I am often asked to compare the dividend income generated by my portfolio with that generated by a comparable mutual fund or exchange traded fund. The following table lists the 10 Canadian public companies that I have held in my portfolio from January, 2010 to December, 2024. The only reason I would consider selling shares in one of these companies is if I see compelling evidence that the company might stop growing their dividend payments, or if I find a company that has much better prospects than one of my current holdings.

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​I never held the common shares of any other company during this 15-year time interval, nor have I held any other types of investments in my portfolio, such as mutual funds, exchange traded funds, preferred shares, shares in foreign companies or fixed income investments such as GICs, T-Bills or Bonds. No new funds were added nor were funds withdrawn from my portfolio, except that any dividends paid by my holdings were reinvested in my portfolio.​​​

​Since implementing the dividend investing strategy as described in this guide, my portfolio has generated a stable dividend income that is much higher than paid by a comparable dividend index fund and, most importantly, is immune to the gyrations of the stock market. The red data on the following figure shows the dividend income generated each year, to the end of 2024, for every $100 invested in my dividend investing portfolio since 2010

 

For comparison, the blue data on Figure 13 shows the annual dividend that would have been generated each year, if I had invested $100 in the iShares S&P/TSX 60 Index exchange traded fund (XIU), which emulates the S&P/TSX 60 Composite Index. It was assumed that any dividends paid by XIU were reinvested in the fund.

For example, $100 invested in the 10 companies in my portfolio had an average yield of 4.2% in 2010, so that the cash dividend paid in that year on every $100 investment was $4.20, while the same $100, had it been invested in XIU, would have paid a dividend of $2.50. By the end of 2024 (15 years later) the same $100 invested in my portfolio paid a cash dividend of $18.30, while the dividend paid by XIU had only grown to about $6.25.

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​There are two reasons why the cash dividends paid into my portfolio were higher as compared to the dividends paid by XIU:

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1)  The 10 companies in my portfolio were selected because they had relatively high dividend yields (4.2%) when purchased in 2010, as compared to the dividend yield for XIU (2.5%) in that same year.​​

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2) The 10 companies in my portfolio grew their dividends at an average rate of 10.3% per year, from 2010 to 2024. In comparison, the approximately 60 companies in XIU grew their dividends at an average rate of about 6.3% per year during the same period.​

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The market prices of the companies in both portfolios fluctuated significantly during these years, in response to Mr. Market's ever changing and unpredictable mood swings, which caused the the market value (market price times the number of shares) of both  portfolios to fluctuate significantly and unpredictably. These fluctuations in the market value of in my portfolio were never of concern because the changes in market prices had no effect on the dividends paid by the companies in my portfolio.

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