My 2019 Investing Review

Hello everyone and welcome to 2020. That definitely felt weird to type. Today I wanted to take a look back at 2019 for me in terms of investing. My last post was about my 2019 goals, so I thought it appropriate to look at what I did and what my portfolio did since this is mostly an investing blog.

Last year was very busy for me both stock purchases and also stock sells. This year I would like to focus on just purchasing stocks and adding income to my portfolio. I spent the majority of the year focused on my Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA) as it is my ultimate goal to max out the contribution room. In 2019 I invested a total of $8,523.60 of which $6, 223.60 went into my TFSA.

Portfolio Value

As we know the markets did great in 2019 and that has reflected on my portfolio value. The valued increased by $44,136.76 or 32.4%. Last year I invested $8,523.60 into the market so the rest of the gains are from capital appreciation and dividends.

Dividends By Account

Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP)

I crossed the $4k mark which was very exciting. Income growth for the year was 19.6% which is huge. Let’s see how long I can keep that up 🙂 For the year I only invested $2,300 into this account so the growth came from drips, stock purchases and dividend increases.

Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA)

I’m getting closer to $3,000 from this account. In the future I would love to have this account surpass my RRSP income as this money is all tax free when I withdraw it, compared to the RRSP in which I would have to pay the tax man. Growth for the year was  36.7% that reflects the focus I have been putting into this account the last couple of years and won’t stop anytime soon.

Locked In Retirement Account (LIRA)

I’ve only had two years of control over this account. This account only holds two stocks Enbridge and Diversified Royalty Corp and will remain this way for the future. Growth came from Enbridge’s dividend increase and one purchase of Diversified shares. Growth for the year came in at 10.4%.

Accounts Combined

I was so close to achieving my goal of $8,000 but just fell short. Still I can’t really believe that I have dividend income over $7,000. Growth came in at 24.9% wow!

Dividend Re-Investment Plan (DRIP)

Over my investing journal I’ve had a love hate relationship with the drip plan. At times I’ve wanted to invest the cash as I saw fit and other times I wanted to pickup new shares of the same stocks I currently own. At the moment and I believe the future I love drips back in July I had the brokerage I use turn the drip back on so here are the shares and forward income I received.

Stock	Shares	Forward Income
The Keg Royalties Income Fund	6	$6.78	Total # of Shares	74
Inter Pipeline	5	$8.55	Forward Income	$78.86
Plaza Retail Reit	25	$7.00
Chorus Aviation	10	$4.80
Canadian Utilities	2	$3.38
Enbridge	6	$17.70
Fortis	2	$3.71
Power Corp	5	$8.10
Diversified Royalty Corp	4	$0.89
Telus	1	$2.25
Altria	1	$3.36
BCE	1	$3.17
Transcontinental	1	$0.88
Algonquin Power & Utilities	3	$1.69
Bank of Nova Scotia	1	$3.60
TC Energy	1	$3.00

These numbers above except 1 share of The Keg Royalties Income Fund (July) were received from August to December. These numbers are quite impressive and are opening my eyes to maintain the drip program for the remainder of my investing life.

Stock Purchases

RRSP

• AbbVie  – 29 shares
• Lockheed Martin   8 shares
• Power Corp   – 48 shares
• Bank of Montreal   –  20 shares
• Royal Bank of Canada   –  19 shares
• Walgreens Boots Alliance   –  20 shares
• 3M Company   – 10 shares
• Texas Instruments   – 23 shares
• Microsoft   – 10 shares

TFSA

• Andrew Peller Ltd    – 45 shares
• European Residential REIT    – 552 shares
• ScotiaBank    – 77 shares
• BMO International Dividend ETF    – 184 shares
• Transcontinental    – 110 shares
• Suncor    – 49 shares

LIRA

Diversified Royalty Corp.    – 70 shares

As you can see I was busy making a lot of purchases. All of these shares boosted my forward dividend income by $1,376.10.

Stocks I Sold

RRSP

• Alimentation Couche-Tard
• Inter Pipeline

TFSA

• Corus Entertainment
• ZCL Composites Inc
• Artis REIT
• Boston Pizza Royalties Fund
• Laurentian Bank

By selling all of these stocks my forward dividend income decreases by $1,118.00. I sold Alimentation Couche-Tard to take a profit, I still really like the company and will look to add it to my TFSA account in the future. In regards to Inter Pipeline I did hold shares in my RRSP account I decided to sell these to better help diversify my portfolio away from Canada exposure with this money I bought four stocks (WBA, TXN, MSFT and MMM). In my TFSA I chose to sell Corus, Artis and Boston Pizza because there was no dividend growth and little capital appreciation so I decided to sell. I had to sell ZCL Composites as it was sold and going private. As for Laurentian Bank I thought I would just focus on one bank stock in my TFSA and thought ScotiaBank was the better bank at the moment.

Dividend Increases

I won’t list all of the dividend increases I received for the year as the list will be too long. I received 32 dividend increases with one stock Realty Income increasing their dividend five times and four other stocks increasing their dividends twice. Because of these raises my forward income increased by $362.56. My biggest increase came from Enbridge with their raise my income increased by $75.76.

Forward Dividend Income

As of January 1st, 2020 my forward dividend income stands at $7,727.00

Well friends I think I have shared everything there is to share with you. I am very happy with how 2019 turned out. The portfolio has increased significantly, dividend growth was insane and I made lots of purchases.

How was your 2019? If you have and comments please comment below. Happy 2020 to everyone!

Thanks for reading

Matthew