Right now, indicators suggest a bear market is brewing.

Four things bother me at the same time, and that has not happened in a while. Not one of them is making me sell a share.

*Disclosure: I own National Bank (NA.TO), Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ.TO), Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT). This is education, not advice. Do your own due diligence.

Is a Bear Market Coming?

Four pressures are building at once: stretched valuations, the AI split, climbing long-term bond yields, and tariffs that are about to be felt.

Two of them are ordinary market noise. The other two are not, and one of them makes the first problem worse.

Sign 1: Valuation Has Stopped Making Sense

Canadian banks trade between 17 and 20 times earnings. They have never been priced there before.

You know I do not like talking about valuation. National Bank was overvalued at $100. Greatly overvalued at $125. Crazy expensive at $150. What do you call it past $200?

Part of that is overvaluation. Part of it is a fair rerating, and that is where it gets interesting.

A bank that does mortgages, commercial loans and deposits should not cost more than 13 times earnings. Add asset management, insurance, wealth management and capital markets, and you have a different business with more growth attached. Paying up for that makes sense.

There are also companies trading at 30 times earnings that are not half as solid as a Canadian bank.

So the price makes sense and it makes me uncomfortable at the same time. Both things are true, and that is what bothers me.

I went deeper into this pricing problem earlier this year.

We have a Valuation Problem – May Dividend Income Report

Sign 2: AI Has Split the Market in Two

The market has gone K-shaped. AI winners get bid higher while quality businesses fall 20% to 50% on disruption fears.

On one side, hype. Everyone wants the same short list of names.

On the other side, companies that lost 20, 30, 40, even 50% of their value over one question: what does AI do to them?

In the US, look at Salesforce, Intuit, Oracle and Roper Technologies. In Canada, Stantec, CGI, OpenText and Constellation Software.

Is it true that engineering firms will not make much money from here? I do not believe that. The market is unsure, and that doubt is driving pricing.

This is also why your portfolio may feel broken. The S&P 500 and the TSX are both up double digits this year. Without AI chips or energy, you are not seeing any of it.

One of my best performers this year is Canadian Natural Resources. On a day like this one, part of me wishes I owned more energy. Most days I do not, and that is fine. It is my strategy and I am keeping it.

Sign 3: Long-Term Bond Yields Keep Climbing

Long-term yields are rising because governments keep running deficits. That raises borrowing costs and lowers what investors will pay for a stock.

This is the sign that matters most, and it is the one investors understand least.

What Is Driving Long-Term Bond Yields Up?

Two rates are worth following. The short-term rate is set by central banks, the Bank of Canada here and the Fed south of the border, through the overnight rate. It drives prime and variable rates.

The long-term rate is the 10-year, the 20-year, and the 30-year. It responds to more than the central bank.

Four things move it. Inflation. The expectation that central banks will raise short-term rates. The level of uncertainty in the market. And government deficits.

Deficits matter most on both sides of the border. Canada and the US are both poor at managing a budget. That is not politics. That is dollars for dollars.

Investors have not lost confidence in governments. They want a bigger payback for lending to them.

The bond market is larger than the stock market. That is where the big money sits, so when it moves, everything else feels it.

Why Higher Yields Push Stock Prices Down

Higher government yields raise mortgage rates and corporate borrowing costs. They also raise what investors demand from everything else they could buy.

An investor who can get more from a bond will not pay 30 times earnings for slow growth. He decides 22 times is his price now. Multiples compress.

That is what hit Rollins, Waste Connections and Dollarama. Good businesses. Investors told them to grow faster before paying those prices again.

Here is the part that confuses people. A company reports revenue growth, earnings growth and a dividend increase, and the stock does not move. That is the bond market talking, not the business.

We saw this in 2022. Microsoft was posting double-digit growth across the board and the stock fell anyway. Apple took a hard hit too. Nothing was wrong with either business. Investors wanted more return and would not pay those prices.

Consumers get squeezed from both directions at once. A mortgage renewal at 1% or 2% more, on top of inflation. Oil keeps climbing, so fuel costs more, transportation costs more, and everything else follows.

One piece of perspective, and it cuts both ways. The Canadian 10-year is still below its 2023 peak. The US 10-year is not. It set a new five-year high in mid-September, just above where it topped out in October 2023. It is still not the end of the world.

Sign 4: The Trade War Is About to Be Felt

Tariffs were noise for 18 months. The cost now reaches consumer products, cyclicals, defensives, materials and industrials on both sides of the border.

I thought we were done with this one. I avoid the topic because it has been noise, like a neighbour who keeps cranking his speaker for a year and a half.

We are going to feel this one. Consumer products get hurt on both sides of the border. Consumer cyclicals and defensives too. Materials, and probably industrials.

I am not going into politics. I will stay on the investing side.

Why Two of These Signs Pull Together

Stretched valuations and rising yields compound. The market is priced high while investors demand more return, so multiples have one way left to go.

Valuation and AI are ordinary noise. We see both often enough.

Bonds and tariffs are different, and the bond problem connects straight back to the first sign. The market looks expensive. At the same time, higher yields mean investors want more for their money. Two forces, same direction, and the direction is lower multiples.

That is worth understanding. Not so you can time it. So you are not surprised when a company you own reports a good quarter and the stock does nothing with it.

What Protects a Portfolio Through This?

A diversified portfolio of quality businesses. Companies you understand, that keep growing, and that will still be here in ten years.

Diversification and quality. That is the whole shield.

Quality means a business you understand, one that is not going anywhere, and one that keeps growing even while the share price sits still.

A few corners of the market do well out of rising yields. Life insurers hold large bond portfolios. Higher yields mean short-term pain, because the bonds they already hold lose value, and long-term gains, because the money rolls into better-yielding bonds.

If inflation sticks around, gold will likely play its store-of-value role again. It is odd to watch it fall right now.

Energy is the ironic one. Conflict in Iran has tightened oil supply, oil prices are rising, and that feeds inflation. One of the better protections against inflation is materials and natural resources, including oil and gas. That circle can feed itself.

Am I Making Any Moves?

No. I am 100% invested and 100% in stocks, and I sleep well at night.

This period asks for patience. The narrative is loud right now, so I am reading business models and numbers instead.

These things come and go. A problem in the bond market does not mean five years of suffering.

Volatility also lands differently depending on how close you are to retirement.

Market Volatility at 40 vs. 65: What Changes

I am not making any moves. Whether you make any is your call.

Get the Dividend Income for Life Guide

My Dividend Income for Life guide compares 48 dividend stocks over ten years, high yielders against dividend growers, and shows what each one paid its owner.

