Dogs of the TSE

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adrian2
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

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LTR ticker is available! :P
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

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Care to share what's in the CORE portfolio?
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by nisser »

DenisD wrote:Shakes' post above has inspired me to do a little work too. For the past month, I've been signed up at portfolio123.com to refresh my US stock screens. This time, I opted for the $99/month package. I can backtest back to the beginning of 1999 with Canadian or US stocks. Tonight, I decided to look at the Canadian dogs.

I start with all Canadian stocks except for income trusts and select the top 40 by market cap. I'm looking at 2 strategies. The first buys the top 40 companies with the highest dividend yield. The second buys the top 40 companies with the highest shareholder yield. Shareholder yield is dividend yield plus percent reduction in shares over the past year. The following table shows the top 40, top 10 dividend yield dogs and top 10 shareholder yield dogs at the beginning of 1999 and yesterday.

Code: Select all

                                                             MktCap Top 40
             Jan 2/99                                                                      Jun 10/14
Ticker       Name                                     MktCap                  Ticker       Name                                      MktCap
NT:CN        Nortel Networks Corp                     50,822                  RY:CN        Royal Bank of Canada                       108,515
BCE:CN       BCE Inc.                                 36,903                  TD:CN        Toronto-Dominion Bank (The)                101,275
RY:CN        Royal Bank of Canada                     23,624                  BNS:CN       Bank of Nova Scotia (The)                   86,173
TRI:CN       Thomson Reuters Corp                     22,004                  SU:CN        Suncor Energy Inc.                          64,148
VO.1:CN^00   Seagram Co Ltd (The)                     20,240                  CNR:CN       Canadian National Railway Co                55,776
BNS:CN       Bank of Nova Scotia (The)                16,608                  CNQ:CN       Canadian Natural Resources Ltd              50,642
BMO:CN       Bank of Montreal                         16,275                  BMO:CN       Bank of Montreal                            49,818
TD:CN        Toronto-Dominion Bank (The)              15,984                  IMO:CN       Imperial Oil Ltd                            46,016
CM:CN        Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce       15,789                  VRX:CN       Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc   45,619
BBD.B:CN     Bombardier Inc                           14,964                  ENB:CN       Enbridge Inc                                42,293
IMS.2:CN^00  Imasco Ltd                               14,469                  BCE:CN       BCE Inc.                                    39,231
PWF:CN       Power Financial Corp                     11,992                  MFC:CN       Manulife Financial Corp                     38,542
ABX:CN       Barrick Gold Corp                        11,205                  CM:CN        Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce          38,446
IMO:CN       Imperial Oil Ltd                         10,681                  TRP:CN       TransCanada Corp                            35,712
T:CN         TELUS Corp                               10,387                  HSE:CN       Husky Energy Inc                            35,377
TRP:CN       TransCanada Corp                         10,316                  CP:CN        Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd                34,285
GWO:CN       Great-West Lifeco Inc                     9,704                  POT:CN       Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc      33,310
CP:CN        Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd              9,634                  TRI:CN       Thomson Reuters Corp                        31,299
AL.Z:CN^07   Alcan Inc.                                9,447                  GWO:CN       Great-West Lifeco Inc                       29,425
L:CN         Loblaw Companies Ltd                      9,052                  BAM.A:CN     Brookfield Asset Management Inc             29,368
NNC.1:CN^00  Newbridge Networks Corp                   8,242                  MG:CN        Magna International Inc.                    25,627
NCT:CN^99    Newcourt Credit Group Inc                 7,934                  T:CN         TELUS Corp                                  25,476
WN:CN        George Weston Ltd                         7,839                  CVE:CN       Cenovus Energy Inc                          24,757
CNR:CN       Canadian National Railway Co              7,640                  PWF:CN       Power Financial Corp                        23,888
MG:CN        Magna International Inc.                  7,475                  SLF:CN       Sun Life Financial Inc                      23,496
POW:CN       Power Corp Of Canada                      7,201                  RCI.B:CN     Rogers Communications Inc.                  23,009
TGO.1:CN^00  Teleglobe Inc                             7,113                  G:CN         Goldcorp Inc.                               21,208
SHC.1:CN^07  Shell Canada Ltd                          6,739                  ABX:CN       Barrick Gold Corp                           20,638
FFH:CN       Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd            6,464                  ECA:CN       Encana Corp                                 19,014
IGM:CN       IGM Financial Inc.                        5,581                  CPG:CN       Crescent Point Energy Corp                  17,898
POT:CN       Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc    5,342                  ATD.B:CN     Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc                16,779
ENB:CN       Enbridge Inc                              5,097                  NA:CN        National Bank of Canada                     15,076
BUS.2:CN^07  Laidlaw International Inc                 5,079                  AGU:CN       Agrium Inc.                                 14,314
SU:CN        Suncor Energy Inc.                        5,064                  PPL:CN       Pembina Pipeline Corp                       14,203
TRZ.2:CN^06  Trizec Properties Inc.                    4,820                  TCK.B:CN     Teck Resources Ltd                          13,699
BCH:CN^01    Biochem Pharma Inc                        4,785                  POW:CN       Power Corp Of Canada                        13,666
T.1:CN^99    Telus Corp-Old                            4,697                  L:CN         Loblaw Companies Ltd                        13,619
PCA.Z:CN^09  Petro-Canada                              4,407                  IGM:CN       IGM Financial Inc.                          13,045
PDG.2:CN^06  Placer Dome Inc                           4,388                  FM:CN        First Quantum Minerals Ltd                  12,927
ECA:CN       Encana Corp                               4,354                  SJR.B:CN     Shaw Communications Inc.                    12,393

