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 253 -Excerpt from New Book - 180 HIGH DIVIDEND ANALYZED NYSE STOCKS
Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing’s Podcast # 253, on December 13th of 2025. My name is Ian Duncan MacDonald, and I am an author of six investment books.
I am still working away my latest book to be called “Achieving Financial Independence From 180 High Dividend NYSE stocks - Analyzed and Scored”. I hope to complete it within the next ten days.
The book will be of great assistance to anyone who wants to build a safe portfolio of financially strong, high dividend, income stocks. My plan is to release the book at a greatly reduced price for ten days. If you wish to be informed of this preliminary release date, please email me at imacd@informus.ca.
Last week in Podcast 252 I read an excerpt from Chapter One of the new book. This week I will finish the remainder of Chapter One.
The objective of my podcasts and investment books is to motivate you to pursue financial independence as a self-directed dividend investor. You can achieve this independence faster and at less expense than handing you life savings over to those who wish to transfer as much of your money into their pockets as they can. No one cares as much about your money as you do.
Please, visit my website www.informus.ca if you wish to learn more about me and my writing.
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
PODCAST 253
SAFE DIVIDEND INVESTING
Greetings to investors all around the world. Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing’s Podcast # 253, on December 13th of 2025. My name is Ian Duncan MacDonald, and I am an author of six investment books.
I continue to work on finishing my latest Investment book, “Achieving Financial Independence 180 High Dividend NYSE exchange Stocks – Analyzed and Scored”. It is slow work. It takes me about half an hour to first gather the information on each stock and then score it, analyze it and record it. The next step is sorting and selecting which stock records to include in the book. I am looking for those that I think will give you best share price and dividend income over at least the next ten years.
As I mentioned last week, I will have a preliminary release of the book on Amazon at a 50% reduced price for 10 days before it reverts to the higher regular price. If you wish to be informed of this preliminary release, date please email me at imacd@informus.ca. This book contains all the enhancements that I thought will make it the best investment book I have created.
To give you a preliminary taste of the investment book, last week I provided an excerpt from the first chapter of the new book. This week the remainder of the first chapter follows:
I expect your carefully selected portfolio of 20 carefully selected, financially strong, high dividend stocks to achieve better results than mutual funds, Index funds, hedge funds and ETFs. Mutual fund managers who have an objective of at least matching stock market trends the thousands of stocks traded on a stock market, often invest in hundreds of stocks.
Unfortunately for them, there are a limited number of financially strong stocks available. Therefore, large numbers of weaker stocks in funds almost guarantee mediocre growth and income from funds.
The other inhibitor in in buying mutual funds it that they must be sold. Thus, the financial institution and its employees peddling the funds to you must be paid out of the money you invest in the fund. Also, the funds must be managed. This means the fund’s management and their employees must also take a bite out of the money you invest in the fund.
They don’t take this money just once. They take it every year that you own the fund. Obviously, this annual subtraction of the charges associated with fund portfolios cuts into your income and the value of your self-directed portfolio.
Many investment advisors think that you should be happy with a 4% return on your money. A portfolio of carefully selected dividend stocks will give you a dividend return of 6% to 8%. Most years your portfolio will also show a capital gain in addition of 9% to 12% from the increase in the value of your shares. Do you really want to hinder your goal of achieving financial independence by sharing so much of it with financial institutions?
Few investor also consider that when they hand their money over to an investment advisor to buy funds that they have lost control of that money. These investors do not take the time to carefully review the terms of the sales agreement they are signing when they purchase a mutual fund. If they did, they might be surprised to find deliberately garbled legalese like the following that that warns you of what the financial institution is about to do:
“…is also entitled to a performance fee equal to 20% of the total return per Unit of the Company for a financial year (which includes all cash distributions per Unit made during the year and any increase in the Net Asset Value per Unit from the beginning of the year after the deduction on a per
Unit basis of all fees, other expenses, and distributions) that exceeds 112% of the Bonus Threshold.
