Playing B2 Gold to win

I find B2 Gold (BTO) appealing. Why? Because it is opening a gold mine in Nunavut come early next year. Gold mines are all too often found in iffy parts of the globe. Nunavut is a welcome change of pace.

I paid about $3.64 for my original 2750 shares. I saw it as a bit of a gamble but it is fun to gamble as long as the risk is not too high. I was comfortable with the risk/reward offered by B2 Gold. Shortly after buying BTO I received a dividend of about $150 Canadian.

A few weeks later I sold all my position for $3.88 a share. I made a capital gain of about $640. I immediately put $200 toward my 2025 income tax and used the remaining cash to fund a bid for 2900 shares of BTO at $3.60. It was another gamble. It took some days but the order was eventually filled.

B2 Gold then tumbled daily until it found support at about $3.45. On the surface, that represents a loss but after the dividend and my capital gains are factored in, I am still in the black on my B2 Gold purchase. I have another sell order sitting on the books. This time I am hoping for $4.20. I'm patient. I can wait.

The target value for BTO as shown by WebBroker as been climbing recently. Some analysts see BTO hitting $6.00 and even $7.00 within the coming year but it might be a volatile journey. If it is, I plan on being there to profit.

By the way, I am playing this game using my non-registered account. The CRA does not look kindly on investors using their registered accounts for anything resembling day trading. Gambling, especially when done repeatedly with one stock, is not for one's registered accounts.

Stock Unlock: worth a look

Here is what Perplexity had to say about Stock Unlock.

Stock Unlock is an investment education and analysis platform that helps both novice and experienced investors research and evaluate stocks. Based on the search results, the key things Stock Unlock does are:

• Provides detailed fundamental analysis and data on stocks, including financial metrics, analyst data, insider trades, and ownership information. This allows users to thoroughly research and evaluate companies before investing.1234
• Offers investment education and guidance to help users, especially beginners, learn how to analyze stocks and make informed investment decisions. The platform has over 200 pages of custom educational content.3
• Allows users to easily compare the fundamentals of multiple stocks side-by-side, which helps identify good investment opportunities and avoid poor ones.23
• Offers portfolio tracking and monitoring tools to help users manage their investments, including features to visualize and analyze dividend income and returns over time.4

In summary, Stock Unlock aims to empower both novice and experienced investors by providing comprehensive stock research, analysis, and educational resources all in one platform, streamlining the investment decision-making process.1234

Create a portfolio and backtest your creation

Recently I joined the Facebook group Canadian Dividend Investing. Someone expressed interest in the Frugal Dividend Portfolio created by Norman Rothery. The question piqued my interest and I turned to the Ai search engine Perplexity. It returned the following:

There is a way to create and back-test a portfolio of Canadian stocks and ETFs. How? Use the Portfolio Visualizer tool. It lets you construct one or more portfolios based on selected mutual funds, ETFs, and stocks. You can then analyze and backtest the portfolio returns, risk characteristics, style exposures, and drawdowns over a specified time period. To create and back-test a portfolio of Canadian stocks and ETFs using the Portfolio Visualizer:

1. Go to the Portfolio Visualizer website at https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio
2. In the "Portfolio Allocation" section, you can add the Canadian stocks and ETFs you want to include in your portfolio. You can search for and select the specific funds you want to use.
3. Set the time period you want to backtest, such as the past 3 years.
4. The tool will then analyze the historical performance of your portfolio and provide detailed metrics like returns, risk, and diversification.

This allows you to see how your selected mix of Canadian investments would have performed over the past 3 years, which can help you evaluate and refine your portfolio before investing real money. The Portfolio Visualizer is a useful tool for building and testing investment portfolios.

There are three versions of the Portfolio Visualizer and one is free. As is to be expected, it does not deliver all the bells and whistles of the other two but it is amazingly good. It is certainly worth a look. I wonder how long the free version will remain available online.

Sometimes investing is gambling and its fun!

B2 Gold (BTO) is a Canadian gold mining company with its offices in Vancouver, British Columbia, and it's a penny stock on the TSX. Recently, I read that B2 Gold is opening a mine in Nunavut early in the coming year. With my interest piqued, I did a little research.

On one hand many of the target values for the stock are being re-evaluated downward. In WebBroker, I clicked on News and read "RBC Cuts Price Target on B2Gold to $3.50 From $4." This was but one of the bulletins announcing a lowered target.

On the other hand, when I clicked on Analysts I discovered that B2 Gold in rated a Strong Buy with a price target of $5.66. That is down from the $6 plus target that B2 Gold held recently but it is still well up from my $3.60 entry point. A check with Morningstar showed that Morningstar saw B2 Gold as fairly valued. No clear cut direction here as to whether one should buy BTO.

Finally, as a dividend investor, the 5.9% dividend was a magnet or would have been if it were not for the published payout ratio of 1,981.94%! That is just a crazy number. How is that even possible?

Did I buy? Yes. Why? Just for the fun of it. For the excitement. Yes, the money invested in BTO might disappear but it also might return a very nice profit. This is a "do you feel lucky" moment and I felt lucky. So far, I've been lucky.

I bought a few thousand shares at $3.64, kept them long enough to collect a nice dividend, and then sold all for about $3.85. Including the dividend I was now up more than $700. I placed an offer to buy but a low ball offer. Yesterday, I picked up all the shares I sold and then some at $3.60 a share. Today BTO is selling for $3.77. 

