Trains, Telco’s and Banks – Portfolio Moves
Trains, Telco’s and Banks – Portfolio Moves
hey Everyone
Thought I would do a little portfolio update for you all. I recently sold one of our holdings and added to 3 of our existing ones. None of them were steals but that is this market. It is getting harder and harder to find deals at the moment but there are some out there. Ie Tobacco stocks, nfi, lowes/hd and once again algonquin power after its recent offering.
Lets start off with the recent sale.
Once again I sell off one of our original holdings and yet again a non blue chip company. Little learning lessons along the journey, but moving forward I’ll try to stick with solid blue chip companies (preferably wide moat).
Sale of Interpipeline
I may of been one of the last remaining bloggers holding Interpipeline. I thought BIP’s offer was way to low considering the heartland project and its potential. Then Pembina pipeline came in with a even larger offer and bip came back once again slightly higher at $19.75 per share. The market got excited and figured the bidding war would continue and the stock price flew past those offer amounts.
For the first time in a long time, we were actually up on our IPL position. 1% plus those dividends over the years.
I decided it was time to cash out, after their dividend cut their yield really wasn’t enticing. The heartland project which I’m a big fan of, continues to go over budget and to be honest I don’t really want a position in BIP or PPL at the moment. (Both great companies but we are heavy utilities and I rather just stick with trp and enbridge for energy)
Maybe PPL will counter with an even higher offer but who knows. I’ll take a tiny profit and move towards the blue chips!
So we sold our 208 shares of IPL for $20.27 per share and lost $99.84 in forward dividends.
Purchases
With the proceeds of the sale from IPL in our resp account we added to 2 existing positions. Mixing higher yield and lower yield.
BCE – Bell Canada Enterprises
We added 33 shares of BCE at just north of 60 bucks a share. One of my goals lately have been to get some quarterly payers dividend payments to north of a 100 bucks per quarter. This purchase did that.
While bce isn’t a high growth stock, the higher starting yield paired with the average 5% dividend increase yearly can add up over time. I think bce may benefit also with the opening up of things. MLSE should start bringing in handfuls of money soon enough again.
This purchase adds $115.50 in forward income.
We also added to one of our favorite holdings out there in Canada.
CNR – Canadian National Railway
We added 19 shares of cnr at roughly $133 per share, definitely averaging up our costs on this holding. I’m a huge fan of the rails and their wide moats. Will their deal with Kansas city southern go through? Who knows, will they be over paying? I dunno maybe short term, but long term locking up a greater rail system with more connections sounds good to me.
If it doesn’t go through maybe the stock will bounce back up to 140. I’m in this for the long haul, rails aren’t going anywhere and with todays political landscape maybe they will be shipping tonnes more oil again. (I think pipelines are still better, but what do I know? =)
I do know that CNR has raised their dividend every year since going public and will most likely continue to do so moving forward. That’s what its about.
These 19 shares added 46.74 in forward income.
All in all we sold our ipl position and lost 99.84 but added 162.24 with the other 2 purchases. A gain of $62.40 and cut a portfolio laggard and beefed up 2 blue chip positions. I think its a good move.
NA – National Bank
We also added to our position in National Bank. Our exisiting position was up over 100% but its a small position, actually one of our smallest holdings. The goal is always to get the holdings to drip and National needs some more cash to get there.
We added 22 more shares at 91.68 per share. Yeah I would of been a lot better off buying the banks when they were dirt cheap but I thought covid would of had more of an impact on the banks. Clearly it hasn’t atleast not yet. All the Canadian Banks are sitting on a lot of cash at the moment and its just a matter of time before they get the go ahead to reward their shareholders.
Credit Suisse recently said bmo and national especially could come out with huge raises. They mention 34% for national bank. That’s crazy. I don’t see that happening but 10-15% may not be out of question. Hey if they do rock a 34% raise though, no complaints here..
This purchase adds $62.48 to that forward income.
