Revamped Portfolio Lots of Moves

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, fellow investors I have a confession to make. I have been investing without a clear strategy over the past few months. By not having a clear strategy my portfolio ballooned to over 40 stocks and ETFs. I know there are investors out there that have over 60 and 80 stocks, but for me I found my portfolio to large to handle and I thought I couldn’t effectively build up my position in all the stocks I held.

Over the last couple of months I’ve been thinking that I need to do something to right the ship. I believe if I continued down this path it would hurt me in the long run. I’m not sure how it all started, but I think I’ve now put myself in a better position going forward. I made changes to all three of my investing accounts. The account that this will have the biggest impact on is my Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA). Last week I made a lot of changes to my portfolio, I sold off a lot of my stocks and reinvested the money into one new ETF and stocks I kept for the long haul.

Stocks I Sold

Some of the stocks I sold were small positions and some were large. Here is what I sold.

• BMO International Dividend ETF (TFSA)
• Transcontinental (TFSA)
• Suncor (TFSA)
• NFI Group (TFSA)
• Brookfield Renewable Partners (TFSA)
• Manulife (TFSA)
• Sun Life (TFSA)
• Open Text (TFSA)
• Enghouse (TFSA)
• Alimentaion Couche-Tard (TFSA)
• Leon’s Furniture (RRSP)
• North West Company (RRSP)
• Diversified Royalty Corp (LIRA)
• SmartCentres REIT (TFSA)
• Plaza Retail REIT (TFSA)
• European Residential REIT (TFSA)
• Canadian Apartment Properties REIT (TFSA)
• Canadian Utilities

18 moves is a ton and really breaks the rule of dividend investing since it is a buy and hold strategy. By making these moves I definitely broke the rule but I feel that it was warranted to get things back under control. If you have followed my site for awhile you will notice two things. First that some of these names I’ve owned for years and the second thing is that the majority of these were bought this year after the market tanked in March. Investing without a strategy doesn’t work and I will try not to commit that mistake again.

What I Did With The Money

After making all of these moves I had approximately $34,500 to work with. About $34,000 of that was in my TFSA, here is what I did with the money.

• 797 shares of iShares S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index ETF (XRE) (TFSA)
• 27 shares of Brookfield Renewable Corporation (TFSA)
• 109 shares of Telus (TFSA)
• 78 shares of Power Corp (TFSA)
• 59 shares of BCE (TFSA)
• 43 shares of Bank of Montreal (TFSA)
• 35 shares of Royal Bank of Canada (TFSA)
• 48 shares of Enbridge (TFSA)
• 38 shares of Fortis (TFSA)
• 33 shares of TC Energy (TFSA)
• 40 shares of Aecon (TFSA)
• 10 shares of Enbridge (LIRA)

Except for the first name of the list all of the buys are stocks I already hold. There was no sense buying new stocks to replace my old ones when the goal was to reduce my total in the first place. I decided to sell my four REITs and buy the ETF REIT to make things easier to keep track of. The ETF holds two of the REITs I sold so I’m pretty happy with that.

Another thing I will mention is I decided to keep Brookfield Renewable Corporation over Brookfield Renewable Partners. The Corporation was created in late July or early August so Brookfield could get more investors dollars. I believe over the long term that Brookfield Renewable Corporation will be more attractive to investors and will have a better chance at growth.

Portfolio Going Forward

TFSA

• Aecon
• BCE
• Brookfield Renewable Corporation
• Bank of Montreal
• Bank of Nova Scotia
• Chorus Aviation
• Canadian National Railway
• Enbridge
• Fortis
• Go Easy
• Inter Pipline
• The Keg Royalties Income Fund
• Power Corp
• Royal Bank of Canada
• Telus
• TC Energy
• iShares S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index ETF

RRSP

• BCE
• Bank of Montreal
• Enbridge
• Fortis
• Power Corp
• Royal Bank of Canada
• Telus
• TC Energy

• Bank of America
• Lockheed Martin
• Home Depot
• 3M
• Johnson & Johnson
• AbbVie
• Altria
• Walgreens Boots Alliance
• Algonquin Power & Utilities
• Texas Instruments
• Microsoft

LIRA

• Enbridge

In my TFSA account I have decided for the time being to keep Chorus Aviation and The Keg Royalties Income Fund, I would like to see how or if they rebound from the pandemic over the coming months.

Looking at this portfolio you will notice that it is built for income far more than from capital appreciation. While I would like to get growth from both income and appreciation I am ok for the time being on focusing on income from in my TFSA and growing through the drip program from the stocks.

Going forward over time I am still planning on selling the Canadian stocks that sit in my RRSP. Once I have purchased the same amount of shares or close to it of that stock in my TFSA I will sell the stock in my RRSP and put that money into building up the US stocks I currently hold.

In my LIRA account I kept Enbridge and I now hold the stock in three accounts which isn’t idle but I like the income Enbridge gives me.

Forward Dividend Income

Before I made any transactions my forward dividend income was sitting at $8,253.27 it took a hit this year from all of the dividend cuts. I wasn’t sure what my income would look like after I made all of these transactions but it now stands at $8,202.89 it only dropped $50.38. Going forward I expect it to drop further once I switch my Canadian RRSP stocks for US ones.

Thanks everyone for reading. I would love to get your feedback so please feel free to leave a comment below.

Matthew

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