                                                             Yield Dogs
Ticker       Name                                      Yield                  Ticker       Name                                      Yield
TD:CN        Toronto-Dominion Bank (The)                5.16                  CPG:CN       Crescent Point Energy Corp                    6.14
BNS:CN       Bank of Nova Scotia (The)                  5.12                  BCE:CN       BCE Inc.                                      4.89
TRP:CN       TransCanada Corp                           4.99                  GWO:CN       Great-West Lifeco Inc                         4.18
PCA.Z:CN^09  Petro-Canada                               3.97                  NA:CN        National Bank of Canada                       4.17
T:CN         TELUS Corp                                 3.35                  PWF:CN       Power Financial Corp                          4.17
ENB:CN       Enbridge Inc                               3.26                  IGM:CN       IGM Financial Inc.                            4.16
CM:CN        Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce         3.16                  CM:CN        Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce            4.13
SHC.1:CN^07  Shell Canada Ltd                           3.10                  RCI.B:CN     Rogers Communications Inc.                    4.09
IMO:CN       Imperial Oil Ltd                           3.01                  SJR.B:CN     Shaw Communications Inc.                      4.06
BMO:CN       Bank of Montreal                           2.85                  BMO:CN       Bank of Montreal                              4.04

                                                             SH Yield Dogs
Ticker       Name                                    SHYield                  Ticker       Name                                      SHYield
IMO:CN       Imperial Oil Ltd                           7.18                  T:CN         TELUS Corp                                    8.87
IMS.2:CN^00  Imasco Ltd                                 5.38                  MG:CN        Magna International Inc.                      7.32
TD:CN        Toronto-Dominion Bank (The)                5.11                  AGU:CN       Agrium Inc.                                   6.65
CP:CN        Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd               4.99                  POT:CN       Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc        6.10
BNS:CN       Bank of Nova Scotia (The)                  4.65                  TRI:CN       Thomson Reuters Corp                          5.95
TRP:CN       TransCanada Corp                           4.55                  SU:CN        Suncor Energy Inc.                            4.93
VO.1:CN^00   Seagram Co Ltd (The)                       3.88                  CM:CN        Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce            4.74
PCA.Z:CN^09  Petro-Canada                               3.82                  BCE:CN       BCE Inc.                                      4.71
T.1:CN^99    Telus Corp-Old                             3.44                  TCK.B:CN     Teck Resources Ltd                            4.68
T:CN         TELUS Corp                                 3.14                  BMO:CN       Bank of Montreal                              4.62
For each strategy, I did a rolling backtest. The rolling backtest runs the screen every week since the beginning of 1999 and holds the selected stocks for one year. I don't think there is an allowance for fees or slippage. Among other things, it returns the average percent return of those 754 runs. I ran each strategy with 5, 10, 15 and 20 stocks. The following table shows the average percent returns of each run compared with the TSX. The TSX return is not total return. The screen returns are total return. They have some total return indexes for the US but not for Canada.

