Hi everyone I decided to do a Labour Day weekend post on a trade I did Friday. Over the past week I was looking at my portfolio specifically at my Tax Free Savings Account and wondered if I had too many stocks at this present time. I came to the conclusion that I only needed to have one bank stock in this account for the time being. Before Friday I held Laurentian Bank and Bank of Nova Scotia.
Over the past couple of weeks the Canadian Banks announced their recent quarterly earnings and Bank of Nova Scotia had a decent quarter whereas Laurentian had a somewhat so so quarter with earnings down. The earnings reports didn’t influence my decision to sell, but they did I guess help reinforce that you will have better opportunities with Canada’s big six banks over the regional ones. I feel at this present time that Bank of Nova Scotia has the better growth opportunities and business model.
The Sell
I sold all of my shares (95) of Laurentian Bank at $43.64 I made a small profit of 3.47% on capital appreciation.
The Buy
With the money from the Laurentian Bank shares I was able to purchase another 59 shares of Bank of Nova Scotia at @70.93 per share. With these new shares my share count now stands at 104. I will now be able to drip one additional share in October when the bank pays their dividend on Oct 29th.
By making this decision in the short term my dividend income will actually fall by $38.40 per year. But I figure that I can quickly close this shortfall by dripping new shares and the dividend increases the bank announces every year.
So what do you think of my decision? Do you have thoughts on both banks? I would love to hear them so please feel free to leave a comment bottom.
Thanks for reading
Matthew
All About The Dividends 
I never did any research on Laurentian Bank ever. I was aiming to own shares in the big 5. I have owned RY and TD before, but they were called away in covered call assignments. But I own them now and do not plan on writing calls on bank stocks.
I have owned BNS for a while. I believe it is a very safe investment. They cut their DRIP discount a few years ago, but I continue to drip directly with the transfer agent. Gotta love the semi-annually dividend raises !
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Yes you definitely gotta love those semi-annual dividend raises. Thanks for the comment!
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Matthew – I don’t think you can ever go wrong investing in one of the big Canadian banks. I don’t know to much about Laurentian Bank. I do know there is some value out there for smaller, community banks. But you are moving it into a Rockstar, so that is great as well.
Bert
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Thanks Bert!
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I’ve never heard of Laurentian Bank, but I own shares in ScotiaBank. Love those double annual increases that they’ve been giving out.
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Those double increases are pretty awesome 👏
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Hi Matthew,
I have owned BNS since about 2014 and have been disappointed in the lack of share price appreciation. Yes, they have dividends which grow but it would be nice if Mr. Market looked a little more favourably on this bank. Same with CIBC 😦
MG
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Hi MG I hear ya BNS hasn’t really moved too much. I’m not sure why 🤷♂️. I think if CIBC acquired another bank in the US the stock might start climbing again. I think investors maybe concerned about the housing market and other external things out of the banks control.
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Very nicely done. Keep up the great buying!
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Thanks
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