Greetings fellow investors!
My journey as a trader began with trading stocks. Actually I should not say “trading” as when I first decided that I wanted to become a trader I mainly bought stocks and held on to them. What I did is I used to buy income producing stocks with a buy and hold strategy in mind. Unfortunately roughly two or three years ago I had to liquidate my stocks as I needed the money for one of life’s “big purchases” so for some time now I haven’t owned a single stock. This has changed just the other day as I just bought several stocks that I’m looking to hold on to for as long as I can or as long as it makes sense to do so.
While I now am more preocuppied with trading on the Forex market I thought that it would make good financial sense to diversify my money and thus came the decision to get back to what I did when I first got into trading – ie buy income producing stocks. So the stocks that I just bought are all income producing – they pay dividends – stocks. Incidentally they’re all Canadian stocks. For now I think I will stick to mainly Canadian stocks. You will see why they’re all Canadian stocks once I tell you specifically which stocks I bought – I’m sure you’ll notice a pattern.
Before I go any further in case you are wondering which broker I use, wonder no more as I will tell you. It’s a Canadian broker called Questrade and as far as I know they offer the lowest stock trading commissions of all the Canadian brokers. To be 100% honest that’s the main reason I trade with them. I haven’t had to call them or test their customer service and all those other aspects. All I mainly care about at this stage is low trading costs and this broker fits that bill. Anyways, moving on.
So now I bet you’re curious to know which stocks I bought. OK, I will tell you. Please do not take this as a “stock pick” or as a recommendation of any kind. The reason I bought these specific stocks are my own and these may NOT be right for your portfolio. OK, so here is the list of stocks that I just bought – for now. I will add more as time goes, but they will ALL be dividend paying stocks.
1: ALGONQUIN POWER – AQN.TO
This is a utility company – ie they generate electricity from mainly renewable sources such as hydro and wind energy. I see this as a recession proof and stable income source – hence why I bought it.
2: BROOKFIELD RENEWABLE – BRC.UN.TO
This company is another utility stock. They have a bunch of hydro power plants in Canada, United States, and Brazil. They also own several wind farms. As with the stock above I see this one as another recession proof stable income source.
3: INTER PIPELINE FUND – IPL.UN.TO
This company operates oil transport pipelines that run throughout Alberta and Saskachewan. They are also involved in other key infrastructure market segments, but that is beyond the scope of this post. I chose this stock because the assets they operate are key infrastructure needs in the oil rich region of Alberta. Also their business is not heavily influenced by the global price of oil, so this stock should be relatively stable regardless of what the price of oil is doing.
4: MACQUARIE POWER AND INFRASTRUCTURE – MPT.TO
This business is another utility stock. They operate a wide range of power generating assets – ie Wind, Hydro, Gas cogeneration, Biomass, Solar. Among many reasons for chosing this stock one interesting and I guess not entirely logical reason is that they own a large wind farm nearby where I live. I believe this region has a lot of wind energy potential and I hope that in the future the expand the existing wind farm, and maybe even venture into putting wind turbines in the waters of Lake Erie on whose shore their existing wind farm is located.
So there you have it, four humble dividend stocks for now. My next stock purchase will probably be a company who operates a water heater rental business in Ontario. Once again this will be a very defensive and stable income stock. After that I think I’ll also grab another oil pipeline stock. Hint: it’s called Pembina.
OK folks that does it for this post.
Happy investing everyone!
Cheers,
Alan