Another bad day for the TSX

Usually, when the TSX experiment with some heavy losses for a day, it usually rebounded a bit the following business day. Unfortunately, it's not quite what we had experimented with time. After losing some major points this past Friday, today was an extremely volatile day for the TSX. At a point, it went as low as 20,672.64 points. It was a pain to watch. We finally closed this Monday session with 21,011.89 points.

I spent a weekend quite relaxed - thinking that today would be a much better day for the TSX, I was expecting a rebound, but little did I know... I walked 20,800 steps on Saturday, 15.18 km, and another 20,133 steps on Sunday, 14.77 km. For me, 20,000 steps represent 3,5 hours of walking, which I did in 2 sessions each day. I can easily walk long distances for a long period of time, I don't have any problem with that, but I am not a speedy walker. On weekdays, I want to walk for a minimum of 10,000 steps per day. If I can push it a bit during the weekend, I will do :) There's always one or a few days when I walk less for different reasons, so it helps to compensate. Today I did a bit less than 10,000 steps, but I have done some gardening for about 30 minutes.

While watching the TSX going as low as 20,672.64 points, I couldn't help but think of my margin account. With this past Friday deposit, starting tomorrow morning, my margin debt will be $44,157.57. My non-registered portfolio closed today's session at $144 229,53. It's not a 150k, but it's still a strong value, I know my margin will be ok, but I prefer to remain careful. This weekend, I was a bit more relaxed, and I taught about buying some Royal Bank of Canada (RY) using my $2,100 cash deposit. That investment would have been made inside my non-registered portfolio, to help boost my margin value.

Folks who have a margin account like myself absolutely need to be extra careful. This past Friday, I inject $2,100 over my margin. I didn't receive the money transferred yet, but it's looking like it will be there tomorrow morning. When I received my paycheck, I had planned everything that I wanted to do with my money, this amount in saving, this for my margin, etc... but now, everything that I had planned is completely destroyed. My margin account is taking a big place, not to say all the place... It's frightening, and not fun at all to deal with.

It's not fun, but I think I will probably invest in Royal Bank of Canada (RY) because if I do so, my overall dividend earning will be pushed to the $11,000 and I would like that to happen. Like a lot. My only shame is that I have still contribution room left inside my TFSA. But I prefer to invest in my non-registered portfolio to help secure my margin...

It's always hard to invest during a downturn, but this is basically how I built up my portfolio. I had made some really great investments following the 2008 stock crash. For me, that 2008 crash was easier to understand and handle compared to what we are living with now. With COVID and Ukraine war, the inflation and interest rates being increased, it's quite difficult to follow it all, and to see clearly in this mess. 2008 was a mess, but we knew what was the cause of it, and what we were going to propose as solutions: low-interest rates. Currently, the stock market is super volatile, but we need to see our interest rate being increased in reason of the high inflation. It's a complete nightmare.

Other than that $2,100, I have another 2k that I could put on my margin to help out things, but I am still thinking about it for now. I may just put another 1k on my margin, as I would like to keep a bit in my savings.