Stock Picks Canada

11 Solid Dividend Stocks With Excellent Growth Rates

Defensive investors generally pick high dividend yielding stocks as alternatives to 10-year T-Bonds in order to seek protection against inflation. For such investors we prepared a list of 11 large-cap companies with high growth rates that pay fat dividend checks. The market data are sourced from Fidelity. All companies in this list have a market capitalization above $4 billion, five years EPS growth rate higher than 20%, and dividend yield of at least 4%. None of these stocks lost money to their investors during the past 12 months and they returned 37.71% (including dividends) in the same period, beating the government bonds by a large margin. Exelon Corporation is a U.S. energy company delivering electricity in the United States. EXC has a 4.84% dividend yield and returned 19.78% during the past 12 months. EXC had an EPS of $4.06 in 2010 with a EPS growth of 22.55% over the past five years.The stock has a market cap of $28.71B and P/E ratio of 11.59. Michael Messner's Seminole Capital and Bruce Kovner's Caxton Associates are among prominent EXC investors. Dominion Resources Inc . is a U.S. company that provides electricity and natural gas to North Carolina and Virginia in the United States. D traded a $48.99 recently and returned 31.13% during the past 12 months. The stock has a 4.02% current dividend yield and a 27.33% EPS growth over the past five years. Current P/E ratio of the stock is 9.24. Steven Cohen holds the largest D position among the 300-plus funds we are tracking. ( SeaDrill Limited is a U.S. company operating in the oil and gas industry. SDRL has a 8.40% dividend yield and P/E Ratio of 9.43. The 5 year EPS growth of the company is 46.11%. The stock recently traded at $35.73 and more than doubled its returns during the past 12 months. SDRL has a market cap of $16.67B. Bain Capital had $50 Million in SDRL at the end of March 2011. Williams Partners LP is an MLP being active in natural gas exploration, processing, storage and transportation services. Over the past five years, WPZ had an EPS growth of 40.26%. The stock has a 5.29% current dividend yield and returned 35.65% during the past 12 months. WPZ has a market cap of $15.74B and P/E ratio of 18.99. Jean-Marie Eveillard's First Eagle holds more than $85 million of WPZ. ( Annaly Capital Management Inc. is a portfolio management company specializing in mortgage-backed securities. NLY has a high dividend yield of 14.23% and returned 21.74% during the past 12 months.

Top Stock Picks 2011 – Q2 Results | Million Dollar Journey

Ver the past couple of years, a group of bloggers have enlisted in a friendly competition as to who can pick the best stocks for the year .   This time around, I was a little less aggressive and picked well known names that appeared to be relatively undervalued at the beginning of the year.  My top stock picks for 2011 are: VISA, Royal Bank of Canada, Husky Energy, and Encana.

We did very well in Q1 returning 12.16% including dividends.  With a correction in the 2nd Quarter though, a lot of the picks went down with the index.  Lets have a look at the numbers to assess the damage.

My Top 4 Stock Picks for 2011

VISA (V) – Everyone knows VISA!  The stock has recently sold off due to news that debit card transaction prices may be regulated in the US and VISA has a portion of their business in the debit market place.  As one of the worlds most recognized names and the largest card issuer in the world, I’m betting that the stock price will bounce back.  Trading price as of Jan 3, 2011: $70.38 (open).

Royal Bank pulled back into the mid 50’s again in the second quarter, perhaps because of their news of closing a portion of their U.S operations and putting more focus on capital markets.  Regardless, we are still up for the year thus far.  Trading price as of June 30,2011 closing:  $55.13 .  Combined with a  $1.00 dividend brings a gain of 7.24% year to date . 

Oil and commodities in general have been under attack in the second quarter which means the energy sector pulled back quite aggressively.  The 12% gain in the first quarter was virtually wiped out, but the dividend kept us in the positive.  Trading price as of June 30,2011 closing:  $26.30 .  Combined with a  $0.60 dividend brings a gain of 1.12% year to date .

Encana (ECA.TO) – A little while back, Encana split into two companies to divide their natural gas and oil operations.  CVE took over the oil side, and ECA took the natural gas.  Last year, I picked CVE which was a winner, but this year, I’m going to try my luck with ECA.  Even though I’m not bullish over natural gas prices, ECA appears cheap with low Price/Earnings, Price/Book ratios and the dividend does not hurt either.   Trading price as of Jan 3, 2011: $29.09

I’ve been riding the ETF train for a while and doing reasonably well – the only stock I own is Riocan, and watch it like a hawk to make sure those dividends are stable (ie. AFFO exceeds dividend). Recently however I cashed out of my US ETF (SPY) and put some of the money into an ultrashort industrial ETF (SMN). My research indicates the summer is going to be a bumpy ride for the markets, particularly in basic materials/industrials (real industrials, not DJIA). Time will tell if it’s the right move – I like to think I’m getting better at this but have to admit my choices haven’t always been the best in the past!