Weekly Recap October 27th Edition

Welcome to my Weekly Recap October 27th Edition where I discuss the week’s events and what I’ve been up to.

Bank of Canada raised interest rates to 1.75%

Yup, the era of cheap money is over!  These rate hikes will come back to bite over-levered Canadians soon enough.  My prediction is that real estate is about to get a whole lot cheaper in the Greater Toronto and Greater Vancouver areas.  Maybe then I’ll consider jumping into the rental business again.

Bombs, Bombs and more Bombs!

This week over a dozen pipe bombs were mailed to prominent Democrats like Obama, the Clintons and even Robert De Niro!  Luckily the suspect was caught on Friday.

Stock Markets continue to fall!

I mentioned in my last weekly recap that I thought markets were headed lower and this week was another bad week for global markets.  This will definitely hit my net worth numbers at the first of the month, but like I said before I’m not worried.  As long as I don’t sell, these are only paper losses.  When we sell, we make them real.  But fear not people, there is a silver lining to a falling stock market: as stocks fall, dividend yields rise and for the passionate income investor this is good news.  For too long we had to pay up for a bit of yield at the sub 4% level.  Now we can get a solid 4.5% to 6% easy!

Here are some stocks that I’m looking at:

Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) – Yield is 4.86%

Bell Canada (BCE) – Yield is 5.86%

Enbridge (ENB) – Yield is 6.55%

Suncor Energy (SU) – Yield is 3.25%

Fortis (FTS) – Yield is 4.17%

Please note that there is always a certain level of risk when investing in quality dividend stocks…the market does crazy things sometimes.  These are names that I own and continue to buy, but I’m comfortable with being “down” on a certain stock for an extended period of time.  It feels shitty, but I can stomach it because I don’t need the money any time soon.  If you need money soon, then don’t buy stocks.  It’s as simple as that.  Park that cash in a high interest savings account like the one I recommend at EQ Bank called the Savings Plus Account.  Haven’t heard of EQ Bank, no problem you can read my review here.

Torex Coin Auction Is This Weekend!

For all you coin collectors out there the 3rd Torex auction of the year is on right now.  If you want to buy high quality rare coins then this is the auction for you.  Check it out here.

Reno Update

This week I finished up on the painting and had new receptacles and switches installed for a more modern look.  My wife and I also started to install the sub floor.  We’re using a product called Dry Barrier.  It is only 3/8″ thick so it won’t affect our ceiling height by much.  Dry Barrier is fairly new on the market.  Most people are familiar with Dri Core.  We chose DryBarrier because it is totally mold resistant.  The floor provides an air gap so that any moisture can dry on its own.  In the event of a small leak, the floor has channels so that water can run into the basement floor drain.  This floor won’t protect us from a major flood (no sub floor can do that).  But it will greatly reduce mold and mildew in our basement and will also be more comfortable and warmer in winter.

Installing DryBarrier is really easy.  The pieces just snap together and you can cut them to fit with a utility knife and a straight edge level or square.  We plan to lay carpet on top, but you can lay other types of flooring such as laminate and vinyl flooring.

Here is closeup of the product box:

Thanks for reading my Weekly Recap October 27th Edition.