My model portfolio isn’t dead - it was just resting
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to not leave a lot of cash sitting around earning nothing. So today I’ll be reinvesting most of the money that has accumulated in my model Yield Hog Dividend Growth Portfolio.
Before I get into the specifics, I’ll briefly discuss the portfolio’s recent performance.
After a rough 2022, when the portfolio’s value fell 6.8 per cent on a total return basis (including dividends), things have started looking up. Helped by expectations that interest rates may be nearing a peak, the portfolio gained 5.6 per cent in January and finished the month with a value of $152,097, up from its initial value of $100,000 on Oct. 1, 2017.
Most sectors participated in January’s gains, including banks, telecoms, pipelines and real estate investment trusts.
The portfolio has also benefited from several dividend increases. In January, Canadian Utilities Ltd.
raised its payout by 1 per cent. This week, two more companies – BCE Inc. increase
and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP increase
– hiked their dividends, by 5.2 per cent and 6 per cent, respectively. Now about the cash sitting in my portfolio. In light of BCE’s and BIP-UN’s continued generosity to dividend investors, I’ve decided to use a chunk of the cash in my portfolio to increase my position in each company. Specifically, I’ve added 20 shares of BCE, for a total of 115, and 22 units of BIP-UN, for a total of 220.
These purchases were completed at Thursday’s closing prices and consumed $2,245.30 of funds, reducing the portfolio’s cash balance to $574.29. The money in the model portfolio isn’t real, but I also own BCE and BIP-UN personally, along with all of the other companies in the model portfolio. (View the portfolio online at tgam.ca/dividendportfolio.)