Enter your name and email below to get your free copy.

The post 4 Signs of a Bear Market, and Why I Am Still Fully Invested appeared first on The Dividend Guy Blog.

That is $15,000 of income a year against $187,500. Written that way, nobody picks the $15,000.

I pick it. One of those two portfolios is still paying me in twenty years. The other one runs on a distribution nobody has proven can last.

*Disclosure: I own Apple (AAPL), National Bank (NA.TO) and Royal Bank (RY.TO). This is education, not advice. Do your own due diligence.

What Is the Point of a 2% Dividend Yield Portfolio?

A 2% yield from growing businesses beats a 25% distribution that gets cut. You are buying dividend growth and total return, not this year’s income.

Income is the easiest thing to sell a retiree and the hardest thing to deliver for thirty years. There are three places people go looking for it. One of them survives the trip.

Why Retirees Chase Income So Hard

You work for forty years. Every two weeks a paycheck lands in your account, and your whole financial life gets built around that rhythm. The mortgage, the groceries, the trip in February, all of it runs on the deposit schedule.

Then you stop working and the deposits stop.

Wanting that paycheck back is the most normal reaction. Investment firms understood this years ago, and the product shelf shows it. Income funds, covered call products, monthly distributions, big yield numbers printed on the front page.

The want is reasonable. The question is what you hand over to satisfy it.

Can a 25% Yield Survive a Full Market Cycle?

No product has proven it can. Most of them launched into a bull run and have never faced a real drawdown, and a 25% distribution needs a 25% total return behind it.

Start with the track record, because most of these products do not have one. Three years is not a track record. Five years is not one either. A strategy earns your retirement after it goes through a complete market cycle, with a proper drop in the middle, and comes out the other side still paying.

Look at when they arrived. These products flooded the market right before several years of 20% annual returns. Over a stretch like that, a monkey with a dartboard made money. That is not evidence of anything.

Even with that tailwind, plenty of them never raised their distribution. Some cut it.

Now the math, because this is where it breaks. A distribution has to be funded. If the product does not generate 25% in total return, year after year, part of what lands in your account is your own capital coming back to you. Holding a 25% distribution for the next 25 years would mean beating Peter Lynch and Warren Buffett working together, for a quarter of a century. Nobody clears that bar. We do not live in that world.

Before you write to me about the product that has worked for you since 2023, so did everything else.

Paper Income Is Not Income

A reader tells me he earns $187,500 a year on a $755,000 account. Fine. How much of it did he withdraw and spend last year?

If the answer is none, it is not income. It is paper income.

We already accept this idea in the other direction. When a stock doubles and you have not sold, nobody calls that a profit. It is a paper profit. A distribution that never leaves the account deserves the same label.

What About Mature Companies Paying 5% or 6%?

That portfolio worked for decades. It does not work now, because most of the names left yielding 5% and up share one flaw: weak revenue growth and a dividend going nowhere.

This is dividend investing the classic way. Buy blue chips paying 4%, 5%, 6%, collect the checks, sleep well. It worked, and I am not going to pretend it did not.

The market has run so far that the list has thinned out. The high yielders still standing are, for the most part, the businesses that did not participate. There are exceptions. You do not build a retirement plan on a handful of exceptions.

Run the survivors through the dividend triangle and the same picture keeps showing up.

Revenue growth is struggling. The company is not winning new customers and not selling more to the ones it already has. When sales don’t grow, profit is even harder, because inflation keeps pushing expenses up. Flat revenue against rising costs is a margin story with one ending.

So the dividend gets maintained. Maintained until it gets cut, or maintained for a decade while inflation eats what it buys. That is how a retiree goes from filet mignon to Kraft Dinner. I tried serving Kraft Dinner to my kids. They were not impressed. I loved the stuff when I was their age. I prefer the filet now.

Would you fill a retirement portfolio with companies with no growth ahead, thin profits, and a dividend that hasn’t moved in three years? It pays you today, and it bites you later. The point of retiring is that going back to work becomes a choice, not a bill you have to cover.

Why Do Quality Dividend Stocks Yield So Little Now?

Because everybody wants to own them. A business growing its revenue, its profit and its dividend attracts buyers; the price climbs, and the yield falls. The low yield is the receipt.

Investors read that as a warning. I read it as confirmation.

Think about what happens to a thriving company. It grows sales. It grows profit. It raises the dividend every year. Investors notice and they buy it. The stock price goes up and the yield goes down. The yield went down because the business delivered.

Canadian banks are the clearest example I know. They anchored income portfolios in this country for two decades. Most of them now yield under 3%. National Bank and Royal Bank belong in the low-yield, high-dividend-growth category today, and shareholders who held them through that move did fine.

The yield fell. The dividend never did.

Does Yield on Cost Fix the Problem?

It does not. Yield on cost measures a purchase you made years ago. You retire on what the account is worth today, so the yield that counts is the one on today’s value.

This is the objection I get every time. Mike, the portfolio shows 2%, but my yield on cost is 8%.

I know. Mine is too.

I bought Apple in my RRSP back in 2013 or 2014. My average cost is around $13 a share. At that cost, Apple pays me close to 8% today. By that measure, I hold a high-yield stock called Apple.

Then look at the position itself. The $1,400 I put into it back then is worth about $32,000 now.

So which would I rather own? The $1,400 throwing off 8% on cost, or the $32,000 it became? I will take the $32,000. If you prefer the $1,400 and the bigger percentage, it is yours.

Yield on cost feels good. It tells you the purchase worked, and that matters. It does not pay for anything.

When you retire with $750,000, you retire with $750,000. Not with the $200,000 you invested fifteen or twenty years ago. The yield that funds your retirement is the one calculated on today’s account value.

What the Dividend Triangle Looks For

Revenue growth, earnings growth and dividend growth over five years, plus cash flow growth and debt under control. The screen works on a 0.7% yielder the same way it works on a 5% one.

A company that clears all of those is thriving. It sells more, keeps more, and shares more with its owners. Whatever yield it pays today tells me about its price, not its quality.

That is why the starting yield never enters the screen. Direction does. A business paying 1.8% and raising the dividend 12% a year is telling me more about the next decade than a business paying 7% with a frozen payment.

The triangle is not perfect. There are exceptions and I have owned a few of them. It still beats buying the biggest number on the screen and hoping the distribution holds.

You can read more about how I put this to work below.

Dividend Investing: Yield Agnostic Investors Will Win

Get the Dividend Income for Life Guide

My Dividend Income for Life guide compares 48 dividend stocks over ten years, high yielders against dividend growers, and shows what each one paid its owner.

