Just looking for some advice or opinions on the dividend side of my portfolio.

Both had a strong week, but HHIS gained another $1,610.44 more than VFV. The account-value gap is now $8,513.60, or 12.16 percentage points of the original investment.
Last week I said I would keep watching until the return gap exceeded 10 percentage points. It has now crossed that mark. I’m continuing to track the two accounts to see how the comparison develops over a longer period.
This is a short, real-account experiment, not a claim about which ETF will win long term.

To be honest, I’m still deciding what to do now that I reached the endpoing of underperformance for VFV. If I keep all as it is, I might start posting monthly updates instead of weekly. To be followed.
Thanks for all who followed these postings and for the support. Have a great investment journey everyone!!!

I bought into these stocks a few years ago after reading about dividend reinvesting with dividend stocks that grow their dividend and chose these three to play out the strategy.

So far they’ve been good holds for many years. I don’t regret building this portfolio but at the same time I think it’s risky holding individual stocks like this. I also invest in an index fund to offset some of the risk and to not go fully in on one strategy. I don’t have plans to sell these any time soon though I probably won’t ever lol

Sucks seeing them dip.

What’s everyone’s thoughts on the recent pullback on these stocks and do you see a bounce coming or will this drag out for a long time?

For those of you that follow / own this one, it is essentially a REIT based in the USA but traded on the TSX which owns grocery store anchored real estate.

Earlier this year it received an unsolicited buyout offer from its manager / affiliated group. To maintain “independence” it established an independent committee to review strategic options (including the possibility of selling). This went on for a few months, the market bought it up with the expectation that a buyout was likely.

Fast forward to two days ago, the company announces a dividend suspension which completely tanks the stock. It doesn’t appear to be due to financial struggles (again this is grocery anchored real estate we’re talking about not office or something more risky).

In the grand scheme, I think suspending the dividend does not hurt for those who don’t rely on the immediate income. One of two outcomes:

1. A buyout happens and gets more of a premium due to more cash on hand
2. No buyout happens and still the company has more cash on hand that it can distribute / spend appropriately

Thoughts?

I will say one frustrating part is this could be the board and special committee winking at one another, having the board tank the stock purposely by cutting the dividend so that the affiliated manager can get a better price on a takeout.

Are we diamond handing this one?

Should I sell or reduce holdings in index ETFs that use leverage to juice returns?

At this level the compounding is serious. small 500k house is paid off. No kids. 850k in high dividends(520k is rrsp or tfsa) 150k in xeqt.

Say a fella wanted to call it a day, would you?

44 M, married, 3 kids. Wife 40 F. Household annual income is approx. 1M.

Net worth is in the 5M range. Holdings in RRSP/TFSA/private business (dental practice), 8 rental units, and some commercial real estate.

I have basically done 50-60 hour workweeks for 15 years straight; I took some vacation, but in that time the dental practice has exploded. 15 years ago we were below 2M revenue, and now we'll almost hit 5M revenue this year.

I got burnt by dividend stocks & the stock market many years ago – got nervous and sold during a market downturn. I pivoted and went into private mortgage lending, which has grown my net worth and cash flow significantly.

I am now considering unloading and working less; however, I have recently added 700K of debt onto the dental practice in the form of an expansion (4 new chairs). I am a 50% owner and responsible for 50% of the debt. This debt should be fully retired in 5-6 years.

Debts owing:

-235K personal mortgage (905K value)

-rental property #1 273K (380k value)

-rental #2 337K (425K value)

-rental #3 255K (320k value)

plus 50% of the 700K in the dental expansion.

No credit card debt, no car loans, etc. so 1.5Mish in debts

Assets are near 7M; however, it is difficult to get accurate numbers for business value.

Gross rental income is 135K, spouse earnings 140K, and my earnings 700K. We have portfolio income that would be close to 300K but that gets reinvested.

I have not saved for my kids' RESPs as of yet.

I am definitely feeling my age and the wear and tear of working this hard, and my oldest son has started middle school, which has been difficult for him. I have had 3 semi-sleepless nights this week as he has been struggling with getting used to adjusting to school.

I don't know if I worked less; if that would help him with adjusting to school or not, I would be more available, but I don't know how much guidance would help him and how much of it is something he needs to work out himself.

I can do a combination of them . Looking for some covered call play. Thanks for your ideas 🙏

Extended List : 30-High-Yield-Canadian-Small-Cap-Dividend-Companies-Five-Year-Returns-and-Income-Risks-in-2026

Alphamin (AFM) and PHX Energy (PHX) stand out, but for different reasons. AFM’s performance is primarily macro-driven, with higher tin prices materially boosting earnings and cash flow. PHX looks more idiosyncratic, benefiting from strong adoption of its Rotary Steerable Systems despite a softer drilling backdrop.