Conclusion
Short in sweet. These purchases/ sales added $124.88 to the forward income. We also added 10 more xaw before their ex dividend date. That will be all this month as we just got california blinds installed and that took a chunk of change. Looks way better though and its great to replace our previous always tangling blinds. The wife’s happy about that, I’m happy about the added income. Win Win!
What have you been buying these days?
By the way if you haven’t read Bob’s recent interview with a couple generating 360k a year in dividends, check it out. Its a fantastic read and will most likely make me focus on maxing out that tfsa before the rrsp moving forward
Cheers everyone!

Hey I’m Rob, creator of Passive Canadian Income.
In 2011 me and my wife had almost $60,000 in debt and a negative $7,000 Net Worth. Through hard work and financial education we paid all that off. Now we are focusing on increasing our Passive Income Streams to make the money work for us. Feel Free to Follow along the Journey by clicking the Social Media links below or subscribing to get notified of new posts on the sidebar.
Thanks for the update. Good to stay on top of your portfolio. I don’t own IPL so not worried about it but I do own PPL so not sure what happens if they win / lose the bid.
I should also start some position on CNR. Nothing so far.
Enjoy your weekend.
hey Vibrant
They may pull back a bit as they have went up since the offer if it doesn’t happen. I’m sure they will be fine though. Cnr is absolutely solid.
Have a great weekend as well, so far so good here
cheers
Hi Rob
Very interesting moves, thanks for sharing. Railroads sound particularly interesting. Banks offer some interesting aspects as well but personally I am a bit careful. They require more research, had some disappointing investment experiences with banks in the past. There are some value traps.
All the best and happy investing.
Cheers
hey Savy
I dont think you can go wrong with the railroads, their moat is just so wide. Canadian banks have been solid investments for us, so far.
happy investing to you as well
cheers fox
Bought a lot of swedish stocks in various segments. When it comes to canadian holdings I also added to BCE recently and ENB.
I don’t know much about swedish stocks. What have you been buying and what do you think is the top swedish dividend stock out there?
Bce and enbridge are 2 great Canadian companies, nice buys
cheers Northern
Thanks for sharing your recent portfolio moves, Rob! I’d like to own some $NA and $CNR in the near future. I don’t currently have any railroads in my portfolio so it would make a nice addition. Your return on $NA is amazing. Enjoy your weekend.
Hey Graham
Its honestly surprising how well National has done for us. Its unfortunate it was such a small position though. hahaha I keep debating swapping bns for rbc but for now Ill keep things put, but bns has been a under performer historically.
Got to get some railroads, although their starting yield is just so low.
cheers man
Hi Rob,
CNR is on my buying list but the only thing that is holdging me back is the low yield, i know total return should be the focus but I’m still hesitant hopefully soon I’ll pull the trigger:)
hey Justin
Yeah the low yield is a big factor. Ill wait til it hits 2% again before I add to our position.
Hopefully we see a pullback in the market soon enough…..
haha have a good one Justin
I got rid of my IPL position in my “savings” account at around $20.39 per share after the PPL making the offer for IPL.
Can’t go wrong with CNR. With or without Kansas City Southern, they will be a solid company.
BCE is a great buy as well. I have owned CNR and BCE for years and do not plan on selling.
hey Pursuit
Nice sale, love the heartland project but I also wonder how many will be freaking out about it in this political environment.. Oil is bad, renewables are good. haha
Gotta love bce and cnr
cheers
Great solid buys Rob! Indeed, I have BCE + CNR would like to increase my shares too. Thanks for sharing!
hey dividendes
They definitely are some of our core positions at the moment. May add some more telus in the future, but rising interest rates are a concern. Its time to open a position back up in mfc I think, soon enough
cheers
Last week I added to swedish holdings in Volvo, Investor, Skanska, JM, Heimstaden Pref, Axfood, ICA, Diös. Representing Industrial, Realty, Financials and Consumer staples sectors.
I hold 180+ individual holdings globaly and various funds, ETFs an so on. I like to stay diversified, don´t really appoint any favourite. No holding represent more than 2,5% of portfolio total.