Enter your name and email below to get your free copy.

The post Why a 2% Dividend Yield Portfolio Beats a 25% One appeared first on The Dividend Guy Blog.

In 2016, I made a life-changing decision: I took a sabbatical, put my family in a small RV, and we drove all the way to Costa Rica.

Upon my return in 2017, I officially quit my job as a private banker at National Bank and started working full-time on my baby: Dividend Stocks Rock. I also decided to manage my pension account held at the National Bank. I’ve built and managed this portfolio publicly since 2017 to create and track a real-life case study.

In August 2017, I received $108,760.02 in a locked retirement account. Locked means I can’t add capital to the account, and growth is only generated through capital gains and dividends. I don’t report this portfolio’s results to brag about my returns or to suggest you follow my lead. My purpose has been solely to share with our members how I manage my portfolio with all the good and the bad that inevitably takes place each month. I hope you have learned and will continue to learn from my experiences managing this portfolio.

My Lira 9 Years Later

9 years ago, I made two big decisions:

• I quit my private banker job without a safety net to work full-time on DSR.
• I took the value of my pension plan and invested it all in an all-time high market.

Looking back, both were exceptionally great financial decisions.

But first, the results!

Performance in Review

Let’s start with the numbers as of September 4th, 2026 (before the bell):

Original amount invested in September 2017 (no additional capital added): $108,760.02.

• Current portfolio value: $339,595
• Dividends paid: $5,442.55 (TTM)
• Average yield: 1.60%
• 2025 performance: +7.34%
• VFV.TO= +12.18%, XIU.TO = +28.88%
• Dividend growth: +1.5%

Total return since inception (Sep 2017- Sep 2026): +212.24%

Annualized return (107 months): 13.62%      

Benchmark: 15.12%

Out(under)performance: -1.50%

Vanguard S&P 500 Index ETF (VFV.TO) annualized return (since Sept 2017): 16.51% (total return 290.70%)

iShares S&P/TSX 60 ETF (XIU.TO) annualized return (since Sept 2017): 13.74% (total return 215.20%)

I remember the Bank offered me such a small pension that keeping my pension plan with them was a no-brainer, so transferring the money into a LIRA was the right move.

You must always run the calculations to compare the pension vs. the LIRA option.

In my case, I had to generate about a 3% return annually to reach the pension they secured at 65. In only 9 years, I could leave my LIRA in a money market fund for the next 20 years and I would still be ahead of that pension!

This highlights how important it is to stick to a strategy and forget about “where are we in the market cycle”. Technically, 2017 was close to the end of a bull market. All indicators pointed to a bear market.

And the bear market happened in 2018

I only had my money invested a few months before the 2018 bear market hit in July of 2018. The strange thing about a bear market is that you don’t know you are in it right away. At first, you have a bad month. It’s summer, volumes are low, it’s probably just a small dip. Then the bad month turns into a bad quarter and eventually, the bear market materializes after reaching a drop of 20% from the top of that market cycle.

Even if 2017 was the end of the bull market, even if I invested at an all-time high, even if 2018 was a bear market, at no point did my LIRA go under its original amount.

Therefore, the best time to invest my money was… “today”.

Here is a video on 4 factors that could lead us to a bear market:

Fast forward to today

For over 7 years, I beat my benchmark (50% US and 50% Canadian market). But it’s been about a year that I’m underperforming.

See Mike, your strategy is not bulletproof!

Wait… underperforming doesn’t mean poor returns. In fact, chasing returns and trying to beat the market every year is a fool’s game. It may lead to taking unnecessary risks that you may regret.

But Mike, you would have been better off investing in indexes

Ah! Good old hindsight, right? As I mentioned, if I had paused my investment strategy each year to determine what works best. I would have kept dividend growth investing 8 of the past 9 years.

But I would have doubted each year to know which strategy is best.

The reason why I pick stocks is not to beat the market. It’s to increase my level of conviction.

1. I know exactly what I have in my portfolio.
2. I know why it goes up, why it goes down.
3. I’m the only one deciding when to buy and when to sell.
4. At retirement, I can create the income I need, not the income a firm wants to pay me.

Dividend Growth Investing works long-term, but fails to impress

I’ve been investing for 23 years now. One thing I notice is that my first years of investing were a lot more impressive and even got me two interviews (in the Globe & Mail and in Canadian Business).

However, I sleep better and show more consistent results since I switched to dividend growth investing in 2010. 16 years in the same strategy, I’ve gone through all kind of markets without having to be worried one bit about my stocks. That’s priceless!

I’ve made mistakes, but my good moves more than made up for them. That’s the beauty of investing: you don’t need to play for 1,000. If you have a good average, your portfolio will do well.

The biggest mistake is to switch strategy every 4-5 years based on what works now.

WARNING: HIGHER BOND RATES

There are lots of dark clouds over our heads right now. As the tariff war has more plot twists than a crime and heist book, I’ll let this one sit on the bench for this issue.

Anyway, there is a bigger storm forming in the bond market!

The year is not over yet, and I can already tell you that higher bond rates have a pretty good chance of being at the top of my investment themes for 2027.

Bonds are going higher for many reasons these days: wars, tariffs, government deficits, higher inflation and uncertainty in general. In other words: investors want to be compensated for a long list of current risks.

Long-term bond yields have moved higher creating a more normal upward-sloping curve. But “normal” doesn’t necessarily mean harmless.

The bigger issue today is that long-term borrowing costs are rising even while central banks may be considering, or already delivering, lower short-term rates.

That matters for investors.

Long-term bond yields are influenced by several forces: expectations for future central bank rates, inflation, economic growth, government borrowing, and what is called the “term premium.” The term premium is simply the extra return investors demand for locking up their money for 10, 20, or 30 years.

If investors become worried about inflation, government deficits, or massive amounts of new debt being issued, they may demand higher yields. Bond prices then fall, and yields rise.

Government bonds are the foundation of asset valuation

If a 10-year government bond yields 2%, investors are more willing to accept a 4% dividend yield from a utility, telecom, or REIT. But if government bonds suddenly yield 4% or 5%, those same stocks need to offer more attractive returns to compensate investors for taking additional risk.

That often means lower stock valuations

REITs, utilities, telecoms, and highly leveraged companies are particularly sensitive because they are hit twice. First, investors demand higher yields from their shares. Second, their own borrowing costs increase as debt matures and must be refinanced.

High-growth stocks are also vulnerable. Their valuations depend heavily on profits expected many years into the future. Higher discount rates reduce the present value of those future earnings, which can compress P/E ratios even when the underlying business continues to grow.

Banks are more complicated.

