast is to show those who are nervous about self-directed investing that they too can safely build a financially strong portfolio of stocks that will give them a generous high dividend income for the rest of their lives and grow its value by several multiples.
There are7,579 stocks US and Canadian stocks. Fortunately, free software supplied by many financial institutions allows you to use screeners to narrow your search for strong stocks down to a few. I personally use TD Bank’s free research tools that they supply to self-directed investors, however on occasion I do use a similar free research service available at the Yahoo Finance website. There are many financial institutions supplying similar research services.
By entering the following 6 criteria into the selector software I can reduce the thousands of US stocks down to an initial 5 that I wish to consider for my portfolio.
THE U.S STOCK DATA SELCTORS I USED THIS WEEK WERE
(1) US common shares
(2) a dividend yield exceeding 5%
(3) the number of shares traded of 34,000 or more
(4) an operating margin exceeding 21%
(5) a share price exceeding $26.73
(6) a weekly share price gain exceeding 4%.
By changing the criteria in these 5 selectors I can gradually and sequentially increase the number of stocks to be considered for my portfolio of 20 stocks without flooding myself with work.
THIS WEEK’S 5 US STOCKS THAT QUALIFIED WITH THEIR CALCULATED SCORES & STOCK SYMBOLS
(1) Artisan Partners Assets Management Inc ( Score 47 ) APAM
(2) Copa Holdings SA ( Score 68) CPA
(3) Mesabi Trust (Score 44 ) MSB
(4) NVE Corporation (Score 56 ) NVEC
(5) Ituran Location and Control Limited (Score 55 ) ITRN
The next step in acquiring suitable stocks is to go to a page in in a stock research database that provides detailed investment information for each stock. This is usually a free service that they provide to self-directed investors. The following data is then entered into my IDM stock scoring software which is supplied free to those who have bought any of my investment books and requested it.
THE DATA SELECTED IN CALCULATING THE IDM STOCK SCORES INCLUDES:
(1) The Stock’s Current Share Price $ .
(2) Its Share Price 4 years ago $
(3) Its Book Value $
(4) The number of Advisor Buy Recommendations#
(5 ) The number of Advisor Strong Buy Recommendations #
(6) Its Dividend. Yield %
(7) Its Operating Margin %
(8) The Average Daily Share Volume Traded over the last 90 days #
(9) Today’s Price-to-Earnings Ratio.
A score helps you determine if a stock is strong enough to be considered for your portfolio.
The IDM scoring software rates stocks between 0 and 100. The highest score I have ever calculated was an 86. The lowest was 3. I personally avoid adding stocks to my portfolio that score under 50. (Most stocks score under 50). The higher the score, the stronger the stock appears to be, however there can be situations where the highest score may not be your best choice for your portfolio. For example, it is recommended that you always check historic share prices and dividend payouts back, year by year, to 1999. You are looking for a trend increase over those years in both the share price and the dividend payout. It would be unusual to see consecutive increases each year but over those 25 years there would be an upward trend.
It is also recommended that you do a Google search using the words "legals and complaints” along with the company name. Your perception of a stock changes, from a positive one to one of concern if your Google search disclosed that stock was involved in a securities fraud class action or some other potentially serious p problem.
Ideally you want to invest in stocks that are surrounded by a protective moat of established loyal customers. You may wish to shy away from industries where the price of what they sell is their only advantage. While no one can accurately predict future share prices there are many stocks that have consistently rising share prices and high-dividend payouts who score in the fifties that can be a safer stock to purchase than those scoring in the sixties and seventies.
Safety is also why I recommend a portfolio of 20 stocks to equally invest in. It takes time to acquire stocks and to monitor them once purchased. Twenty stocks are manageable. Too many stocks can create too much work and discourage investors. Also, if one or two of your carefully chosen 20 stocks should temporarily encounter share price and dividend shrinkage the impact upon the total portfolio of 20 stocks will be negligible in a portfolio that is generating 6% t0 8% in dividend income plus an annual capital gain of 9% or more.