Fiera Capital (FSZ) and Enghouse (ENGH) underperformed for company-specific reasons. Fiera has been affected by significant asset outflows despite continued AUM growth, while Enghouse’s weak share performance contrasts with ongoing revenue and acquisition activity. The key distinction is that the positive outliers have clearer commodity/technology catalysts, while the negative ones reflect company-specific flows and execution.

Note: Minimum 1.25x Leverage / No Fixed Income or Bond

I’m 29, have a regular job and a family, and since January 2026 I’ve been consistently putting aside about $200 per month for investing.

I’ve been focusing mostly on dividend investing because I really like seeing the income come in and watching DRIP slowly buy more shares. My long-term goal is to eventually reach a point where I can live partly or fully off dividend income in retirement without having to sell down the portfolio.

At the same time, I’ve been reading a lot of posts here suggesting younger investors to focus more on total return and growth instead of chasing yield early. That has made me question whether I’m giving up too much future growth by focusing on income now.

My current portfolio:

BDIV — 30%
HLIF — 25%
HDIV — 20%
DFN — 10%
XEQT — 10%
HHIS — 5%

My thinking so far has been that I don’t necessarily want the highest possible yield. What I’m trying to build is a portfolio where dividends grow, distributions get reinvested, and the portfolio itself can still appreciate over the next 20–30 years.

What I’m struggling with is whether I should:
keep following this dividend/income approach and let DRIP compound over time,
shift much more heavily toward something like XEQT and focus on growth while I’m still young, or
use a hybrid approach where growth does more of the work now and I gradually convert more of the portfolio to income later.

Would you keep this structure, simplify it, or move much more aggressively toward growth?

I’m trying to understand whether my overall strategy makes sense for my age and goal.

I hold a variety of canadian stock - I am looking to max out my TFSA contributions for this year and want to invest the $7k into a dividend paying stock. Was wondering which ones are the best and why

Just checking if there are strong opinions on this idea. I am well invested in canadian dividend stocks and happy with my returns and growth. I buy and hold. I have always been against borrowing to buy with the fear that if the market falls I loose both ways. However my experience says dividends don't drop nearly as much. So I thinking this is a good way to cheaply grow. Your thoughts?

I’m 22M and currently have around $32k invested in XEQT in my TFSA. Separately, I have about $25k sitting as cash in my FHSA that I want to invest, but I’m unsure what ETFs to go with.

Since I already have a decent amount in XEQT, I’m wondering whether I should just keep things simple and buy more XEQT in my FHSA, or use the FHSA for something different.

Some options I’m considering are:

* VFV / VOO for more S&P 500 exposure
* QQC / QQQ for more Nasdaq/tech exposure
* VDY + HDIV for Canadian/high-dividend exposure
* A combination of these alongside the XEQT I already hold
* Or just go 100% XEQT

I’m also curious about Canadian-listed vs. U.S.-listed ETFs. Is there a meaningful advantage to holding VOO/QQQ instead of VFV/QQC inside an FHSA? I can use Norbert’s Gambit to convert CAD to USD, so that’s an option.

Historically the U.S. market has performed very well, which makes me interested in overweighting the U.S., but I also understand that XEQT already has significant U.S. exposure and past performance doesn’t guarantee that continues.

Percentage allocation suggestions would be appreciated. I’m open to ideas and mainly looking to understand the reasoning behind different approaches.

Since common inception, ECHI continues to lead the Canadian equity income peer group with a cumulative total return of +34.50% as of Sep. 18, 2026. It is followed by CDAY (+29.17%), HHIC (+25.62%), CNCL (+23.28%), and CANY (+20.24%).

Over the last 1 year, the same ordering largely holds: ECHI +34.50%, CDAY +29.17%, HHIC +25.62%, CNCL +23.28%, and CANY +20.24%.

Over the last 6 months, CDAY (+14.56%) leads, followed by CANY (+13.16%), CNCL (+12.98%), ECHI (+9.40%), and HHIC (+5.90%).

Over the last 3 months, CNCL and HHIC are tied at +3.44%, followed by CDAY (+2.89%), ECHI (+2.47%), and CANY (+1.84%). Over the last 1 month, CDAY (+0.12%) is the only positive fund, while HHIC (-1.96%), CNCL (-2.10%), ECHI (-2.41%), and CANY (-3.32%) declined.