A steeper yield curve can help bank net interest margins because banks generally borrow at shorter maturities and lend at longer ones. However, if long-term rates rise too quickly, mortgage demand slows, corporate borrowing weakens, and credit losses can eventually increase.

Canada may be particularly sensitive because mortgages typically renew every few years. Even if the Bank of Canada lowers its overnight rate, fixed mortgage rates can remain elevated if Government of Canada bond yields stay high. So, the mortgage crisis might have been postponed from 2026 to the next few years.

The most important question isn’t simply whether bond yields are rising; it’s why

If yields rise because economic growth and productivity are strong, markets can usually handle it.

If yields rise because investors worry about persistent inflation, government deficits, excessive debt issuance, or fiscal credibility, that is a much tougher environment.

For dividend investors, the message is not to panic over every movement in the bond market. Instead, pay closer attention to debt levels, refinancing schedules, interest coverage, free cash flow, and valuation.

Higher long-term yields will put pressure on the cost of capital.

Higher government bond yields –> higher mortgage/corporate borrowing costs –> lower asset valuations –> slower investment/consumption –> eventually slower economic growth.

Your best shield

If one industry could benefit from higher bond rates, it’s life insurance companies. However, it’s not that simple since most of them now participate in wealth management. So, while their insurance portfolio will do well, their assets under management may take a hit if the market goes into bear mode.

Once again, your best bet is not to move all your money into one direction, but rather to double-check all your holdings to ensure you have robust companies with healthy balance sheets.

The DSR stock cards and ratings should help you focus on weaker positions in your portfolio.

At the end of this year, I will conduct a thorough portfolio review to make sure I’m still on the right path. You should do so too.

Smith Manoeuvre Update

The portfolio shows 13 companies spread across 7 sectors. My goal is to build a portfolio of thriving companies with a solid dividend triangle (e.g. with positive revenue, EPS and dividend growth trends). The current portfolio yield is at 1.76% with a 5-year CAGR dividend growth rate of 11.74%.

• The portfolio value is now at $42,282.17
• The portfolio debt is at $31,000.
• Interest paid since April 2022: $2,765.13
• Monthly contribution is set at $1,000/month.
• The annual income is $742.75, and the projected income is $829.95.
• To report my Smith Manoeuvre, I export the Excel data from my DSR PRO dashboard.

The portfolio is on its way towards generating an extra $1,000 per year in dividends. I’m not there yet, but it will happen in the first months of 2027! By then, my portfolio will be close to $50,000! That will be exciting to see a 13^th influx of $1,000 to boost the portfolio further!

Smith Manoeuvre Portfolio Summary

Here’s my SM portfolio summary as of September 4^th, 2026 (before the bell):

Bought more Stantec

As Stantec is going down, I will keep adding shares until I reach a full position. Ironically, it’s hard to reach a 3% weight when a stock is continuously losing steam! (But better watch it once it recovers)

Therefore, I’m filling up the truck with all the liquidity I have. STN’s dividend triangle remains incredibly strong for a stock losing a third of its value in the past 12 months!

Again, it’s all about focusing on the long-term!

Pension Portfolio Summary

Here’s my pension plan portfolio summary as of September 4^th, 2026 (before the bell):

Total value: $339,595.12 (-$12,424.88, -3.5% from July).

Automatic Data Processing

Automatic Data Processing reported Q4 FY2026 adjusted EPS of $2.64, up 17%, on revenue of $5.47B, up 7%. For the full fiscal year, revenue reached $21.95B (+7%) and adjusted EPS hit $11.12 (+11%), both at the high end of guidance. New business bookings set a record at $2.2B, led by AI-powered HR and payroll tools. Employer Services grew 7% while PEO held steady. Management guided FY2027 for 5-6% revenue growth and 9-11% adjusted EPS growth. AI tools including ADP Lyric and ADP Assist are compressing client workflows and supporting margin expansion

Alimentation Couche-Tard

Couche-Tard reported a good quarter with revenue up 25% and adjusted EPS up 15%. Unfortunately, most of the revenue growth came from higher fuel sales (we know why!). Fuel revenue jumped 33% (volume was down, but prices were up!), while merchandise was only up by 4.1%. Same-store merchandise sales were up modestly (U.S. +1.7%, Europe +1.2% and flat in Canada). Couche-Tard reduced its merchandise margin (promotions) to stimulate sales. A big part of EPS growth is also coming from “monster” fuel margins (+19.6% in the U.S., +18.2% in Canada). Earnings were also supported by a modest increase in expenses (2.7%, below inflation) and share buybacks (about 3% vs. last year).

Here is more on Couche Tard ATD quarterly earnings:

Broadcom

Broadcom reported a record quarter with revenue up 86% and adjusted EPS up 96%. Results were driven by custom AI accelerators and AI networking. Semiconductor solutions revenue was $20.8B (+127%) as AI semiconductor revenue surged 221% to $16.7B, now 56% of total, while non-AI chips grew 5% to $4.2B. Infrastructure software was $8.8B (+29%). Gross margin slipped to 75% on the AI mix, but operating margin hit a record 67.9%. Management guided Q4 revenue to $34.8B (+93%) with AI revenue of $21.7B and expects AI revenue of $58B in fiscal 2026, $115B in fiscal 2027 and $230B in fiscal 2028. The stock fell 6% as Q4 guidance landed a touch below what the market wanted to hear.

Brookfield Renewable

Brookfield Renewable reported a strong quarter with record FFO of $421M and FFO per unit up 11%. Revenue came in at $1,710M, up from the prior year period driven by strong operating performance, asset recycling gains, and growth from new development. FFO per unit reached $0.62, reflecting the highest quarterly FFO in the company’s history. Management also announced a proposed corporate simplification plan to merge BEP and BEPC under a single corporate share class, alongside the acquisition of Aypa Power, the leading North American battery storage platform.

Brookfield Corporation

Brookfield Corp reported a strong quarter with distributable earnings per share of $0.61, up 15%. Revenue reached $19.41B. The company raised $98 billion in capital, deployed $100 billion into opportunities, and monetized $40 billion of assets. Asset recycling and capital deployment remain the core operating rhythm. The pending merger with Brookfield Asset Management will deepen the permanent capital base. BN repurchased shares at a meaningful discount to intrinsic value. The overall Brookfield platform continues to scale with strong fundraising momentum across real estate, infrastructure, and private equity.