Shifting to the Canadian market, a slightly different set of filters was applied This reflects its smaller trading volumes. In Canada there are 4,871 stocks to invest in versus the US where 7,579 stocks were available.
CANADIAN STOCK DATA SELCTORS USED:
(1) Canadian common shares
(2) a dividend yield exceeding 5%
(3) the number of shares traded of 51,000 or more
(4) an operating margin exceeding 3%
(5) a share price exceeding $12.00
(6) weekly share price gain exceeding 1%.
The 5 CANADIAN STOCKS THAT QUALIFIED & THEIR SCORES:
(1) T.C. Energy Corporation ( Score 71) TRP
(2) Rogers Communications Inc. ( Score 60) RCI.B
(3) Magna International Inc (Score 65) MG
(4) Cogeco Communications Inc (Score 64) CCA
(5) Sienna Senior Living Inc (Score 45) SIA
*** GO TO THIS PODCAST’S LANDING PAGE FOR A CHART SHOWING THE INFORMATION THAT RESULTED IN THE SCORES FOR EACH STOCK ***
HIGHS AND LOWS
While identifying and scoring today’s US and Canadian stocks identified, I found the following interesting:
The most expensive stock was <Copa Holdings SA >at < $108.04>and < Sienna Senior Living Inc> was the least expensive at <$18.79>.
The most buy recommendations by analysts were <8> for<T C Energy Corp> and the least number was <0>for both <Mesabi Trust > and <NVE Corp >.
There were <NO> strong buy recommendations this week which is unusual.
The highest Book Value was for< Cogeco Communications > at <$70.57> and the lowest was for < Mesabi Trust > at <$1.78>.
The highest number of shares traded at <21,000,000 > was for < T C Energy Corp >and the lowest number was < 47,000 > for < Cogeco Communications Inc >.
The highest operating margin was for <Mesabi Trust > at<96.23%>and the lowest was for <Magna International Inc > at <4.13%>
The lowest Price-to-Earnings ratio of <3.5x> was for <Mesabi Trust >and the highest was< 44.4x > for < Sienna Senior Living Inc >
The stock with the highest IDM score was <T C Energy Corp > with a <71 >. The Lowest score of < 44 > was for <Mesabi Trust >
In looking back at T C Energy’s share prices and dividend payouts I saw in 1999 that the share price was at $18.67 and they were paying a dividend of 26 cents. By 2008 the share price was $35.07 and the dividend payout was 33 cents per share. By 2020 the share price was $69.11 and the dividend payout 68 cents. At the height of the Covid Market crash in 2020 the share price fell to $48.08, and the dividend declined to 55 cents. It had shrunk down to $44.68 with a dividend of 47 cents in 2024 but in 2025 the share price climbed to $70.34, and the dividend payout almost doubled to 85 cents.
For someone who had held onto this strong stock for the long haul over the last 25 years they would have been very well rewarded not only with a high capital gain but also with a high dividend income.
When I did a Google search of TC Energy, I learned that they are facing legal challenges regarding the Keystone Pipeline and that they had lost a 15 billion dollar NAFTA lawsuit against the US government. They were also being investigated for leveraging political connections to influence environmental policies.
The perfect stock does not exist. You choose the strongest stocks you can find always with the intention that you will hold them for decades. It is always a job of using your best judgment in comparing stocks for your portfolio.
Note #1. In the first 190 Podcasts of Safe Dividend Investing, you can find answers to hundreds of investment questions.
Note #2. In Podcast 210 you can see detailed information on how scores are calculated and why these scoring elements were chosen. To have faith in a score I learned long ago that it was important to understand how it is calculated
Until next week’s podcast this is Ian Duncan MacDonald encouraging you to become a successful, wise, self-directed investor.
Any questions and comments can be sent to imacd@informus.ca.