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 277 - ANALYZINANG : TAKE TWO INTERACTIVE, HONEYWELL & PAGSECURO
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Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing’s Podcast # 277 on May 30th of 2026.
In this week's podcast I analyze three stocks that were being promoted . They were "Take Two Interactive Software" (Stock Symbol TTWO) who are the creators of the long established video game "Grand Theft Auto; The century old Honeywell International Inc and a relatively new stock PagSeguro Digital Limited. The promoter for was very aggressive in his selling of their shares of Take Two. However, a quick analysis of the stock made me wonder why? It is interesting to compare it to Honeywell and PagSeguro. I wonder how much effort the analysts' who recommended buys for these three stocks put into their research.
My objective is to show investors how to find and select the the stocks of financially strong companies with long histories of both ever increasing shares price and high dividends. The kind of dependable, growing stocks that they will want to hold for a lifetime.
IAN .
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
imacd@informus.ca
Podcast 277
Safe Dividend Investing
Greetings to investors all around the world. Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing’s Podcast #277, recorded on May 30th of 2026. My name is Ian Duncan MacDonald. I am the author of seven investment books.
To learn more about how you can benefit from my investment books, visit either my website www.informus.ca or the www.amazon.com’s website and do a search for "Ian Duncan MacDonald books”. At Amazon you can find sample chapters and reviews by investors who have benefited from the books.
Every day I am flooded with emails promoting stocks that are going to make me rich. The pitch usually sounds something like this and I quote:
“In just six days on May 21st, it is due to announce its Q4 fiscal 2026 earnings. The timing could not be more electric. Pre-orders are expected to open on May 18th, this coming Monday, led by Best Buy affiliates. This pre-order launch is the same week as the earnings call. I am expecting publicity in this pre-order period as the numbers become known. It is possible that the pre-launch orders will be accompanied by an official trailer, coinciding with the annual results presentation. The countdown clock is ticking.
Its most recent quarterly results for Q3 2026, covering the period to 31 December 2026, were genuinely impressive. Net bookings of $1.76 billion beat the guidance of $1.55 billion.
Following the massive beat in expectations, management raised their full year fiscal 2026 guidance to net bookings of $6.65 - $6.70 billion, implying an 18% growth at the midpoint. Guidance on operating cash flow was lifted from approximately $250 million previously to approximately $450 million. EBITDA is expected to land somewhere in the range of $657 million to $681 million.
When the results are released in six days, analysts will be watching for continued momentum and mobile engagement. on 2027's net bookings. Management has already telegraphed that fiscal 2027 will represent record levels of bookings. The only question is how record-breaking?”
Doesn’t this promoter make you want to run out, borrow thousands of dollars and immediately buy shares in this obviously hot stock before the share price skyrockets on May 21st and make you rich?
This promotion was dated May 15th when I received it on May 27th. What happened on May 21st after the earnings results were announced showing a $0.80 gain? The shares climbed to $$242.16. On May 13 the shares had been at $226.99.
It is now May 27th and the shares have now fallen to $218.74. The highest its shares have ever been was $262.29 on October 20 of 2025.
The company was Take-Two Interactive Software, stock symbol TTWO. They are the creators of the long-established video game “Grand Theft Auto” among other games.
Anyone who took just a few minutes to investigate this stock would have concluded that a stock with a book value $18.94, that you have to pay $220.87 to acquire would be considered by many investors as being overpriced. The problem with overpriced stocks is that when they lose their speculative momentum, as the next generation of great entertainment distraction arises, the share price declines closer to the stock’s book value.
When you look at the historical trend data you see that TTWO’s share price is about $60 higher than it was in May 2022 which is positive sign. The 1,868,000 shares traded on May 27th indicate that many investors are interested in it. Surely, the 13 analysts currently rating it a buy must be making their recommendation after many hours of analysis which I doubt.
However, when I look closely at it I see that it has an operating margin of minus1.57% and its price-to-earnings ratio is zero. In view of the minus operating margin, it is not surprising that they are not paying a dividend since dividends are paid out of profits and this stock is not being shown as being profitable.