CCL Industries

CCL Industries reported record Q2 2026 results despite ongoing geopolitical headwinds from the Middle East conflict. Revenue reached $2,110M USD, up 9% from the prior year, with organic growth of 5.0%, acquisition-related growth of 1.8% and a 2.3% positive impact from foreign currency translation. Results were supported by the strength in the CCL and Innovia segments only partially offset by a decline at Checkpoint. Adjusted EPS came in at $1.35 per Class B share, up 11% and a new quarterly record. Management attributed the performance to disciplined execution across most segments despite inflationary cost pressures.

Fortis Inc.

Fortis reported a solid quarter with revenue up modestly and adjusted EPS up 3%. The company posted earnings per share of $0.78, compared to $0.76 in Q2 2025, supported by steady performance across its regulated utilities as they execute the 2026 capital plan. Revenue came in at $2.93B, reflecting growth from its rate base expansion. Fortis remains on track with its $28.8B five-year capital plan, targeting a mid-year rate base of $57.9B by 2030. The Tilbury Phase 1B LNG expansion in British Columbia was approved during the quarter, adding incremental capital opportunity. Management reaffirmed 4-6% Annual dividend growth guidance through 2030.

Granite REIT

Granite REIT reported a strong quarter with revenue up 10.6% to $165.1M and FFO per unit up 12.2% to $1.56. Same-property NOI grew 8.3% on a constant-currency cash basis, with in-place occupancy of 98.0% across 139 properties in seven countries. Logistics and industrial demand across North America and Europe remained firm with committed occupancy at 98.1%. AFFO per unit rose 2.4% to $1.26. The trust reaffirmed its 2026 AFFO per unit guidance of $5.40 to $5.55 implying 4% to 7% growth over 2025. The monthly distribution of $0.2958 per unit reflects the 4.4% increase from late 2025. Granite’s low payout ratio and diversified tenant base keeps the distribution well covered.

The Home Depot

Home Depot reported a strong quarter with revenue up 5.7% and adjusted EPS up 5.1%. Results were driven by demand for smaller projects, SRS and GMS, and $685M of tariff refunds. Comparable sales rose 1.7% (U.S. up 1.3%), the best comp since fiscal Q3 2022, with average tickets up 2.8% and transactions down 0.8%. Comps improved each month, Pro outperformed DIY, SRS comped above the company average, and digital sales grew 11%. Gross margin rose to 33.7% while operating margin slipped to 14.3%. Management reaffirmed fiscal 2026 guidance (sales up 2.5% to 4.5%, adjusted EPS flat to up 4%) and said housing turnover sits at record lows with no inflection in sight.

LeMaitre Vascular

LeMaitre Vascular reported a strong quarter with revenue up 10% and adjusted EPS up 23%. Sales reached $70.4M, driven by record performance across grafts (+23%), carotid shunts (+18%), and patches (+4%). The Artegraft international rollout continues to gain traction, now approved in 56 countries and representing 21% of total sales. EBITDA margins expanded on solid operating discipline. Management raised full-year guidance. The 25% dividend hike declared earlier this year shows confidence in the business model, and the balance sheet remains strong. LMAT is executing on its acquisition-led growth strategy while delivering record results across geographies.

Microsoft

Microsoft reported a strong Q4 FY2026, with revenue of $90.0B, 18% increase year over year, beating estimates by more than on-GAAP EPSAAP EPS of $4.74 rose 23%, well ahead of the $4.24 consensus. Azure crossed $100B in annual revenue for the first time, with Azure growth accelerating to 43%. Microsoft Cloud revenue reached $59.3B, up 27%. Intelligent Cloud revenue was $39.3B (+32%) and Productivity and Business Processes was $37.8B (+14%). Commercial remaining performance obligations surged 84% to $678B. Operating income rose 18% to $40.6B and net income grew 31% to $35.8B.

National Bank

National Bank reported a strong quarter with revenue up 18% and EPS up 26%. P&C net income was up 14%, driven by very strong loan growth, improving deposit margins and strong mutual-fund growth. Personal lending overall increased about 13% YoY. Organic commercial loan growth was 10%. Wealth Management was up 21% on higher revenue and fees. Capital Markets were up 32%, bolstered by Global Markets at +57% and equity structured-product origination. U.S. and Intl were the weak segments at +3% with higher PCLs slowing down growth. Global provisions for credit losses increased from $203M to $246M (+21%).

Royal Bank

Ironically, Royal Bank reported a weak quarter compared to the other Big Six with revenue up 10% and EPS up 11%. Results were partially offset by personal banking (-1%) as higher provisions for credit losses ruined the party. Total PCLs were up 14% to $1B this quarter. On a better note, commercial banking was up 12% on strong deposits (+9%) and loans (+4%). Wealth was up 32% on record revenues and higher AUM ($1.70T, +13%). Capital markets were up 16% on strong global markets and higher equities trading. Insurance was down 20% on lower Insurance Investment.

Stella-Jones

Stella-Jones reported a mixed quarter with revenue up 1% and adjusted EPS down 17%, as utility pole strength offset softer residential lumber and lower log volumes. EBITDA margin declined to 16% from 18.3%, impacted by site-specific environmental costs, higher fuel, and temporary inefficiencies tied to a steel-structure capacity expansion. Management expects second-half margins to recover as these headwinds ease. Cash generation was strong at $192M which was used to reduce net debt by over $100M in the first half. The quarterly dividend of $0.34 was maintained and Stella-Jones has grown its payout for 21 consecutive years.

Toromont Industries

Toromont Industries reported a strong quarter, with revenue of C$1.60B up 16% year over year. They reported basic EPS came in at C$1.53, flat versus Q2 2025, due to C$54.3M in purchase commitment expenses tied to increasing its AVL Manufacturing ownership from 60% to 80%. Adjusted EPS excluding those costs was C$2.20, up 42%. Operating income rose 41% to C$242.5M. The backlog reached a record C$2.9B, up from C$1.4B a year ago, driven by power systems and mining orders. AVL contributed C$170.6M in Q2 revenue.

Visa

Visa reported a strong fiscal Q3 2026, with net revenue of $11.6B which was up 14% year over year. Adjusted EPS of $3.32 rose 11%. Payments volume crossed $4 trillion for the first time and was up 10% on a constant-dollar basis. Total processed transactions reached 71.7B which was up 10%. Cross-border volume (ex-Europe) grew 12% in constant dollars. Data processing revenue rose 17% to $6.0B. Visa returned $6.2B to shareholders through buybacks and dividends, repurchasing 14.5M shares at a $330.71 per share average price.

