Ryan Bushell: a fine financial expert on BNN

Ryan Bushell is the President and Portfolio Manager at Newhaven Asset Management Inc. I have followed Bushell for more than a decade and he has impressed me. He is one of the few financial experts appearing on BNN whose views I find worthwhile.

In doing the research for this post I came across a post by Michael O'Reilly. O'Reilly calls Bushell one of the best performing experts that he follows. I concur.

In the past three months, Bushell has rated the following stocks buys: Algonquin Power (AQN), CIBC (CM), Fortis (FTS), Pembina Pipeline (PPL), Telus (T), TC Energy (TRP). I mention these stocks as I have encouraged friends and relatives to buy them on recent dips. I firmly believe all these are excellent, conservative calls. One could not go too far wrong having a little of each in his/her portfolio.

BNN Bloomberg reports that Bushell believes the recent fall in AQN share price is overdone. This company is nearly two-thirds regulated utilities, including water utilities. The business is not that different from where it was in the past. Whether it sells the renewable energy business or not is of no consequence. 

Bushell see the core business having more value than the share price indicates. Even though there may be one more dividend cut, Bushell believes this is still a good time to buy. Bushell may be a bull on AQN but the bears have a fine, and very defensible, position.

Algonquin's financial performance has been underwhelming recently. It reported a loss of US$253.2 million in the quarter ended June 30, 2023. The loss was attributed to unfavourable weather conditions reducing customer demand and resulting in less energy produced at its wind facilities. And the company's earnings per share (EPS) for the trailing twelve months (TTM) was -$0.38.

I am overexposed when it comes to AQN. I am not going to add to that exposure in the near term but I may add to my holdings in the future.

Retirement Income Portfolio at end of September

Three months ago, at the end of June, I posted a quickly assembled million dollar retirement portfolio with the goal of realizing an income of $40,000 annually at the outset. 

It was quite a success in its first few weeks but lately it has been losing money at a very fast rate. It is ending the month of Sept. down $32,244.54.

Am I panicked? No. The market is volatile. There are no surprises here. Heck, in a correcting market one would expect to see a loss of $100,000 or more. And if a bear market were to appear, a loss of double that would be reasonable: $200,000.

As I have no reason to sell, the losses are all on paper. On the other hand, the dividend income is real and on October first I will be withdrawing $3,333.33 just as a retired senior would. This will leave more than $2300 towards the November payment.

You might not agree but in my estimation this portfolio is a success. To see the complete portfolio, click this LINK.

My retirement portfolio is holding in there

It is halfway through September and the portfolio I posted showing how easy it is to design a successful retirement portfolio was up $17,889.73 at the close.

I should note that I removed $3,333.33 at the first of September. If this were an actual income portfolio in its first year, it would have had to stand up to the stress of having four percent of its value deducted spread out over 12 monthly withdrawals.

Click on My latest crack at a "Retirement Portfolio" to see the entire portfolio. Come back at the end of the month for an update.

A Retirement Portfolio Designed for Dividends

How hard can it be to design a good stock portfolio capable of pumping out four percent in dividend income annually? Back in late June, June 25th to be exact, I did jut that. I designed what I hoped would be a portfolio up to the task and I posted it for all to see. Now, to sit back and see it praised or criticized depending on its performance.

I started my portfolio with an initial one million dollars. From personal experience, I believe this is a reasonable starting value. I will do more work on this in the coming months. If I have to lower the initial value of my example portfolio, I will.

I am withdrawing four percent in the first year: $40,000 annually or $3,333.33 at the start of every month. I made my first withdrawal in August. I let the first month, July, slip by as I wanted to build up a little cash before entering the withdraw stage. I filled the portfolio in June, I did not try to time the market, and so dividends began accumulating immediately.

Today, September 5, 2023, the retirement income portfolio is worth $1,008,083.36 after the withdrawal of $6,666.66 in two months (August and September). At this rate, at the end of 12 months, I will have withdrawn a full four percent in cash and the portfolio will have enjoyed a capital gain of 4.85%. Nice. Will this really come to pass. We will see.

To see the portfolio in its entirety, please click:

My latest crack at a "Retirement Portfolio"

Buying low and holding is often not easy

Recently, I added to my TRP position when TC Energy Corp. stock dipped to $52.50. Today TRP has hit new lows. Right now it is trading at $48.18.

I have lost more than 8% of my investment, at least that is my paper loss. I feel a little guilty. I told folk that TRP was a buy -- and it was. But it does not feel like it was such a great buy at this moment. Ouch!

I can handle the loss. I'd rather not but investing is not without danger. One cannot time the market, as they say. Still, it is impossible not to want to try. I was trying when I bought at $52.50 and I was wrong.

I worry that a close relative, who bought some TRP, will not have the stomach for this loss and will bail out. I hope not. TRP will recover. It may not hit its target in the near future but it will certainly recover its recent 8% or so loss. My spreadsheet calculates that TRP is deep into bear market territory. It is 33.76% off its high of the past year.

What is the published target price of TRP today? Analysts see TRP climbing to $60.69 in the coming year. Maybe I should buy a little more TRP but I won't. I'm afraid of catching the not-so-mythical in this case falling knife.

