Under-the-radar dividend plays, top Canadian stock picks and a TSX-beating portfolio: What you need to know in investing this week

Under-the-radar dividend plays, top Canadian stock picks and a TSX-beating portfolio: What you need to know in investing this week

Looking for investing ideas? Here’s your weekly digest of the Globe’s latest insights and analysis from the pros, stock tips, portfolio strategies plus what investors need to know for the week ahead.

Gordon Pape: Eight high-yielding stocks to boost your returns

For income investors, the year winding down was a stressful time, Gordon Pape writes. Real estate investment trust took a vicious hit as investors worried landlords would not be able to collect rents. We also saw dividend cuts in other sectors, particularly oil and gas companies. The banks were ordered by regulators to freeze their payouts.

But many income stocks escaped the carnage, and some even increased their payout despite the pandemic. Here are eight often-overlooked high-yielding stocks, and why they’re worth considering.

Canaccord unveils its top 22 Canadian stock picks for 2021

The Canadian equity research team at Canaccord Genuity has released its outlook for 2021 along with stock recommendations from its analysts, Jennifer Dowty writes. Portfolio strategist and quantitative analyst Martin Roberge laid out a positive outlook for the year ahead, expecting mass COVID-19 vaccinations to lead to acceleration in economic activity by mid-2021. “There should be room for both growth and value sectors in investor portfolios in 2021,” he says. Here are the 22 recommended stocks, grouped by sector – including AutoCanada (consumer discretionary), Absolute Software (technology), Thunderbird Entertainment (media) and Cameco (uranium) – and why.

Read more: ‘The set-up for 2021 is strong’: Desjardins Securities reveals its top TSX stock picks for the new year

A dividend portfolio still beating the market after all these years

Investing in the stock market isn’t rocket science, according to retired university professor David Stanley, Larry MacDonald writes. Ten dividend stocks are all that’s needed, selected according to a simple rule. The “Beating the TSX” (BTSX) method selects the 10 highest-yielding stocks from the S&P/TSX 60 Index at the turn of the year. It also uses equal weights and annual rebalancing. In essence, the BTSX is a variant of the value approach to dividend investing pioneered by Tom Connolly in 1981 with his newsletter, Mr. Stanley says. Read more here.

More from Larry MacDonald: How did the One-Minute Portfolio do in 2020?

Planning a TFSA withdrawal? Don’t wait until 2021

A reader asks: If I take out the entire amount of $72,000 from my tax-free savings account to lend to my son temporarily, can I replace that amount into my TSFA in the next calendar year when he repays me?

John Heinzl responds: The good news is that, when you make a TFSA withdrawal, the entire amount is added back to your contribution room on Jan. 1 of the following year. So, if you were to withdraw $72,000 from your TFSA in 2020, you will get $72,000 of TFSA contribution room restored as of Jan. 1 – plus $6,000 of room for 2021, for a total of $78,000. The amount added to your contribution room from withdrawals in the previous year is not limited by the sum of the annual dollar limits.

Bottom line: Make sure to do the withdrawal in 2020. If you wait until 2021 you won’t get the additional contribution room until Jan. 1 of 2022. Read more here, plus answers to other reader questions.

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Moderna, Air Canada and more investing stars and dogs of 2020

In a year of lockdowns, travel bans and protests, one constant of modern life carried on much as before: Investors could still make a fortune – or lose their shirt – in the stock market. It’s just that the gains and losses were even more dramatic in 2020, John Heinzl and Tim Shufelt write. As horrible as the pandemic was – and still is – for humanity, it was a gift for investors in e-commerce, video streaming and vaccine stocks that soared as the coronavirus spread around the globe. But it was a bust for airlines, cruise ships and movie theatres, which spent much of 2020 on life support. Read more here.

What investors need to know for the week ahead

In the week ahead, Canadian markets will be closed Monday, in lieu of the Boxing Day statutory holiday that landed on Saturday this year, and Friday for New Year’s Day. U.S. markets will also be closed Friday.

Economic data on tap include: U.S. goods trade deficit, wholesale and retail inventories, plus pending home sales for November (Wednesday).

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Published at Sun, 27 Dec 2020 17:35:28 +0000