Waste Connections

Waste Connections reported a strong quarter with revenue up 6.4% to $2.56B and adjusted EPS of $1.50, both beating analyst estimates. Solid waste organic growth was 6.7%, driven by core pricing of 5.6% plus fuel surcharges. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 70 bps to 32.8% despite fuel cost headwinds and lower commodity values. Management raised full-year guidance to revenue of $10.02-10.05B and adjusted EBITDA of $3.33-3.34B. Acquisitions with over $100M in annualized revenue were completed in the half.

My Entire Portfolio Updated for Q2 2026

Each quarter we run an exclusive report for Dividend Stocks Rock (DSR) members who subscribe to our very special additional service called DSR PRO. The PRO report includes a summary of each company’s earnings report for the period. We have been doing this for an entire year now and I wanted to share my own DSR PRO report for this portfolio. You can download the full PDF showing all the information about all my holdings. Results have been updated as of July 2^nd, 2026. The next quarterly report will be available in October.

Download my portfolio Q2 2026 report.

Dividend Income: $351.16 (-13.62% VS. August 2025)

The dividend is smaller this month because, last year, I sold my positions in Apple and Starbucks. All holdings increased their payments on the Canadian side.

Since I started this portfolio in September 2017, I have received a total of $37,864.26 CAD in dividends.  Keep in mind that this is a “pure dividend growth portfolio” as no capital can be added to this account other than retained and/or reinvested dividends. Therefore, all dividend growth is coming from the stocks and not from any additional capital being added to the account.

Final Thoughts

I started taking notes on what to look at for my year-end review. I’ll share my process in a workshop in December or early in January. The current economic situation calls for a good review that goes beyond current numbers.

I think it makes sense to position our portfolios to protect ourselves against a potential bear market and thrive once we get past the storm.

Cheers,

Mike.

The post Pension to LIRA: 9 Years of Real Returns, No New Money – Dividend Income Report appeared first on The Dividend Guy Blog.

That is not my line. It belongs to Todd Wenning, a dividend investor who spent years making the case for dividend growth stocks. He published it on Flyover Stocks. The Globe and Mail picked it up. A reader named Kevin sent it to me.

I read it twice. Then I did something you might not expect from a guy who has been following a dividend growth investing strategy since 2010.

I agreed with most of it.

Not all of it. But most of it.

Here is what died, what survived, and how I run a dividend portfolio in a market where the old playbook stopped working.

*Disclosure: I own Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL), Broadcom (AVGO) and Costco (COST). This is education, not advice. Do your own due diligence.

Is Dividend Investing Dead?

No. What died is the 3% to 4% starting yield paired with 6% to 7% growth. The dividend metrics still work as a screen for business quality, and dividend growers still exist.

That distinction matters, so let me walk through what changed and what did not.

Why the Dividend Playbook Worked in the First Place

Wenning’s original case rested on five ideas. They line up with the rules I teach at Dividend Stocks Rock.

Dividends come from cash flow, not accounting. A company can dress up earnings. It cannot dress up a wire transfer to your brokerage account. When a business raises its payment year after year, cash flow is growing behind it. If not, the board made a foolish decision that will surface within a few quarters.

A rising dividend signals confidence. Management is telling you they expect more cash next year than this year. That is a forecast with money attached to it.

Dividend growth points to a competitive advantage. A company that generates more cash than it needs to defend its position owns something the competition does not.

A dividend proves the board thinks about shareholders. Value gets converted into dollars that land in your account.

A dividend shrinks management’s sandbox. This is the one investors skip. Cash committed to shareholders is cash that cannot fund a bad acquisition. Capital allocation gets sharper when the budget gets smaller. That is the theory. It does not always play out. The incentive is real.

His target back then was a diversified portfolio yielding 3% to 4%, with cash flow per share growing 6% to 7% a year.

A paycheck today, and a raise that beat inflation.

Why That Portfolio No Longer Exists

A 3% to 4% yield paired with 6% to 7% cash flow growth has become rare. There are not enough of those companies left to fill a diversified portfolio.

Try to build it today. You will find a handful of names. Not forty.

Canadian banks used to fit the bill. For two decades they anchored every income portfolio in this country. Most of them now yield under 3%. The math that made them the automatic choice no longer works the same way.

Wenning points to three shifts. He is right on all three.

The Classic Staples Are Under Attack

Coca-Cola. Colgate-Palmolive. J.M. Smucker. Clorox. These were the Dividend Aristocrats you bought and forgot about.

They now compete against private label brands, influencer-driven upstarts and a shopper who reads labels. Add GLP-1 drugs reshaping how people eat, and the volume growth these businesses counted on gets harder to find.

Many of them pay out more than 75% of earnings. That leaves little room to reinvest, adapt or acquire their way out of the problem. Diageo cut its dividend in 2026. Ten years ago, nobody modeled that.

Boards Would Rather Buy Back Stock

Since the SEC cleared the path in 1982, buybacks have taken share from dividends. They are flexible. They are tax efficient in a taxable account. And the average new board member is 59 years old, which means these directors built their careers in the buyback era.

I have no problem with buybacks. A company that repurchases shares at a fair price and retires them creates value. Paired with a growing dividend, it is a strong package.

The problem is reliability. A buyback gets announced, then it speeds up, slows down or skips a quarter. Nobody holds a press conference to explain why. Worse, plenty of boards buy at the top and destroy value on the way down.

A dividend increase is a public promise with a track record attached. That is why I still prefer it.

The Index Got Younger

The average age of an S&P 500 company fell from 57 years to 15. Campbell’s, Newell Brands, Macy’s, Xerox and Harley-Davidson all left the index. Those companies were founded in 1869, 1903, 1858, 1906 and 1903.

The businesses replacing them are younger, faster and hungry for capital. They pay their people in stock, not their owners in dividends.

Where I Part Ways With Todd Wenning

The 3% to 4% yield model is dead. Dividend growth investing is not. Some of the best dividend growers today sit in the sectors blamed for killing the strategy.

Read his article again and you find the counterargument inside it.

He names GLP-1 drugs as a threat to staples. Who sells those drugs? Eli Lilly. A company with a strong dividend triangle and a long record of increases.

Costco appears in the story about the pressure on the old Staples. Costco is one of my holdings. It is one of the better dividend growers I own. Its yield sits well under his 3% floor.

He points to technology absorbing all the capital. Technology is one of the largest sectors in my portfolio. Broadcom. Alphabet. Apple. Microsoft. Small yields. Strong balance sheets. Dividend increases year after year after year.

His diagnosis is accurate. The conclusion drawn from it is too narrow.

What died is a yield target. What survived is the signal.

How I Invest Now: Yield Agnostic

I ignore the yield and read the dividend metrics as clues about business quality. Dividend trend, current yield against the 5-year average, payout ratio, dividend triangle.