In considering the purchase of a stock, the first thing I do is score the stock (I supply simple, easy to use stock scoring software free with my books. It takes only a minute or two to score a stock using eleven data elements that are easily found and free on the internet from such websites as Yahoo Finance. The scores are calculate out of a possible 100. When I scored Take-Two Interactive Software the hard, objectively derived score was 49. I avoid stocks scoring under 50. I wonder how these 13 analysts reached their conclusion that this stock was a buy?
Even if the stock had scored over 50 I would not have purchased it because it does not pay a dividend. I only invest in stocks that pay dividends because dividend, are paid out of profits. Why tempt fate by investing in unprofitable companies. I only feel secure in investing in financially strong stocks whose management believe in sharing their profits with their stockholders through dividends. Those dividends, for me, must have dividends yields in a range between 5 percent and 10 percent. They must also have shown both ever-increasing share prices and ever-increasing dividend payouts for at least a decade or more.
There are supposedly about 14,500 stocks to invest in, in North America. All I want in my portfolio are the 20 best stocks matching my criteria. Free internet tools easily sort out the best candidates to consider.
I have learned after researching and scoring probably thousands of stocks that strong dividend stocks continue to pay their high dividend payouts even during stock market crashes like in 2008 and 2020. In the crash their share prices may have dropped by as much as 50% and it took a year or two for their stock prices to again reach record highs. I conclude that share prices are controlled by speculators who are spooked into illogically believing the sky is falling and they have sell their stock or lose everything.
The object of my investing has always been to generate a dividend income that allows me to live the comfortable, financially independent life I am used to. I have never been out to get “richer” by speculating. Apparently 90% of speculators lose money in the stock market over time.
Despite not having “getting richer” as an objective, the value of my portfolio of 20 stocks has grown by several multiples and continues to grow most months keeping my dividend income well above inflation as these profitable companies keep raising their dividend payouts. I go for years without making a change to the 20 stocks in my portfolio. It seems to live well off such a portfolio all it requires is patience and self-control.
Interestingly TTWO was not the only stock being promoted in the email I received. The other two stocks were Honeywell International Inc which was trading at $232.56 a share and PagSeguro Digital Ltd trading at $9.37. While the long established Honeywell had a score of 62 and the less established PagSeguro had a score of 55. However, PagSeguro showed more positive features than Honeywell in several different ways.
When you compare the high $232.56 share price of Honeywell to its book value of $21.89 you see the share price being ten times greater than the value the accountants put on it. Does this increase the likelihood for the share price to decline rather than increase?
When you compare the current share price of PagSeguro to its $10.00 book value, you see what looks like a bargain. For $9.37 you can buy something worth $10. This indicates the share price should grow. If it grew like Honeywell the share price would eventually grow into the $90 range.
Interestingly, while Honeywell pays a dividend yield percent of 2.05%, PagSeguro pays 2.77%. If I invested a million dollars in PagSeguro I would make $27,700 in dividend income in a year compared to investing that million dollars in Honeywell where I would make only $20,500. A dollar gain is a dollar gain.
When it comes to profitability Honeywell’s Operating Margin is 12.18% while PagSeguro’s is 40.18%. Which company is stronger? Which dividend yield is safer? Dividends are paid out of the operating margins, Which stock is most likely to show a gain and pay a reliable dividend?
The Price-to-Earnings ratio is also revealing. The lower the price-to-Earnings ratio the stronger the stock and the faster and easier it can generate a profit. Honeywell’s Price-to-Earnings ratio was high unimpressive 39.0 while PagSeguro’s was an impressively low 6.6.
PagSeguro is a relatively new company. It was only listed in the New York Stock Exchange in 2018. Its highest share price was $56.89 in2021 and it did not start paying a dividend until 2025. It is the banking arm of a Brazilian bank PagBank and works under strict banking laws. I could find no negatives when I checked its history.
Honeywell is listed on the NASDAQ and its shares have been around for over 100 years. Like most companies of its size, it is involved in numerous legal actions like foreign bribery settlements, antitrust fines and class action suits for product defects. This keeps their lawyers busy and can be unsettling news for speculators.
Which of the three companies reviewed are you going to invest your million dollars in? Since none of them come close to paying the critical 5% minimum dividend yield that I seek they will not be receiving my money.
In my books I walk you through the step-by-step search for reliable, safe, high dividend stocks. My objective is to show investors how to avoid the losses. Isn’t it time you took control of your portfolio and understood what you were buying?
That’s all for this week, folks.