The Bonus Threshold, for any financial year immediately following a year for which a performance fee is payable, is equal to the Net Asset Value per Unit at the beginning of that financial year. "
Not having to consider how you portfolio can be drained by the investment industry, you can expect with a 20-stock portfolio that the total value of your portfolio will follow the general trend of shares traded on the NYSE. When you hear or read that the NYSE has increased, you should find your portfolio will also be up.
Warning. Do not get caught up in the dramatic news releases that the media uses to attract pessimistic and optimistic speculators to sell advertising. Discount any comments by the talking heads in the media who use the word “could”. Accept that neither they nor anyone else can accurately predict future stock price trends.
On the individual pages for each stock record in this book you will find many examples of historical dividend payouts that increased significantly despite the fall in share price of the stock. While a speculator's buy and sell activity can be influenced by the reporting of profits and losses, they have no control over the profits from which dividends are paid. The executives of companies make the revenue and expense decisions that result in the profits - not speculators. The success of a portfolio of 20 financially strong stocks paying high dividends is measured over months and years, not over daily or hourly fluctuations in share price.
Your ultimate objective of building a strong portfolio is to achieve financial independence. No longer will you need to be employed to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle. You can expect your dividend income to keep growing at a faster rate than inflation. You will find, as I have, that your choice of financially strong high-dividend stocks will provide you with the necessary income to meet your needs for the rest of your life.
In building that portfolio you need to consider diversity. You do not want all your stocks to be in the same industry. The economy impacts different industries in different ways. You will find over many years that when one industry is down another industry is usually up. You will see examples of this in the 25 years of share prices and dividend payouts provided on the page dedicated to each stock.
Another area of diversification is the nationality of the business. While most of the stock pages in this book are for businesses headquartered in the United States several are large international, high capital, strong foreign companies Different countries react to economic fluctuations differently. While American companies may be hurt by some economic changes, foreign companies may benefit from these changes. While diversity is important, a financial strength, as reflected in the scores and dividend yield percent, must be compared with what is available from US companies.
In Chapter Two you will be walked through the process of how stocks, including those selected for this book, were extracted from the thousands of stocks available. This gives you the option of conducting your independent search among the thousands of stocks available to and see if there are other stocks you might wish to consider for your portfolio. Since all book buyers can receive the free stock scoring software, a comparison with any stock from any source can be easily compared to the stocks in this book.
In Chapter Four, you will learn how the IDM stock scoring system works. While a score can be calculated manually. The free software makes scoring easier and faster.
The scoring system is based on a maximum possible score of 100. The highest score I have ever calculated out of thousands was a 86. The lowest was a 3. I personally avoid investing in stocks scoring less than 50 no matter what the dividend yield percent may be.
The higher the score the greater the possibility of a gain in the total value of your portfolio and the more reliable the dividend yield. That scoring system has saved me several times from acquiring a stock which appeared, before scoring, to be ideal for my portfolio. A lower-than-expected score made me look more closely at the stock.
There is always a compromise between the highest dividend yield and the financially strongest stock. Financial strength should be given a heavier weighting in your choice than dividend yield.
You will find that companies with high scores often have low dividend yields and companies with high dividend yields often have low scores. To help you balance out such fluctuations a simple chart is provided in Chapter Five. I also created an Excel file for doing stock balancing. You can get a free copy of this file by sending me an email at imacd@informus.ca. The objective is that by combining stocks you can achieve a reliable, average dividend yield in the 6% to 8% yield range in your total portfolio.
The only time I ever consider removing a stock from my portfolio is if the dividend yield falls below 5% while at the same time the stock’s score fell below 50. I go for years without making a change to my portfolio.
I have noticed that when a share prices drops this automatically cause the dividend yield percent to increase. This could hide the fact that the company has cut its dividend payouts. Thus, it is important to look at the 25 year record of dividend payouts provided for each stock.
If the negative change in price and dividend yield percent were to occur in your portfolio, you then must consider whether you should be patient and wait for the stock to revert to its previous norm or whether you can find a stronger stock to replace it in your portfolio. Looking at the 25 years of historical trends would guide you. Most stocks fluctuate up and down in price and dividend payouts. Patience is often rewarded.
That is all for this week. Hopefully within the next ten days I will have sent the manuscript to the publisher.
END