I started this in 2010. Sixteen years later I run the same process.

I do not care about the yield. I care about what the dividend tells me. 

Here is the checklist.

1. The dividend growth trend. Is the payment rising every year? For how long? Did the growth rate slow down? A company that goes from 8% raises to 2% raises is telling you something about its cash flow before the income statement does.
2. The current yield against the 5-year average yield. A yield above the historical average can flag a discount. A yield under it can flag a stretched price. That is a valuation clue you get for free.
3. The payout ratios. Both the earnings payout and the cash payout. A rising payout ratio with flat cash flow is a warning sign. That is how a dividend cut gets built.
4. The dividend triangle. Revenue growth, earnings growth, dividend growth. All three pointing up over five years. This screen works on a 0.6% yielder the same way it works on a 5% yielder.

Notice what is missing from that list. A minimum yield.

Dividend Investing: Yield Agnostic Investors Will Win

That is the change. A company paying 0.8% and raising the dividend 15% a year tells me more about its future than a company paying 6% with a frozen payment for three years.

Companies that pay no dividend at all give me none of these metrics. That is not a rule against owning them. It is the reason my process starts with dividend payers.

How Do You Retire on a Portfolio Yielding 1.5%?

You build your own dividend. Treat the portfolio as a holding company and pay yourself a distribution funded by dividends, interest, fund distributions and capital gains. You set the income, not the boards of the companies you own.

This is the objection I get every week, and a reader named Edward sent me a version of it.

Fair question. The answer starts by dropping an assumption most dividend investors carry without examining it. The assumption is that retirement income must arrive as a dividend payment.

It does not.

Think of your portfolio as a holding company. You are the CEO. Your job is to pay yourself a distribution. That payment can come from dividends, interest, fund distributions and capital gains. You decide the mix.

This puts you in control of two things at once. You control which businesses you own, because you are no longer forced into high-yield names to hit an income number. And you control your income, because you set the amount instead of waiting for a board to set it for you.

The dividend still matters. It funds part of the payment and it confirms the business is healthy. It stops being the only source of your paycheck.

I own technology companies yielding 0.7% next to companies paying 5%. The portfolio pays me what I decide it pays me.

Dividend Income for Life: What and When to Buy in an Overvalued Market?

Reading a framework is one thing. Watching someone run it against a market at an all-time high is another.

On Thursday, September 17 at 1 PM ET, I am hosting a free webinar: Dividend Income for Life.

I cover why traditional dividend investing is failing investors, how yield traps set up the cuts that follow, and the method that puts quality ahead of yield. Then, how to build a retirement paycheck from your own portfolio, including the withdrawal order and the cash reserve, with a full retirement portfolio example built for income that lasts.

About 50 minutes, then I stay for an open Q&A and answer questions live.

Registration is free, and everyone who signs up gets the replay.

SAVE YOUR SPOT NOW

The post Is Dividend Investing Dead? What Died and What Didn’t appeared first on The Dividend Guy Blog.

Now open Power Corporation’s second quarter and look for the Wealthsimple line.

You will find Great-West Lifeco at $871 million. You will find IGM Financial at $211 million. You will find Sagard at $33 million. You will not find Wealthsimple.

That gap between the story and the statement is the whole article.

Here is the short version. Wealthsimple is a real success and the growth is not in question. It is also a business whose profits never reach Power Corporation’s income statement, for a reason most shareholders have never been told.

I am a client, by the way. They dangled a transfer bonus in front of me and I took it, same as a lot of you did.

*Disclosure: I am a Wealthsimple client. I own National Bank (NA.TO) and Royal Bank (RY.TO). I do not own Power Corporation (POW.TO) or IGM Financial (IGM.TO). This is education, not advice. Do your own due diligence.*

Here is the full breakdown on video if you would rather watch it than read it.

How Big Is Wealthsimple Compared to the Banks?

$155.6 billion in assets under administration puts Wealthsimple in the top three or four brokerages in Canada. Questrade holds about $50 billion. TD and RBC sit somewhere near $200 billion to $250 billion.

Those numbers took work to assemble. Wealthsimple is private, so it discloses what it wants to disclose. The banks are public and disclose plenty, but not this. They report wealth. They report investments. Not one of them breaks out what sits inside RBC Direct Investing, Investor’s Edge, BMO InvestorLine or National Bank Direct Brokerage on its own.

I searched. I read financial statements. I used AI to help me dig. The cleanest comparison I found was Questrade, which is not a bank but is a direct competitor, and it has declared roughly $50 billion.

So Wealthsimple is three times the size of Questrade. TD is likely the largest platform in the country with Royal Bank close behind, and my estimate puts each of them in the $200 billion to $250 billion range.

Let me be clear about something before I take this apart. The success is real. Close to one in four Canadians between 18 and 40 uses at least one Wealthsimple product. J.D. Power has ranked it the top brokerage in the country for customer satisfaction three years running. The product is good and I use it.

Top three or four in Canada, from a standing start in 2014. I am not going to pretend that is not impressive.

Then you ask the second question, and everything changes.

What Is the Difference Between Assets Under Administration and Assets Under Management?

Assets under management means the firm charges a fee to manage the money. Assets under administration means the firm holds the money for you. Same dollars on the page, different revenue behind them.

This distinction gets skipped in almost every headline written about Wealthsimple, and it does more damage than any other error in this story.

A dollar under management pays the firm every year, whether the client does anything or not. Think of the 1% management fee your advisor charges. That is a subscription with your name on it.

A dollar under administration pays the firm when the client does something. A trade, a currency conversion, a margin loan, a subscription. If the client buys three ETFs and goes quiet for a decade, that dollar generates close to nothing.

Wealthsimple’s $155.6 billion is mostly the second kind.

Hold that thought while we look at where the money comes from.

How Does Wealthsimple Make Money?

Four sources. Management fees on the managed portfolios, paid subscriptions, foreign exchange fees on currency conversion, and net interest margin on cash balances and margin lending.

Let me take them one at a time.

Management fees. Wealthsimple runs a robo advisor, and that piece behaves like traditional asset management. Recurring, predictable, tied to the asset base. This is the good stuff, and it is a slice of the total, not the whole thing.

Subscriptions. Tiered plans that unlock features and better rates. Small per client, meaningful across 3.6 million of them.

Foreign exchange. Every time a Canadian buys a US stock, dollars get converted. That conversion carries a fee.

Net interest margin. The spread between what Wealthsimple pays you on your cash and what it earns on that cash, plus the interest charged on margin loans.

Look at that list and ask which of those four you feed.

