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
Podcast 244 - 3 Bermuda NYSE Stocks Worth Considering - DHT - FLNG & SFL
Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing's Podcast 244- (11 October 2025)
While preparing for a trip to Bermuda, Ian Duncan MacDonald noticed that three Bermuda registered companies would be appearing in his new investment book. The book analyzes and scores 200 strong, high dividend stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange. That three companies from such a small island would be appearing in the book intrigued Ian so he immediately analyzed and scored them.
The three companies were (1) DHT Holdings Inc (stock symbol DHT) (2) Flex LNG Ltd (stock symbol FLNG) (3) SFL Corporation Limited (stock symbol SFL).
Ian writes his books for those who do not invest in individual stocks for fear that they will lose their life savings. His books show investors an easy, safe way to select financially strong, safe companies who pay high dividends . Ian knows after successfully investing this way for twenty years that a portfolio of strong dividend stocks provides not only a reliable, growing source of income but over time they will greatly increase the value of a portfolio.
Unlike mutual funds - where investors have no control over their investment and only a vague idea as to what stocks are in the fund - a self-directed investor can fully understand and appreciate the value of the portfolio they create.
In this podcast (with a written transcript attached) you can get a taste for the factual information that Ian measures and provides to readers building strong, generous portfolios. Which of one of the three Bermuda stocks in this podcast do you think would be a good choice for your portfolio?
You may also find Ian's observations on the unique attractiveness of Bermuda as a destination.
For more information on self-directed investing go to my website www,.informus.ca or listen to the previous 241 weekly podcasts. The first 160 podcasts are devoted to answering questions from investors just like you. The remainder give you an opportunity to practice choosing stocks.
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
12 October - 2025
Podcast 244
Greetings to investors all around the world. Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing’s Podcast # 244, on October 12th of 2025. My name is Ian Duncan MacDonald, and I am an author of six investment books.
I continue to work on my latest investment book which I expect to be released this fall. It analyzes 200 strong, high-dividend stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange. I write for those who are hesitant about investing in the stock market. They fear they could lose the savings that they may have spent a lifetime accumulating.
My objective is to show you how easy it is to identify financially strong companies that will not only provide a generous, reliable, growing, monthly dividend income but also grow the total value of your portfolio.
Self-directed investors need not blindly entrust their life savings to so called “investment professionals” (whose hidden agendas, charges and incentives are not in an investor’s best interest). A self-directed investor not only saves thousands of dollars in investment fees, charges and commissions but their fear of investing disappears when they see the strength of the stocks they have carefully selected for their portfolio.
Free stock research tools available on the internet allow you to narrow your search from the thousands of available stocks down to just the 20 financially strongest, safest, paying high dividends for your unique portfolio.
This selection process is like what I did in selecting the 200 financially strongest, high-dividend stocks for this new book. I began my search by entering the following criteria into the free, easily accessible internet selector software:
(1) Stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchanges or the NASDAQ.
(2) Only common shares are wanted. Preferred shares are excluded.
(3) The stocks must pay a dividend yield percent of 5 percent or more.
(4) The share price must be $5 or greater.
(5) Their Operating Margin must be 3% or more.
The 200 stocks that appeared for me will make it easier for you to choose the 20 best for your portfolio. 20 is enough to give a portfolio a safe diversification, yet small enough for an investor to easily create and manage their portfolio.
I found it interesting how many foreign stocks appeared in the 200 that were selected. Since I was on my way to Bermuda, three Bermuda registered companies caught my attention. They were:
DHT Holdings Inc- ( stock symbol ( DHT )
Flex LNG Ltd- ( stock symbol ( FLNG )
SFL Corporation Limited (stock symbol SFL)
Although many associate Bermuda with the Caribbean it is a thousand miles North of the Caribbean. This small semi-tropical island is only an hour and a half flight East of New York sitting by itself in the middle of the North Atlantc. Despite its small size, there are 60 Bermuda companies listed on the New York Stock with a remarkable total market capitalization of $230 Billion. Interestingly, there are another 500 Bermuda companies listed on other stock exchanges around the world.
The island’s 21 square miles supports a wealthy population of 72,800 and generates a Gross Domestic product of 6.808 Billion. Its GDP per person works out to $105,300 which compares well to the United States’ GDP of $75,500. It has the seventh largest GDP per capita in the world. It falls in GDP between Norway, in sixth place, and Switzerland in eighth place. The USA is in eleventh place. Singapore has the highest GDP in the world at $156,624 per person
How can such a small island be so rich? It is a corporate tax haven and one of the world’s leading reinsurance centers. The island’s registered corporations attract an army of lawyers, accountants and insurance actuaries. They enjoy high salaries without income tax deductions.