The game is not over but I may well make more than a thousand dollars gambling on B2 Gold.

A Nine ETF with Cash Retirement Porfolio

Over the past few nights I have been working on the ultimate ETF retirement portfolio. The portfolio must produce something close to the present income from my present retirement portfolio, a portfolio containing mostly stocks with a smidgen of ETFs.

I like to think of my portfolio as fairly solid. Not too volatile. But it is not true. It has lost as much as 20% of its value in long, deep bear markets.What has not been volatile has been the income. With investments like Emera, Fortis, Embridge, Bank of Montreal and Telus and many more, my dividend income very rarely suffers any shrinkage.

It is a very tough order to ask an ETF portfolio to perform as well as a carefully constructed portfolio of top-of-the-line dividend paying stocks, but I think it can be done. Or maybe I should say that I hope it can be done. ETFs are self-balancing. I would love to free myself of the chore, the responsibility, of keeping my retirement income portfolio running.

Today, I created a nine ETFs portfolio with ten percent of its value in cash. If I have calculated correctly it will produce the same yield as my present portfolio. To boost the yield, I included a number of Bank of Montreal created options-boosted ETFs. Options will boost income but will also put a ceiling on capital gains. A downside to using options. The flip side is that options will reduce losses. An upside to using options.

My Nine ETF Retirement Income Portfolio was created with $1,110,000. A full ten percent was kept in cash. Deposit this in a money market fund like TDB8150 today and reap a yield of 4.55% until at least June I believe. At the end of its first day, it had gained $2,688.49. A good start.

 

My Nine ETF Retirement Income Portfolio should yield something approaching five percent and be resistant to falling quickly in bull and bear markets thanks to the generous use of options-enhanced ETFs.

It should show fair capital gains as it contains some exposure to the U.S. market. A full ten percent exposure by way of XSP from iShares. The international exposure should also show fair capital gains thanks to the inclusion of Vanguard VIDY.

At the first of next month, and every month thereafter, I will withdraw $4,200 to live just as I would if this were a real retirement portfolio. Come January, I will make an inkind withdrawal of enough stock to meet the government demands relating to annual RIF withdrawals. The stock will be transferred to an imaginary TFSA opened for the sole purpose of accepting the annual RIF withdrawals.  

You may well wonder at the inclusion of ZUT and RIT in this portfolio. I drilled down into the investments contained in the ETF portfolio leaders. I felt my portfolio needed more exposure to utilities and to real estate.

• XEI    10%
• CDZ    17.5%
• RIT     7%
• ZUT    5%
• ZWC    20%
• XSP    10%  This entry has been corrected. Originally, there was a typo. Oops!
  
• ZWH    10%
• VIDY    5%
• ZWG    5%
• Cash    10%

It doesn't look like it but these percentages were worked out using a spreadsheet. The only clues are the percentages devoted to CDZ and RIT.

If this portfolio delivers, especially if it delivers when compared to my present porfolio, I may well slowly sell my stocks and embrace my Nine ETFs Retirement Income Portfolio.

Stay tuned.

Putting my money where my mouth is -- for real!

I did it. I added to my Emera position. I bought 100 shares of EMA. This will be a core holding. I do not intend to sell this for some time. I will hold it and enjoy a 6.07% yield on my original investment.

Emera is one of the biggest utility companies in Canada but it has extensive holdings in the United States -- especially in Florida. As a utility, it is said to have a stabilizing effect on one's portfolio. Its price should not fluctuate as much as the average stock.

Its dividend of $2.87 is not only to be trusted, it has a DGR (dividend growth rate) of 11.66% over the past three years. To ease dividend reduction concerns even more, the payout ratio is only 66.13%.

I am very happy with my purchase.

____________________________________________________________

Emera is still lingering in the depths of bear market hole. Today it is selling for even less than what I recently paid. It is at $46.41 as I write this. That is a yield of 6.2%. As a buy and hold stock, Emera is a keeper and at this price it is, in my estimation, a strong buy. -- April 18, 2024
 

Putting my imaginary money where my mouth is.

I honestly believe Telus (T) is an amazing buy today. If I didn't have so much invested in Telus already, I would be buying. Unfortunately, I put all my available cash into Telus when it was some dollars more expensive. I have lost thousands in real, hard cash.

If I could, I would put at least ten thousand into Telus today but I can't. Since I cannot put real money into Telus, I have opened a Portfolio Manager account with $10,000 in imaginary money.

That ten thousand has an unrealized gain of $84.01 already.

Each Monday, I am going to check my Telus "purchase" and post the results. 

I am not alone in my faith in Telus but I did catch a chap on BNN this morning who was very dubious of a Telus recovery and warned viewers to hold onto their cash. Don't be tempted by the Telus dividend was his position.

By the way, I may be out thousands but as long as Telus doesn't reduce its dividend, I will be reaping a nice reward for my ownership. There is a bright light at the end of this dark tunnel. By this time next year, I might be nicely out of the red and well into the black. Why today alone, I pocketed almost $2,150 in dividends. That is almost $8600 annually,

Portfolio Manager - April 1, 2024 - gain of $84.01 on Telus purchase made this morning,

 

It is Friday, April 5th and the market has closed. My imaginary Telus stock is up yet again. Still, this could be a nail-biter in the short term