But guess I like Castellum and Axfood quite a bit.
hey lights
wow 180 plus holdings? why the funds and etfs then? Never heard of castellum and axfood but I love the volvo vehicles. Their designs are always nice. Love the diversification though.
cheers
Nice moves! It was a great opportunity to exit IPL position. I recently did the same move but with BPY. BAM is buying out BPY so I decided to exit earlier and also bought Bell and AQN.
nice and thanks German
We sold our bpy position a little while back, may continue growing that algonquin position but mfc is looking pretty tempting in this rising interest environment. Hope your having a great spring/summer German
cheers
Hey Rob, great moves! Success is made for people willing to make bold moves. Anyone who picks individual stocks needs to be willing to dump underperformers and not get emotionally attached, that seems to be an all to common trait. I’ve never owned IPL but two months ago made the decision to dump BPY, which I hated to do but it was time.
I’ve always wanted to own railroads directly but then I look at their yield, and given the purchase would be to generate dividend income it just never makes sense. Too bad railroads don’t offer a buy-one get-one free deal. It takes a long time for a 2% yielding stock with a 10% growth rate to produce more income than a 4% yielding stock with a 4% growth rate. And it’s real tough for companies to have a 10% dividend growth rate for the next decade-plus.
With stocks creeping higher and value harder to find, have you been considering other forms of assets?
hey Norm
thanks, yeah I didnt really wanna sell off our bpy position either.
Its so true about the low yields and how long it takes to surpass something with a decent yield growing theirs. Its just that moat is sooo dam wide with the rails, haha. Heres hoping they bring out that 2 4 1 share deal. It works for the pizza business, why not? =)
Its funny you ask about the other assets. I have been hanging out with some new neighbours who are really successful and they have got my head thinking about various things. I guess if the right opportunity arises, we will jump on it. Ive always wanted some real estate rentals, but cant justify the current prices. We have talked about buying a pre construction building. May even be able to flip it right off the bat after construction for the next profit.
At the same time reading reader B’s story on bobs site about his dividend story, makes me want to max those tfsas at least.. But maybe we should consider a leveraged investment play. Ie putting 20% down on real estate.
Like I said my head is always thinking these days.
Why what are you thinking about?
cheers Norm
The Plan is to pay all my monthly bills with dividends from “my own global dividend ETF”, ie the 180+ holdings.
The other funds and ETFs will be used for recreational purposes, travelling and so on when I reach early retirement by selling the surplus. Early retirement will happen in roughly 1 year from now. Mid or end 2022.
See how it works out.
Thats awesome Northern! congrats on all your success. I tried to go to your site but unfortunately I cant understand it. Have you thought of adding a language plugin on the sidebar or something?
keep it up
cheers
I still hold IPL. Maybe will sell it when I want to buy some Canadian stocks.
Recently I actually sold some BCE to buy more LMT. I have a target amount for a single stock. I have bought quite a bit BCE beginning this year and the price up quite a bit ever since and my BCE holdings exceeds my target. As BCE is considered fair valued and LMT is still undervalued, I think it should be a good trade. Well, BCE was up and LMT was down ever since, LOL.
Ipl is still great, love the heartland project overall. I do wonder what the political impacts will be on it in the coming years, but Im always a fan of Canadian made. Interesting about lmt and bce. Im going to focus on our tfsas moving forward but theres no denying lmt. Everyday it seems they sign no contracts. If our usd accounts add up from dividends and lmt is still in this range, they may be on the top of my list to continue buying as well.
All the best May, Always appreciate your comments.
Hey Rob,
Plenty of overlap in our portfolios. Two of my favourite positions I have are BCE and CNR.
As you mention, it always feels absolutely incredible when a quarterly dividend payment is triple digits. Makes you really feel the weight of it and the benefit of DGI in general.
Haven’t made many stock purchases myself lately as the market has been elevated, but definitely have my eye out.
Take care,
Ryan
hey Ryan
Yeah Ive always been jealous of your bce payment. 2moros that day. woot woot! what stocks are you interested in? My top atm may be mfc, I sold it in the past but feel its still a good value, sports a solid hopefully growing dividend and I think we will see rising interest rates near the end of the year.
cheers man!