Code: Select all

             #Pos   Return   Excess
TSX                    6.5          Not total return
Yield           5     14.8      8.3
               10     14.0      7.5
               15     13.7      7.1
               20     12.8      6.3
SHYield         5     16.6     10.1
               10     14.6      8.1
               15     14.0      7.4
               20     13.2      6.7
Both strategies handily beat the index. And the shareholder yield strategy beats the dividend yield strategy by a small amount. Of course, this is just the beginning of the comparison. And the screens could be "improved" substantially.

The data should be reasonably good. But they've only had it for a few months. So, no doubt there are a few glitches. In fact, I can see a few glitches in the above tables. :wink:
Thanks for doing that; it's quite interesting. According to http://www.finiki.org/wiki/Beating_the_TSX_%28BTSX%29 , the total return for the BTSX is 11.97% vs total index return of 9.34%. If we're safe to compare the two, am I reading correctly in assuming that this method does better than the BTSX (14% vs 12%).
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by DenisD »

The returns cover different time periods. So not really comparable. Will have more to say tonight when I'm on my desktop.
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by nisser »

DenisD wrote:The returns cover different time periods. So not really comparable. Will have more to say tonight when I'm on my desktop.
I see. I wonder if you're able to run the scenario without the nortel disaster (i.e. after NT fell down) post as I imagine that skews things quite a bit.
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by FinEcon »

nisser wrote:
DenisD wrote:The returns cover different time periods. So not really comparable. Will have more to say tonight when I'm on my desktop.
I see. I wonder if you're able to run the scenario without the nortel disaster (i.e. after NT fell down) post as I imagine that skews things quite a bit.
Not to mention RIM. IMO the reasons value based strategies like BTSX are likey to outperform the index is they are much less likely to contain blow ups than an index which by definition will contain spectacular blow-ups from time to time.
Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome

--Charlie Munger
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by DenisD »

Reminds me of my position in Washington Mutual. Down > 99%. :(
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by DenisD »

nisser wrote:I wonder if you're able to run the scenario without the nortel disaster (i.e. after NT fell down) post as I imagine that skews things quite a bit.
Here are some results of rolling back tests I did last year. A rolling backtest runs a screen every week since the beginning of 1999 and holds the selected stocks for one year. I don't think there is an allowance for fees or slippage. I ran each strategy with 10, 15 and 20 stocks. I downloaded the results and combined them in a spreadsheet with pivot tables.

Labels starting with X2 refer to my Canadian large value strategy based primarily on shareholder yield. Labels starting with X4 selects stocks from the same universe based only on dividend yield. The following 2 digits are the number of stocks.

The following pivot charts show the average excess percent returns of each period compared with the TSX. The TSX return is not total return. The screen returns are total return. So the excess returns are 2 or 3% too high.

Here is the average of about 52 excess returns for each run per year. 2013 is shorter. 1999 and 2000 stand out.
By Year.png
By Year.png (11.32 KiB) Viewed 1811 times
Here is the average of about 60 excess returns for each run for each month. David Stanley picked one of the worst months. The excess for May is 4.4% for a 10 stock dividend yield screen. LTR picked one of the best months. The excess for November is 9.4%.
By Month.png
Hmmm ... Not sure why the first chart is displayed full-size and a second reduced. Possibly because the first uses much less storage?
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by DenisD »

Here are the pivot tables for the above charts followed by the pivot tables with 1999 and 2000 filtered out.

