Canadian Dividend Portfolio Update: July 2021 | TFSA x Wealthsimple
After seven months into my Canadian dividend investing journey, I come across an important crossroads. I’m finally the controller of my TFSA.
When I moved to Canada last year and opened my Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA), I had little knowledge about what it was. I went ahead with some instructions I received and opened the TFSA with Fidelity Investments. I did not think that an individual could manage/handle their own TFSA, for some reason. But the more I researched on it, I realized that I should have my dividend portfolio within a TFSA. Fidelity had invested my money in their ETFs.
Those investments were great, too. But I could not help but feel that I should be the captain of my TFSA. Although I could tell Fidelity what my investment goals were and steer them towards what my portfolio composition should be, I did not have the flexibility of having it under my control.
Also, depositing money when I want and investing when I want and selling when I want, and withdrawing money when I want are not so easy with a broker. So, I decided to say bye-bye to Fidelity.
Fidelity has been great for the seven months I’ve had my portfolio with them. They managed to grow my investment of $6,000 to $6,400 within that period. If I were to very optimistically annualize the return, they could have multiplied my money even up to 10% within a year. This is pretty impressive. I can recommend Fidelity if you want to have your investments on auto-pilot.
Beginning of my TFSA Dividend Portfolio
So, from July 2021 onward, I moved my TFSA to Wealthsimple Trade and closed down my ‘personal’ account I had on Wealthsimple Trade. A personal account does not make sense when I have plenty of contribution room in my TFSA.
I moved my entire $6,400 from Fidelity to Wealthsimple Trade in July 2021. I sold off my personal account holdings and moved around $1,384 to the TFSA. Another $200 was deposited out-of-pocket for the month.
A grand total of around $8,000 has been gone into my TFSA as the start.
Dividend Portfolio Value
Wealthsimple does not allow the movement of shares or holdings between accounts. So, I had to sell off my personal account holdings and move the funds to the new TFSA. This meant that I had to let go of some high dividend yields in companies such as Keyera and Pembina Pipeline. These were acquired when the market was down in December 2021.
But there was no other way. I did not want to hold any dividend stocks in my personal account and pay taxes on them.
I purchased many of the new holdings in my TFSA around July 16th. So, since then, my portfolio’s market value has grown by 0.5% or $37. Funny enough, this number would have been much higher if not for the ONE growth stock I purchased! The growth stock is down 5.13% and most other dividend stocks are up in value. Oh, the irony!
Although I had moved around $8,000 into the TFSA, I had only invested $7,469 as of the end of July 2021. The rest remains as cash for good buying opportunities. The market value at the end of the month was $7,506.
TFSA Canadian Dividend Portfolio Update: July 2021
In June 2021, I had 12 holdings in my dividend portfolio. Since I had to sell them off, I decided to shed some weight, too.
I decided to let go of some quarterly dividends and instead hold monthly dividend stocks for the fastest possible compounding.
At the end of July 2021, my TFSA Canadian dividend portfolio only had seven holdings, out of which one is a growth stock. Below is a complete breakdown of my investments.
| Company | Ticker | No. of Shares | Purchase Price | Total Value at Cost |
| Keyera Corp. | KEY | 60 | $32.64 | $1,958.10 |
| Pembina Pipeline Corp. | PPL | 25 | $39.45 | $986.25 |
| Enbridge Inc. | ENB | 20 | $49.55 | $991.00 |
| North-West Health Prop REIT | NWH.UN | 65 | $13.15 | $854.75 |
| Timbercreek Financial | TF | 105 | $9.56 | $1,003.80 |
| Newport Exploration Ltd | NWX | 1,135 | $0.45 | $505.80 |
| CloudMD Software | DOC.V | 600 | $.95 | $1,170.00 |
| Total | $7,468.98 |
Dividend Income Update: July 2021
July 2021 dividend income was still great, despite the chaos that ensued. I made sure to sell my personal account holdings only after I received my monthly dividend paycheck from each. So, the monthly income continued to show good progress.
In the month of July 2021, my total dividend income was…*drumroll*… $6.63. This is the largest non-quarterly dividend income in my portfolio so far.
Below is the complete breakdown of my dividend income for 2021.
| Company | Dividend Per Share | Jan 21 | Feb 21 | Mar 21 | April 21 | May 21 | June 21 | July 21 | Total Dividends |
| Keyera Corp. | $0.1600 | $0.64 | $0.64 | $0.64 | $0.64 | $0.64 | $0.64 | $0.64 | $4.48 |
| Manulife Fin. Corp. | $0.2800 | – | – | $1.12 | – | – | $1.12 | – | $2.24 |
| Pembina Pipeline | $0.2100 | $0.63 | $0.63 | $0.63 | $0.63 | $0.63 | $0.63 | $0.63 | $4.41 |
| Shaw Comm. | $0.0985 | $0.40 | $0.40 | $0.40 | $0.40 | $0.40 | $0.4 | $0.40 | $2.79 |
| Canadian Ut. | $0.4398 | – | – | – | – | – | $1.32 | – | $1.32 |
| Enbridge Inc. | $0.8350 | – | – | – | – | – | $1.67 | – | $1.67 |
| North-West REIT | $0.0667 | – | – | – | $0.07 | $0.07 | $0.07 | $0.07 | $0.28 |
| E Split Corp (A) | $0.1300 | – | – | – | – | $0.91 | $1.17 | $1.30 | $3.38 |
| Timbercreek Financial | $0.0575 | – | – | – | – | – | $0.69 | $0.69 | $1.38 |
| Dividend 15 Split Corp. | $0.1000 | – | – | – | – | – | $1.20 | $1.20 | $2.40 |
| Canoe EIT | $0.1000 | – | – | – | – | – | – | $1.7 | $1.70 |
| Newport Exp. | $0.0175 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Total | $1.664 | $1.667 | $2.79 | $1.74 | $2.65 | $8.91 | $6.63 | $26.05 |
None of the investments in the TFSA would yield any dividends in July. However, August is going to be pretty amazing. According to my estimates, my dividend income for the next month is going to be around $37. This is large enough to buy back into dividend stocks–or re-invest dividends. This is the key step in getting your dividend snowball moving.
With the expected dividends and past dividends combined, I am looking at a return of about $400 for the year 2021. This is pretty great considering my investment was only $1,300 dollars for half of the period. This represents a yield of 5.36% on my total investment (including TFSA).
I will continue to add funds to my TFSA as per my old plan and try my best to max it out for 2021.
Conclusion
I am most certainly excited for this brand new journey I’m about to embark on with my TFSA Canadian dividend portfolio. Hopefully, all of us get to take this journey together and reap sweet benefits in the short run.
So, that is a full roundup of my dividend investment journey for July 2021. Let me know if you have any questions or feedback you would like to share about investing in the comments below.
Until the next one, happy investing.