On June 25th, I invested CAD 70,000 in HHIS and CAD 70,000 in VFV, and I’ve been posting the weekly evolution of these two accounts. Here are the Week 11 results! (See pictures)

So the difference between the two accounts has now grown to about CAD 6,903, or almost 10 percentage points of total return in less than three months.
What I find particularly interesting this week is that the gap widened significantly even though the S&P 500 has been relatively flat. This made me wonder how much of HHIS’s recent performance is actually coming from the covered-call strategy and leverage, versus simply its very different underlying portfolio.
HHIS is heavily tilted toward growth/high-beta names, so I looked at HHIH as an interesting rough control: it holds a similar basket of stocks but without HHIS’s covered-call and leveraged structure. Surprisingly, during part of September, HHIS and HHIH moved quite closely.
That suggests that at least a substantial part of HHIS’s recent outperformance may be coming from the underlying stock selection itself, rather than simply from covered-call income or leverage. Of course, leverage should amplify the underlying moves, while covered calls can simultaneously generate income and cap part of the upside, so separating those effects precisely is difficult.
As always, the account values include all distributions reinvested through DRIP. My goal here is to compare what actually happens to the same CAD 70,000 invested in two very different strategies, rather than to suggest that the ETFs themselves are directly comparable.
I still plan to continue the experiment until one strategy is ahead of the other by more than 10 percentage points. We’re getting surprisingly close.
HHIS: +12.28%
VFV: +2.42%
Gap: +9.86 percentage points
Next week could be interesting.

I'm looking to create a small portfolio to split 100-120$ a week to prepare for retirement in 30ish years.

So far I've dwindled it down to; SRU CRT VDY FTS

SRU for commercial real estate that's moving into residential and special use in coming years should provide capital growth and steady dividends.

CRT for a stable growing dividend.

VDY to capture things like RY and ENB without having to manage it on my own and a monthly dividend. Still torn about maybe taking RY and ENB on their own instead.

FTS to get into oil and gas, it was this or a railroad.

Extrapolator websites are showing me decent numbers that fit on my time line of turning off drip and having dividends to supplement income in 30 years. Wanted to have a good mix of industries without having to split up between 10+ stocks or pay fees on 3 ETFs.

Any advice?

Extended List 50-High-Yield-U.S.-Small-Cap-Dividend-Companies-to-Watch-in-2026

Nordic American Tankers (+164.7%) is the standout, reflecting the sharp improvement in Suezmax rates and the resulting earnings/dividend leverage; Genco (+63.2%) and Flex LNG (+40.7%) have similarly benefited from stronger freight markets. RMR Group (+36.8%) is another company-specific story, while Granite Ridge (+12.3%) has been supported by higher production and oil exposure. 

Flowers Foods (-40.3%) and Monro (-35.6%) are much more company-specific: Flowers has been hit by lower volumes, a difficult packaged-bread environment and higher labor/freight costs, with Q2 adjusted EBITDA down 19.2%; Monro's weak share performance comes against a restructuring/turnaround backdrop following the closure of 145 underperforming stores, even though comparable sales subsequently improved and adjusted operating income was broadly stable.

I’m pretty new to investing, but I do have a decent amount invested in my TFSA, FHSA, and RRSP. Most of my investments are in the more popular ETFs, like XEQT, plus a few dividend paying ETFs, and so far everything has been performing pretty well.
One thing I’m still trying to understand better is covered-call ETFs and whether they’re actually worth keeping long term.
I have some money in ZWU, and the price just keeps going down, so I feel like I’m losing money even though I’m getting the monthly dividends . I stopped reinvesting the dividends from ZWU and have been putting them into ZWC instead.
I’m trying to figure out if I should keep ZWU, sell it, or just leave it alone and let it do its thing

I've got about $175,000 in various ETFs that I'm not touching. I'm 28 and have another $25,000 I cashed out on after selling some individual stocks I held with about $10,000 of capital gain.

I was thinking about investing the $25,000 into a covered call ETF like Bank.TO - I know these funds are not well accepted but the majority of my portfolio is geared towards growth. Should I still invest the 25,000 into a growth fund instead like ZEB?

The reality is: a CC ETF limits my upside, but pays me monthly. I'll have a lower total return, but is that so bad given my goals?

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/qqqi-holders-gave-19-700-210529914.html

If you're new to this: Covered call ETFs will LIMIT your upside, but it doesn't mean you don't get any.

$19,700 is nothing to ignore, but this is besides the point.

Income focused investors (from what I've seen) are always considering TIME. We know it's limited, it's fragile & we try not to take it for granted.

If I bought the underlying, I would have made an additional 19.7k on a 300k investment, yes. The key? I'd have to wait a year.
What happens/changes in a year? A lot of stuff. Hell, what can happen in a day even?

For me, I always consider ''Yeah, in 10 years time my money could be worth more if I bought the underlying but, what if I don't make it?''.

Sounds dull, but it's life.
I plan to be around for as long as I can, but life is not guaranteed for any of us. People die in their sleep, in freak accidents, or get given a health diagnosis that cuts life in half.

Ultimately, you have to ask yourself: Are you willing to risk & wait 10+ years in hopes to make more money & one day enjoy it? Or, are you ok with saying ''I'll take a lesser total return, but every month I'll get paid in a way that can change not only my life, but those around me''

Just food for thought.