While tourism, is greatly promoted by the Bermuda government, it is secondary to the offshore commercial benefits it offers corporations. However, as a tourist destination it offers a unique upscale experience. Recognized as one of the most beautiful islands in the world. From one end to the other, the island is a cultivated, lush, garden, framed by palm trees, soft pink sandy beaches and incredible turquoise waters. Golfers are attracted to the seven world class golf courses
Its houses are deliberately built of stone to withstand strong hurricane winds. The stone roofs of every house are painted a blazing white to capture and store rainwater. There are no rivers or lakes on the island. The sturdy walls of each house are painted in pastel colors. Pink walls with green trim is a popular choice.
Everything on the island appears neat and trim. Amazingly clean air-conditioned buses move the populations efficiently and comfortably around the island on the well maintained, narrow, serpentine twisty roads that are all bordered by low stone walls. When you enter a bus, you are expected to greet the neatly uniformed bus drivers in their Bermuda shorts with a polite “Good Morning” and to thank her when you exit.
The buses and a network of ferries are important because you cannot rent cars like you do on other islands. Fearing traffic jams, the islanders are only allowed one car per family. Friendly taxi drivers and public transportation meet the populations transportation needs.
Are Bermuda stocks as attractive as landscapes? Since things are neither great nor small except by comparison which of the three stocks that caught Ian's attention would you find most attractive? While you can do your own investigation here are a few things that I noticed about those stocks.
FLNG with a current share price of $25.05 had a remarkable book value of $151.75. DHT with a share price of $11.20 had a book value of $6.49 while SFL’s share price of $7.61 had a book value of $7.74.
Four years ago, the share price for DHT was $5.32. It has now almost doubled in value. Back then SFL was only 13 cents higher than its current share price. FLNG’s share price had gained 11 dollars during that time..
The operating margin for FLNG is 55.33%, for DHT it is 40.81% and for SFL it is 24.91.
The dividend yield percent for DHT was 8.57%, for FLNG 11.98% and SFL $10.51%.
The price-to-earnings ratio for SFL is 30.3x, for FLNG it is 13.2x and 9.5x for DHT.
DHT had 4 analysts giving it buy recommendations and one analyst giving it a strong buy recommendation. FLNG had no buy recommendations. SFL one buy recommendation.
Looking back at 25 years of share prices and dividend payout I see FLNG was initially listed on the exchange in 2014 at $1.25. It did not pay a dividend of $0.10 until 2018. By 2024 it was paying a dividend of $0.75.
SFL debuted on the stock exchange in 2004 at $13.45 with a dividend of $0.35. By 2024 its share price was $10.09 and its dividend was $0.27.
DHT debuted in 2005 at $142.20. Its first dividend was in 2006 at $4.32 when the price had climbed to $177.00. By 2024 the share price was at $10.79 and the dividend payout was $0.27.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could load all these numbers into a computer program which would sort it all out and supply a comparative score for each stock. You can. With my books I supply stock scoring software. It scores stocks from 0 to 100.
When I loaded all the numbers for the three stocks into the scoring program, SFL scored 47, DHT scored 64 and FLNG scored 65. After scoring thousands of stocks I have learned that the vast majority of stocks score below 50. Very few score over 70. I personally avoid stocks scoring under 50. The highest score I have encountered has been an 83 and the lowest was a 3.
My books explain in detail exactly how the scoring system works. It takes just a minute to calculate a stock’s score. Scoring can allow you to go for years without seeing a need to change the stocks in your portfolio.
While scoring stocks helps protect your investment, the safety of your portfolio is also greatly increased when you initially invest equally in 20 strong high dividend stocks. With 20 stocks only the 5% of what you have invested in any one stock would ever be at risk. Furthermore, because you would be generating an annual dividend income between 6% and 8% most years plus usually generating an annual portfolio capital gain, of 9% or more. The likelihood of you ever realizing a significant loss in the total value of what you have initially invested is highly unlikely.
By investing your dividends back into those 20 stocks in your high dividend portfolio you can expect to see your portfolio doubling in 5 years. This is due to the compounding benefit of earning new dividend income from your re-invested dividends. Upon retirement your dividend income that you will now live off will still continue to grow as it has for me.
FOR MORE INSIGHTS INTO SAFE INVESTING VISIT my website www.informus.ca and listen to all 243 of my weekly “SAFE DIVIDEND INVESTING” podcasts.
Until next week’s podcast this is Ian Duncan MacDonald encouraging you to become a successful, wise, self-directed investor.