If you hold Canadian dividend stocks in a Wealthsimple account, do not trade often, do not use margin, do not carry a big cash balance and do not convert currency, you are a client who costs money to serve and pays close to nothing. Trading is free. The account is free.

I know this pattern well. I worked in a bank for more than ten years and I had clients exactly like that. Big portfolios, quiet accounts, no options, no margin, no active trading. Lovely people. Terrible revenue.

Now multiply that across millions of accounts.

The one thing worth flagging is that this is changing. Wealthsimple’s own second quarter release credits chequing and spending products for the flows. Chequing balances and credit cards feed net interest margin and interchange, which are better revenue lines than a buy and hold brokerage account. The mix is improving. It is still not a 1% management fee.

What Does Wealthsimple Earn on $155 Billion?

My estimate is $1 billion to $1.2 billion of annual revenue and $100 million to $250 million of net income. Wealthsimple is private and publishes neither figure, so treat this as arithmetic, not disclosure.

Start with the one number we have. Back in 2024, with an asset base near $50 billion, Wealthsimple was running about $129 million of revenue in a quarter. Annualize it and you get close to $500 million a year at that size.

The asset base is now about three times larger. Apply the same ratio and you land near $300 million to $400 million per quarter, or $1 billion to $1.2 billion for a full year.

Now the margin. Wealthsimple turned profitable about two years ago, so this is a business still early in its margin story. At a 10% to 20% net margin, $1 billion of revenue produces $100 million to $250 million of net income.

Take the top of that range. Call it $250 million. It flatters them, and the point still holds.

Why Doesn’t Wealthsimple Show Up in Power Corporation’s Earnings?

Because of how the stake is accounted for. IGM carries Wealthsimple at fair value through other comprehensive income, and the change in fair value is not recorded in earnings. The gains land in book value, not on the income statement.

This is the part I did not expect to find, and it is a better answer than the one I went looking for.

I assumed Wealthsimple was too small to break out. The real reason is an accounting choice.

IGM Financial owns about 25% of Wealthsimple and carries the position at fair value through other comprehensive income. In plain English, IGM revalues the stake every quarter and the change goes straight to equity. It never touches the earnings line.

At June 30, 2026, IGM marked its stake at $2.6 billion, up 15% in a single quarter. The full Power group interest, held across Power Corporation, IGM and Portage, was valued at $4.4 billion net of carried interest, up 15% on the same basis.

Now look at how Power Corporation reported the quarter. Adjusted net earnings of $974 million. Great-West Lifeco contributed $871 million. IGM Financial contributed $211 million. Sagard contributed $33 million. Groupe Bruxelles Lambert lost $5 million and Power Sustainable lost $4 million.

Add the pieces and you have the quarter. There is no Wealthsimple line because there is nothing to put on one.

Great-West Lifeco alone accounted for close to 90% of Power Corporation’s adjusted net earnings. Insurance. The least exciting business in the group.

That is the sentence I want you to carry out of this article.

So What Are You Actually Buying?

A valuation mark, not a stream of earnings. Wealthsimple’s growth raises Power Corporation’s book value. It contributes nothing to the profits that fund the dividend.

Everything we estimated about Wealthsimple’s profit still matters, and not the way you would expect. That profit never reaches Power’s income statement. What reaches Power is a valuation, and that valuation gets set by revenue expectations and by what public peers trade at.

When IGM raised its mark 15% in a single quarter, it pointed at Wealthsimple’s performance and at revised revenue expectations as the reason. That is a judgment about the future, refreshed every ninety days.

So your exposure to Wealthsimple through Power Corporation is a mark. Marks move in both directions.

Dividends get paid out of earnings.

How Does That Compare to a Bank?

National Bank, the smallest of the Big 6, earned about $4 billion last year. Royal Bank earned about $20 billion. Wealthsimple, on my most generous estimate, earns a quarter of a billion.

My own guess sits at the lower end. They have been profitable for two years, and early profitability is thin. I would put the number closer to $150 million.

Here is the comparison that explains the whole gap. A client with $1 million invested in a fund charging 1% generates $10,000 of revenue a year. Every year. Without anyone lifting a finger.

To generate that same $10,000 from self-directed brokerage accounts, you might need $10 million to $50 million of assets from investors who buy, hold, and pay no trading fees.

Same dollars on a statement. Two different businesses.

What Is Wealthsimple Worth?

About $10 billion, based on IGM’s own mark. A 25% stake carried at $2.6 billion puts the whole company near $10 billion, and the Power group’s combined interest sits at $4.4 billion.

That is a serious number for a company that opened its doors in 2014.

It is also a number any of the Big 6 could absorb without straining a balance sheet. Royal Bank earns twice that in a single year.

I do not expect a sale. Power Corporation is not a distressed seller and the mark keeps going up. But the idea that Wealthsimple is untouchable, or that it is about to eat the banks’ lunch, does not survive contact with the numbers.

What Should You Take From This?

Separate the story from the statement. A great narrative and a meaningful profit contribution are two different things, and only one of them shows up in what you own.

Wealthsimple is good at what it does. The growth is real. The client count is real. If you use the platform and like it, keep using it. I do.

But if you hold Power Corporation because you think you are buying a piece of the Wealthsimple story, look at what you are buying. A $4.4 billion mark, and none of the $974 million of earnings the company reported last quarter. The businesses paying your dividend are insurance and traditional wealth management.

This is the habit I want you to build. When you hear a number that sounds huge, ask what it earns, and then ask where that number lands in the financial statements.

Assets are not revenue. Revenue is not profit. Profit for the company is not profit for your slice of it. And a mark on a balance sheet is not a dividend.

Four questions. They take ten minutes. They protect you from most of what passes for analysis on the internet.

Learn to Read the Numbers Yourself

Everything in this article came from public documents and a calculator. A quarterly press release, one line in IGM’s disclosure about how the stake is carried, a few segment figures, and some arithmetic. No insider access. No expensive terminal.

That skill is what separates an investor who reacts to headlines from one who checks them. The line that explains this entire article, the one about fair value through other comprehensive income, sits in a place almost nobody reads.

It is also what the third course in Dividend Simplified teaches. Simplified Quarterly Earnings walks you through a quarterly report the way I walk through one. Which lines matter, which ones are noise, how to tell growth that came from the business apart from growth that came from an accounting choice, and how to decide in fifteen minutes whether your thesis is still intact.

The other two courses cover the Simplified Buy Process and the Simplified Sell Process. Three courses, $150 of value, fifteen dollars for the set.

Get Dividend Simplified here

The post Wealthsimple Revenue: Why $155 Billion Earns Less Than You Think appeared first on The Dividend Guy Blog.