Wow, what a first half of 2021. My portfolio has grown 12% in 6 months! That’s a 24% return when you annualize it. It’s a 7 figure portfolio now, up from $46K when I took over my investments from my ex-financial advisor.
Remember that investing in stocks is investing in the companies and their business.
Part of my success is focusing on companies that operate like Tollbooth.
Stock Trades
To the surprise of many, I sold all of my shares in Johnson & Johson. The company was simply underperforming many of my other holdings. A great company for a safe retirement portfolio but I am not there yet.
I used the proceed to add to Microsft, Apple, BlackRock, Costco, MasterCard and Visa. I thought about swapping JNJ with a new position but decided that my winners are great and I should just stick with it.
No new money added since the $6,000 contribution to my TFSA. Next is contributing to my spouse’s TFSA.
Portfolio Management
I have 25 stocks in my portfolio which includes Telus and TC Pipeline that I am working on selling from Computershare (it takes time with Computershare). It’s less than 1% of my portfolio.
With the performance of the US stock market, my ratio of USD vs CAD is now 55 / 45. Nothing wrong with that. Many shy away from investing directly in US stocks, and that’s understandable since there is a currency conversion needed. That’s why I also have VFV (Vanguard S&P 500 Index ETF).
Since VFV is transacted in CAD, I track it as a CAD currency but its underlying assets are in USD. If I took that into account, my USD vs CAD holdings is 62 / 38.
As you know, I went from covering most of the sectors to only covering 6 (from 11 to 6) and that’s perfectly fine as I am well-diversified when you look at my industry coverage.
| wdt_ID | Dividend | No Growth | < 6% Growth | > 6% Growth | > 10% Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | None | 7.10 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 3 | Yield < 2% | 3.28 | 0.00 | 12.06 | 36.75 |
| 4 | Yield > 2% | 0.00 | 0.00 | 3.70 | 5.43 |
| 5 | Yield > 4% | 0.00 | 0.00 | 26.45 | 0.00 |
| 7 | Yield > 6% | 0.00 | 0.00 | 4.93 | 0.00 |
Dividend Income
My June 2021 dividend income is $1,641. My total annual yield is under 2.00% now – it’s 1.87% at the time of writing. It’s a dividend growth portfolio for total returns and not a dividend income portfolio for retirement (not yet).
I am going to repeat that balancing the income per month is not important. When you retire, you SHOULD NOT be living month to month from the income. That’s just plain bad personal finance.
You SHOULD be having at least 1 year of cash to pay for the monthly bills and your monthly dividends replanishes your cash so you have 1 year of cash at any time.