Code: Select all

           X210A   X215A   X220A   X410A   X415A   X420A
    1999   -26.2   -26.9   -27.7   -34.4   -32.5   -32.4
    2000    45.8    42.8    39.3    46.8    42.7    42.1
    2001    21.9    22.0    22.3    13.8    14.6    15.3
    2002     3.4     4.1     4.3    11.1     9.1     9.3
    2003     8.1     8.7     9.2     3.7     5.3     7.1
    2004    10.7     9.2     9.0     2.3     2.3     2.0
    2005    -2.7    -1.8    -3.0    -5.8    -7.7    -7.4
    2006    12.4     8.9     7.4     1.1     2.7     2.4
    2007    -0.5    -0.6    -1.2     4.0     1.9    -0.2
    2008     5.6     6.5     6.1    20.5    16.0    13.4
    2009     5.5     3.3     2.8    17.7    11.4     7.9
    2010     4.6     3.8     4.8     3.4     2.8     2.8
    2011    12.8    12.1    10.9     3.4     5.2     6.5
    2012    21.2    20.3    18.1     8.1    11.4    12.7
    2013     6.0     7.1     7.3     5.1     4.7     4.4
             8.7     8.0     7.3     6.8     6.1     5.8

           X210A   X215A   X220A   X410A   X415A   X420A
     Jan     6.9     7.7     7.4     8.4     6.3     5.5
     Feb     8.9     7.6     6.9     8.5     6.7     5.6
     Mar     8.7     7.9     6.2     5.6     5.9     5.4
     Apr     9.3     8.7     7.3     3.9     4.8     5.3
     May     7.9     7.3     6.5     4.4     4.1     4.2
     Jun    10.3     8.5     7.9     6.9     5.9     5.9
     Jul     8.8     7.5     6.7     6.2     5.0     5.3
     Aug     8.3     6.7     7.0     6.0     5.2     4.9
     Sep     9.3     8.0     8.0     6.0     5.4     5.5
     Oct     8.4     7.1     6.9     6.2     5.0     4.8
     Nov     7.9     8.9     7.8     9.4     8.8     8.2
     Dec    10.1    10.6     9.6    10.8     9.7     9.4
             8.7     8.0     7.3     6.8     6.1     5.8

           X210A   X215A   X220A   X410A   X415A   X420A
    2001    21.9    22.0    22.3    13.8    14.6    15.3
    2002     3.4     4.1     4.3    11.1     9.1     9.3
    2003     8.1     8.7     9.2     3.7     5.3     7.1
    2004    10.7     9.2     9.0     2.3     2.3     2.0
    2005    -2.7    -1.8    -3.0    -5.8    -7.7    -7.4
    2006    12.4     8.9     7.4     1.1     2.7     2.4
    2007    -0.5    -0.6    -1.2     4.0     1.9    -0.2
    2008     5.6     6.5     6.1    20.5    16.0    13.4
    2009     5.5     3.3     2.8    17.7    11.4     7.9
    2010     4.6     3.8     4.8     3.4     2.8     2.8
    2011    12.8    12.1    10.9     3.4     5.2     6.5
    2012    21.2    20.3    18.1     8.1    11.4    12.7
    2013     6.0     7.1     7.3     5.1     4.7     4.4
             8.5     8.0     7.5     6.9     6.2     5.9

