Today was a very good day. I invested in 200 stocks of Colabor Group Inc. (GCL) and 200 stocks of Student Transportation (STB). I am now at more than 100k in my Canadian non registered account. My annual dividend income for 2011 is now set at 7 300$. Nothing for sure, dividend payment can be suspend at anytime but chances are that I will probably be able to earn 7 300$ in dividend from my investment. For once, I am very satisfy, but the activities of the last couple of days left me quite exhausted and I am happy, everything is set for a while. I will have a daily follow up to do but I had invested in what I believe are good companies and I really hope everything will be ok.
I could easily reach the 8 000$ in dividend income without any problem. My sell order for 500 stocks of Sprott Inc. (SII) is still open. In order to easily reach the 8 400$ in dividend income, I could sell all of the units hold of Sprott Inc. (SII) (which represent more than 1 000 stocks) and reinvest the money in higher dividend payer companies. I could also sell the units I hold of Sprott Physical Silver Trust UTS (PHS.U) because this investment do not provide me any dividend. Another drastic move would be to sell everything hold inside the RRSP and cash it out... It could result in maybe 20 000$ or maybe more... But I won't perform any of those moves anytime soon. Just for now, I have a sell order for 500 stocks of Sprott Inc. (SII) at 9.60$ and that's all for now. 7 300$ in dividend income should satisfy me for a little while.
At this point, my next step would be to decrease, even just a bit, my debt level. I hold more than 60k in debt and decreasing would just make things lot more better. I realize I have a lot of debt but it's not really a problem for me. But since I am very please with my 7 300$ dividend, I may now concentrate on paying debt. Even just a little. I had pay off my 5 000$ credit line at 8.75% using my margin money. I have that 10 000$ credit line at less than 8%. Less than 8% yes, but eventually, if I could manage to pay off 50% of it, I would be very happy.
So those were my latest financial news.
But oh, I almost forgot to comment on the very bad review made by
Ellen Roseman on Derek Foster latest book. Ellen Roseman is not that much of a financial journalist and I am going to explain you why.
If you are a long time reader of My first 50k blog, you know, just like me, that the most exciting part of my investment journey had started after the reading of Derek Foster books. As a big recap, I had been investing since 2005. From 2005 to 2007, i exclusively invest in GICs and mutual funds. And financially speaking, I was going no where. But than, in 2008, i began to read the Canadian Business Forum. It's there I learn about Derek Foster and his Stop Working book. His whole thing seem to be unreal for me at first. How can a middle class individual can live without working? I didn't understand anything of what Derek Foster was all about at first. Trully nothing at all. But I continue to read his posts on Canadian Business because I found his style sooo polite despite very bad comments in some occasions. So I told myself that if the guy was getting very push down, it was because he knew what he was doing. And as always (lol), I was right. "The guy", Derek Foster, knew it all. I purchase all of Derek Foster books, read them I don't know how many times, finally understood what it was all about and run to TD Waterhouse office located at the Eaton Centre to open my broker account. Little that I knew back them in what I was going to get into...
I begin to invest in stock in 2008, right before the stock market crash. I made and loss money. And belive it or not, I only made money from Derek Foster stock picks and NEVER LOSS ANY MONEY. I loss money from penny stocks trading (something Derek Foster never talk about and its a good thing trust me). I also lost money in my Timminco (TIM) adventure. I talked about this like crazy previously so you can just search for Timminco in the search engine at your right if you want to learn more about it. Despite my lost, I made more money than from what I lost.
Since my Timminco experience, I made myself the promise to give up on stock if I was going to loose money ever again. You have to understand that with my Timminco adventure, I lost 4 000$. This meaning that Eric Sprott himself own me 4 000$ but that's another story.
Following the stock crash of 2008, my portfolio never loss more than 30% in value but still, I wanted the fantastic gain, I wanted a Stop working adventure and now, everything was taking away from me.
And than, that thing happen, my guru (lol) Derek Foster sell out his portfolio. Everything was wrong, I was left without a guru. Derek Foster sold his portfolio, Jean-François Tardif was leaving the public financial scene, Steve Martin was leaving Crestreet and I was left alone, without any guru... lol... And I was wondering, at a point, what I was going to do. But for me, despite the horrible market condition, I wasn't going to sell.
But this is because I don't have a real knowledge on thing. I read financial statement and other from companies, all stuff that I ever truly understand. I do not read the financial result of a company before investing. I do a work around, reading yes, but nothing in the deep. Because I don't have the knowledge. I am not going to lie and say ok, I know it all, I know exactly what I am doing and I am doing all the homework required. That's not true. My personal next step will be to seek more for that knowledge. Anyhow, you get the point.
The problem here is that Derek Foster hold that knowledge. And when you have the knowledge to go deeper in things, you can analyze and make your own opinion out of a situation. And Derek Foster opinion about the crash was the one of a specialist, the same one as Eric Sprott saying something like governments worldwide had injected to much money in the economy that the economy we live in is not a real one. Or not a natural one. So at a point, selling stocks is the only solution. Especially when, like Derek Foster, you have a family to take care of. There was a time where selling appear as the best solution for Derek Foster. At first, I didn't understand his move, but later on, after reading shocking (because Eric Sprott is always sooooooo shocking) comments of Eric Sprott on the economy well, I told myself, Derek Foster was right. He was right at the time he sell.
Being on the stock market is dangerous. I could loose everything I have. Part of me can live with that without any problem. My real problem is that I have too much faith, I love to invest too much and after now 6 years of investment, I could not stop. It had become a need. But also a willingness to see what's going to happen next. Fact is that I know I won't ever loose everything.
See, its part of the game, there's always a contradiction, something to keep you there, just going, going and going.
I made thousands of dollars on Derek Foster picks and my investment life would had been very less interesting without his knowledge.
I don't want a perfect scheme, I want it to pop all over the place.
Edition mistakes in Derek Foster books? I LOVE THEM. It keep it real, far away from the artificial blabla.
Investment mistakes? I did mine, and a bunch of them. And so did Derek Foster. So when that poor Ellen Roseman comments Derek Foster work the way she did, it only show her ignorance and her stupidity. I don't think Ellen Roseman is actived on the stock market. She seemed to be a bit too idiot for that. Did Ellen Roseman ever write a book to help small investor? Does she provide any investment tips that ever made thousands of dollars? The answer to those questions is a big NO. A complete inactive journalist with no investment talent and no talent at all. That's what that Ellen Roseman is for me.
If Derek Foster had decided to sell his investments, its because he was aware of what was going on. But his come back in stock make me happy because hey, I wouldn't like to be left without any guru!
One of the only thing I don't like about Derek Foster Idiot Millionaire is that Derek Foster named Power Financial as a possible holding for Idiot investor like myself. My problem being that one of those jerks work for Power Financial as Vice President. His name is Henri-Paul Rousseau, ex CEO of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. Please do your search on the man and let me know if its ok for me to feel like screaming when I read about Power Financial in the latest book of Derek Foster. But that's the only thing. Otherwise, Derek Foster is that perfect that I once wrote that he was an angel. But maybe the term was not appropriate lol (!!).