March 2024 Dividend Income Update
Similar to previous updates, work was very busy, which caused me to largely ignore the market. But the upside was that due to my large tech exposure, my portfolio gained value in the first 3 months of the year more than it has in most years. As one of my largest positions, Amazon has been on a tear and I think it’s currently coming into fair value. I also remember feeling bearish and ready to dump Meta when they wasted time focusing on the Metaverse. However, it looks like they turned things around and I wish I had picked up more shares when I saw a focus shift back to their core business. They’re now a dividend-paying company!
Earlier this year, I was ready to make 2024 my last year of employment. In addition to earning enough passive income to cover my annual expenses, I have enough money to last me the rest of my life and then some. As my co-worker put it, I have F-U money. I used that to my benefit this year. In the past couple of years, I demonstrated that I was performing at the next level and was told that I should be promoted, but nothing happened. This year I was asked to lead an important project and I said that I would only take on the project if I was promoted. While the decision was not ultimately up to my manager, it motivated them to get their act together. I was promoted and now earn more than 50% more than I did before. I have to decide whether these golden handcuffs are enough to keep me at the company.
One of my favorite finance YouTubers is Daniel Pronk. He does a thorough deep dive into company earnings and his valuation of companies makes sense. For a year, I’ve been using a tool that he built called Stock Unlock. It’s an excellent tool that summarizes the pros/cons of company earnings and provides trends on historical financial ratios that help with discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis. He published a book titled The Fundamentals of Investing. I recently purchased the e-book and am looking forward to learning more about valuation. If you’re interested in Stock Unlock, feel free to use my referral link.
In March, I received a total of $6,839 in dividends and interest. I earned a cumulative passive income of $16,258 year-to-date. For comparison, I earned a cumulative passive income of $9,266 this time last year. At the end of 2023, I earned $46,079 in passive income. Of the dividends received this month, $4,880 was available to withdraw without penalty.
As a reminder, I convert any USD amount to CAD using the month-end exchange rate published by the Bank of Canada. For March 2024, I used an exchange rate of 1.3550.
| Account | Income |
|---|---|
| Cash | $1,348 |
| Margin | $2,041 |
| CA Retirement | $1,491 |
| US Retirement | $1,959 |
| Total | $6,839 |
I received dividends from the following stocks and ETFs in March:
- Blackrock Inc (BLK)
- Brookfield Corp (BN.TO)
- Brookfield Infrastructure Corp (BIPC.TO)
- Brookfield Renewable Corp (BEPC.TO)
- Canadian National Railway (CNR.TO)
- Canadian Tire Corp (CTC.A.TO)
- CT Real Estate Investment Trust (CRT.UN.TO)
- Discover Financial Services (DFS)
- Fortis Inc (FTS.TO)
- Global X High Interest Savings ETF (CASH.TO)
- Granite Real Estate Investment Trust (GRT.UN.TO)
- Magna International Inc (MG.TO)
- Meta Platforms Inc (META)
- Realty Income Corp (O)
- Sun Life Financial Inc (SLF.TO)
- Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF (VEU)
- Vanguard Short-Term Bond Index ETF (BSV)
- Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI)
- Visa Inc (V)
- Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA)
- WisdomTree Floating Rate Treasury Fund (USFR)
I purchased shares of the following stocks and ETFs in March:
- Global X High Interest Savings ETF (CASH.TO)
- iShares Balanced Growth Core Index ETF (XGRO.TO)