           X210A   X215A   X220A   X410A   X415A   X420A
     Jan     7.6     8.6     8.4     8.7     7.3     6.9
     Feb     8.1     8.3     7.9     8.4     7.3     6.4
     Mar     8.0     8.1     6.7     5.9     6.1     5.6
     Apr     7.2     7.6     7.0     2.8     3.5     4.0
     May     8.3     7.5     7.3     5.1     4.5     4.7
     Jun    11.1     8.7     8.3     7.7     6.2     6.3
     Jul     9.6     7.4     7.1     6.8     5.7     5.9
     Aug     9.3     7.7     7.8     6.9     6.3     5.8
     Sep     9.5     8.0     7.9     5.8     5.6     5.3
     Oct     8.7     7.8     7.3     6.7     5.7     5.3
     Nov     6.8     7.4     6.7     8.6     8.0     7.0
     Dec     7.8     8.9     8.1     9.1     8.1     7.7
             8.5     8.0     7.5     6.9     6.2     5.9
Not much difference.
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by Taggart »

I figure investors in Canadian dividend stocks have just been incredibly lucky the last few years. We weren't like the U.S. or Europe in 2008-2009 where a number of once huge financial equities went down the drain. This is what absolutely destroyed Bill Miller's market beating record. He and his associates went down with it. Before the likes of Nortel and JDS Uniphase we had disappearing acts from a few Canadian stocks that left investors holding the bag. The so called blue chips that come to mind were Seagrams, Laidlaw (non-voting shares), and Royal Trust.
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by Shakespeare »

You have to expect that a blue chip will occasionally change into a brown chip. That was one of the problems with the Nifty Fifty.
Sic transit gloria mundi. Tuesday is usually worse. - Robert A. Heinlein, Starman Jones
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by skepticus »

Hi ltr,

Thanks for the update on the BTSX.ltr. It's an interesting experiment, and I like your strategy of trying to be reasonably diversified. I'd feel more lot more comfortable with your approach, than the straight BTSX.
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by DenisD »

According to the latest issue of CMS, Ross Grant is taking over from David Stanley. David feels, at age 75, it's time to lighten the load.

Ross will be writing most of the future BTSX articles. He has been running a BTSX screen for 13 years. He has 52% of his portfolio invested in the strategy. Another 28% is invested in the Dogs of the Dow and some index ETFs. No mention of bonds or GICs. :wink:

Ross and his wife retired in 2007 when he was 43. He is the author of Destination: Early Financial Independence.
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by like_to_retire »

DenisD wrote:According to the latest issue of CMS, Ross Grant is taking over from David Stanley. David feels, at age 75, it's time to lighten the load.

Ross will be writing most of the future BTSX articles.
I saw that article. I was interested if he would be playing by the same rules as Stanley. He recounted the tweaks that he uses, but didn't say if he would be using those in the new year for the CMS articles.

His tweaks are the same process as Stanleys, but his anniversary date is moved from May to January, and he very specifically removes HSE.TO (Husky Energy) because of its unsteady dividends over the years (HSE has been a perennial member of the BTSX for a long time).

Everyone has their own ideas and tweaks for the BTSX (which obviously I think is fine). :)

ltr
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by nisser »

When you are comparing to "index returns", is it safe to just use the XIU etF as a surrogate?

When I plot XIU against the largest company's on the TSX60 (one from each sector), XIU gets blown out of the water by everyone, by an excessive margin.

On a 10 year timeframe: only MFC underperforms XIU.
On a 5 year timeframe: MFC, POT, CNQ underperfom XIU

I guess it's biased since it looks at current largest (those that have survived and prospered) companies.
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by like_to_retire »

nisser wrote:When you are comparing to "index returns", is it safe to just use the XIU etF as a surrogate?
When you do a graphical compare between XIU-T and TXLX-I (S&P/TSX 60 Index) , they're quite close.

Why not just use the index for your comparisons.

ltr
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by Norbert Schlenker »

Perhaps a little survivorship bias there, as you say. I pulled up a ten year old annual report for XIU, and the largest companies by sector then were:

Magna A
Loblaw
Encana
Royal Bank
Biovail
CN Rail
Nortel
Alcan
BCE
TransCanada Pipe

There are some disappearances among that list, some bought out at nice prices, one gone to zero, Encana had at least one big spinoff, and I'm sure there are more events I've forgotten, so comparison against XIU isn't so simple. At first blush, though, I wouldn't count on a portfolio of just those ten names being truly wonderful.
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by DenisD »