But, if the TRP price should continue to collapse, I'd be a buyer at $45. With a dividend pushing 8%, TRP is a core holding in my retirement income portfolio. TRP is going to reward patience. Buy and hold is the correct move here, even though holding may prove more difficult that most non investor would think.

Retirement income portfolio update

On June 25, I created a million dollar retirement portfolio with the goal of providing both monthly income and capital growth. My attempt has done better than I could have ever hoped. It has gained $50,893.30 in less than a month. The bulk of the gain is unrealized but $5503.65 is dividend income. The portfolio records the dividend income the moment the x-date has been reached. In reality, the actual cash payment would follow.

I based my imaginary retirement portfolio on the lessons that I have learned since retiring some 14 years ago. As I don't get a lot of hits, I will leave you to click the link and check out my posted portfolio. If I get a few comments and questions, I will return and complete this post. I will, of course, answer your questions, if any. Until then, have a good day and wishing you good luck with your investing. 

This add was made on December 24th. My imaginary retirement portfolio fell on tough times shortly after it hit $50 thousand plus in gains. It fell tens of thousands in the red. Today, in December, it is up a bit more than $30,000 while it has pumped out $3,333.33 per month in dividend cash to cover living expenses.

Look for an early January post bringing my readers completely up-to-date on how this portfolio is performing. The link below will take you to the original post creating the retirement portfolio.

My latest crack at a retirement portfolio.

What me worry?

According to Wikipedia Alfred E. Neuman, of Mad Magazine fame, first appeared in late 19th-century advertisements for painless dentistry – the origin of his "What, me worry?" motto. Today an investor could do worse than take Neuman's worry-free attitude to heart. 

When stock prices fall and investing looks bleak, that is often the time to buy. Telus was well down from its high of the past year and all the telecoms as a group were out of favour with investors; I saw an opportunity and bought.

Almost immediately bad news concerning Telus made big news. Telus took an immediate hit. Within a day or two, the Telus stock price had stabilized and was showing signs of recovery. It was time to buy more.

Today my Telus holdings are in the plus column and my dividend income is up in a four digit amount.

Telus: the story just gets better

 

I saw Telus as a buy a few days ago. I added to my position. This morning, watching BNN, I noticed Telus (T) was down even more today than it was yesterday. And yesterday it was awfully attractive.

I immediately booted up my computer and logged onto TD WebBroker. I picked up another few hundred shares of Telus at a truly fine price. Telus is now yielding 5.77%. This stock is a keeper in the short term and a core holding in the long term. I am one happy retired investor.

I can see a very nice profit at the end of the Telus rainbow.

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Telus has gone up nicely since I made my last purchase. It appears that lots of other investors agree with me, Telus is worth trading today. Its trading volume is well up for the day.

My latest crack at a "Retirement Portfolio"

I have been checking out retirement portfolios posted by financial experts found on the Net. You see, I am an outlier when it comes to most portfolio-building approaches. For instance, I balk at investing any of my retirement money in bond ETFs. And so, I like reading how others approach portfolio building.

I have been wondering how I would invest my savings if I were retiring with a million dollars in savings today. I'd take my inspiration from the Canadian market itself and invest in most, if not all, the market sectors: financial, real estate, utilities, energy, etc.

The result of my weekend musings can be inspected below. I built this million dollar portfolio Saturday. It immediately jumped more than $4000 in value on market open Monday. I'll check this portfolio once a month to see how it is performing.

I have been considering Mullen Group, Algoma Central Corp and the ETF VIDY as additions to my actual retirement portfolio. I'll be watching these three investments and following the perform of each with great interest.

Oh, if you are interested in what percent of the total portfolio each investment represents, just look at the first numbers in the Market Value and round the number up or down to the nearest number that is a multiple of five. For instance ALC is 2.5% of the total portfolio and BMO is 6.0% and BNS is 3.0%. (This corrects an earlier error.)

 

 

I checked my million dollar portfolio in early afternoon. The gain is closing in on nine thousand dollars. Is this confirmation of my approach to portfolio construction? Not necessarily. 

What it does demonstrate is market volatility. Do not overreact to market ups and downs. Always keep in mind that the market is up a full two thirds of the time. In the end, investors with the long range view always come out ahead.

One has to be very careful when reading posts recommending an investment strategy. Stock markets are very volatile. My retirement income portfolio which was thrown together on the weekend was up $17,815.90 at market close just three days later. Someone pushing a certain investment approach can make most approaches appear very good on paper; just choose the right reference dates.

Let's be honest. There may well be a recession coming. It may be mild but it should take the markets down a notch or two. These gains, so quickly amassed, could disappear just as quickly.

But this portfolio will deliver a nice income and most of the dividends are rock solid. This portfolio should get a retiree through tough times with cash to spare.

By market close Friday I was amazed at this mythical portfolio's balance. It was up almost $32,500. Wow!

During the week, I have been adding some of the investments in my mythical portfolio to my actual retirement portfolio. In calculating the number of shares to own, I have been guided by the portfolio percentages used to create this mythical portfoliio.

I am pleased to say that taking my investment inspiration from this mythical portfolio is proving to be a fine move.

To see where this theoretical portfolio was after almost a month, please click the link: 

Retirement income portfolio update