IIRC, someone at the G&M ran a pretend portfolio with the top 2 companies in each sector for a while.
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

DenisD wrote:IIRC, someone at the G&M ran a pretend portfolio with the top 2 companies in each sector for a while.
Rob Carrick, Six reasons you’ll love the Two-Minute Portfolio - The Globe and Mail. Google even turned up a Master's thesis submission that studied it.
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by DenisD »

We make a good team, P_I. :wink:

OTOH, Arnott, in one of his articles on fundamental indexing, showed that the very largest companies underperformed. But this was in the US where there are more to choose from.
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by NormR »

DenisD wrote:We make a good team, P_I. :wink:

OTOH, Arnott, in one of his articles on fundamental indexing, showed that the very largest companies underperformed. But this was in the US where there are more to choose from.
It's still the case in Canada, Rob's method dodged Nortel - barely - due to the dividend requirement (IIRC).
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by nisser »

Norbert Schlenker wrote:Perhaps a little survivorship bias there, as you say. I pulled up a ten year old annual report for XIU, and the largest companies by sector then were:

Magna A
Loblaw
Encana
Royal Bank
Biovail
CN Rail
Nortel
Alcan
BCE
TransCanada Pipe

There are some disappearances among that list, some bought out at nice prices, one gone to zero, Encana had at least one big spinoff, and I'm sure there are more events I've forgotten, so comparison against XIU isn't so simple. At first blush, though, I wouldn't count on a portfolio of just those ten names being truly wonderful.
You are right! If you graph that list on a 10 year time frame

Nortel went to zero
Encana + Loblaw return is negative
Alcan/Biovail are no longer there

Others are above XIU but no as magnificently as in the first bunch. So probably would have done poorer than the index.
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by Taggart »

Nortel paid a dividend on it's common shares up until June 29th, 2001. I should know because I owned it. One reason, why I've learned over time (albeit too slowly) to sell an equity as soon as the company has cut it's dividend. No thinking involved.
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by like_to_retire »

like_to_retire wrote:
DenisD wrote:According to the latest issue of CMS, Ross Grant is taking over from David Stanley. David feels, at age 75, it's time to lighten the load.

Ross will be writing most of the future BTSX articles.
I saw that article. I was interested if he would be playing by the same rules as Stanley. He recounted the tweaks that he uses, but didn't say if he would be using those in the new year for the CMS articles.

His tweaks are the same process as Stanleys, but his anniversary date is moved from May to January, and he very specifically removes HSE.TO (Husky Energy) because of its unsteady dividends over the years (HSE has been a perennial member of the BTSX for a long time).

Everyone has their own ideas and tweaks for the BTSX (which obviously I think is fine). :)

ltr
Interesting to read Ross Grants BTSX article today in the latest Canadian Money Saver. He has taken over from David Stanley, and he has his own set of modifications that he follows for the BTSX.

Quote from the article where Grant says:" I will follow a similar process, with some modifications that I have added. Even with modifications, my returns over the last 14 years have been similar to David's 28 year average".

His modifications are:

1. He passes on any stock that he believes is in a dying industry, has too many problems, or leaves him uncomfortable.
2. He passes on Husky Energy (HSE).
3. He replaces POW with PWF.
4. He passes or sells any stock that reduced or cuts its dividend (read TA) and selects the next stock on the list to replace.
5. His cycle is Jan to Dec.

As expected his returns this year beat the index. His return was 17.9%, versus the S&P TSX60 Index of 12.4%.

I have to admit his rule #4 gives me pause, and I may revisit this as a new rule for my own BTSX that I have followed for several years. I'll have to give it more thought. I remember that FWF member ig17 was pontificating on this very issue some time ago in this thread. I wonder what his resolution was.

ltr
DenisD
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Re: Dogs of the TSE

Post by DenisD »

The first rule leaves me "uncomfortable". :wink: IMHO, it's no longer a stock screen, but stock picking.
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