2024 Stock Transactions Analysis

Because we are still in the accumulation phase of our financial independence journey, we make many stock transactions every year, mostly purchasing more stocks from new capital and occasionally selling shares. In our December 2024 dividend income report, I summarized all the stock transactions we did throughout the year to give readers an idea of what we did.

A few years ago I did a review of every dividend stock transaction we made between 2020 and 2022. This review was an excellent learning experience for me. Therefore, I thought I’d analyze all the stock transactions in 2024 and see what I have learned from them. 

Note: I wrote the post prior to the market correction on April 3 & 4 so keep the prices with a grain of salt. Regardless, this was still a good exercise for me.

Dividend Stock Sales 

We started 2024 with 46 individual stocks and 1 ETF in our dividend portfolio. I admitted that holding 46 individual dividend stocks was too many, hence my goal of reducing that number to 40. Therefore, when it came to selling any dividend stocks last year, I was looking to close out positions. 

Having said that, we typically prefer to hold onto our shares once we make a purchase. But from time to time, the following reasons may cause us to sell stocks and close a position completely:

1. The stock price has stayed flat for the last few years 
2. No dividend increase or minimum payout increase 
3. Dividend cuts and/or suspensions 
4. Dividend cuts and/or suspensions are anticipated because of deteriorating revenues
5. Fundamental change in the business and/or in its leadership. 

We sold the following stocks in 2024:

• Metro (MRU.TO), closed position
• Suncor (SU.TO), closed position
• Canadian Tire (CTC.A), reduced position
• Starbucks (SBUX), closed position
• Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), closed position
• Magna International (MG.TO), closed position
• BCE (BCE.TO), reduced position

Here is a quick summary for the spreadsheet nerds like me:

Sold month	Ticker	Shares	Sell Price	Today’s Price	$ delta if sold today	% delta
Jan	MRU.TO	46	$67.41	$90.24	+$1,050.18	+33.9%
Jan	SU.TO	125	$32.79	$56.82	+$3,003.75	+73.3%
Mar	CTC.A	10	$137.47	$157.40	+$199.30	+14.5%
Jun	SBUX	50.3581	$74.47	$92.25	+$895.37	+23.9%
Jun	JNJ	112.946	$149.57	$142.06	-$848.22	-5%
Aug	MG.TO	38	$56.02	$57.01	+$37.62	+1.8%
Dec	BCE.TO	153	$37.90	$33.11	-$732.87	-12.6%

Notes:

1. Today’s price was at the time of writing (Jan 10, 2025)
2. $ delta if sold today indicates the delta between when we sold the shares and if were to sell today based on today’s price
3. % delta indicates the percentage gain or loss 

We received a total of $37,145.27 from these seven sales.

Since six out of seven of these sales were made before the US presidential election and the market jump in November, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that today’s prices are higher than our sell prices.

Thoughts & Analysis on Dividend Stock Sales

Here are some thoughts and analysis on these stock sales we made throughout 2024.

• Metro: This was a relatively small position for us so I thought closing it made sense. Metro’s share price was relatively flat from 2022 to 2024. When we closed the position, we didn’t anticipate Metro to go on a run (who knew right?). In hindsight, given the high inflation and the news of Canadian grocers making more and more profits, perhaps we could have predicted Metro’s share price to continue to climb. However, since Metro made up such a small percentage of our portfolio, I wouldn’t worry about the price gain since closing it out.
• Suncor: Similar to Metro, Suncor’s share price went for a run since we closed the position. We sold most of our Suncor shares in the previous year and finally decided to close out the position. As you can see, we would have gained over $3,000 if we had held on to this position. The oil sector has done well in 2024 and may continue to do well in 2025. Would we have been better off keeping Suncor? Probably, but we wanted to get out of oil producers and invest in energy transporter companies like Enbridge and TC Energy Corp instead. Buying the pipelines is a much safer way of playing the energy sector, in my opinion, as they are not dependent on the world oil price. We made this decision because crude prices are very cyclical. Despite the “loss” in potential gains, we feel OK that we closed out the Suncor position.
• Canadian Tire: Canadian Tire has been a relatively small position in our dividend portfolio. To be honest, I never enjoy visiting a Canadian Tire store. I find Canadian Tire stores too big, not well-lit, and a bit overwhelming. Based on my customer experience, we decided to trim some shares. The share price has since climbed up just under 15% but with only 10 shares, it didn’t make much of a difference.
• Starbucks: we closed out the position shortly after the disastrous CEO interview on CNBC. As a shareholder, I simply lost faith in Starbucks CEO Narasimhan. However, on August 13,  2024, Starbucks announced that Brian Niccol, CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill, would take over the helm. Niccol has a very good reputation for turning around Chipotle and Taco Bell and Starbucks’ share price jumped as a result. Did I kick myself for selling Starbucks too early? Absolutely! But I had no way of knowing that Narasimhan was getting replaced. What if Narasimhan had stayed on? Or what if another person took over as CEO? Since whoever is the CEO is outside of our control, if I look at our decision to sell, I think it was the correct one back in May. 

• Johnson & Johnson: we held Johnson & Johnson for a long time and built up the position over time. At the time we sold out of the position, Johnson & Johnson was facing a lot of headwinds, especially on the lawsuit front. We decided to sell JNJ and reinvest the money elsewhere (QQQ & GOOGL). Looking at JNJ’s performance for the past five years, I believe the selling decision is the correct one. Hindsight being 20-20, we probably should have closed out JNJ a few years earlier. 

• Magna International: Magna International was an example of us holding on for too long believing the share price would turn around. Magna International was doing quite well in 2021 and 2022 but the share price tumbled when Russia invaded Ukraine. Since the war is still ongoing, as well as an overall global decline in new car sales (the average age of current North American cars is 13 years), Magna International’s share price hasn’t recovered. Being a relatively small position, we thought we could invest the money elsewhere.  
• BCE: 2024 wasn’t the best year for BCE. We trimmed some BCE shares for tax loss selling purposes. Selling BCE allowed me to offset some of the capital gains from the sale of my company’s restricted stock units (RSUs). I thought BCE had bottomed around $38 but clearly, that wasn’t the case. At the time of writing, the stock is around $33. Could it go down further? I have no clue but it seems the market has priced in the eventual dividend cut by BC some time in 2026.  

Overall, I think all these six sales are justified. One stock that may have made sense to hold on to is probably Suncor but if we had kept it, it would have gone against our goal of getting out of pure oil producers. 

Dividend Stock Purchases 

We were quite busy on the purchase front throughout 2024. We have to thank our relatively high savings rate for this. 

For those of you who are new, we follow these simple steps when it comes to growing our investment.

1. Live below our means, reduce cost in areas we don’t deem important but spend money on areas we deem important
2. Look for ways to increase our income
3. Grow our savings gap
4. Invest money saved
5. Max out TFSA first
6. Max out RRSP second
7. Invest money in non-registered accounts

Rinse and repeat! 

We believe in time in the market rather than timing the market. Therefore, whenever we have cash, we try to invest the money right away. Another key reason we do that is that we sleep better at night if we invest the money right away rather than spreading out the money. It is important to know what kind of investor you are.

We purchased the following stocks throughout 2024:

• 70 shares of National Bank in January
• 93 shares of Alimentation Couche-Tard in January
• 30 shares of QQQ in January
• 130 shares of TC Energy Corp in March
• 128 shares of XAW in March
• 46 shares of TD in April
• 21 shares of Brookfield Asset Management in April
• 7 shares of Visa in April
• 26.585 shares of Waste Connections in May
• 75.146 shares of Telus in May
• 48.502 shares of National Bank in June
• 135.126 shares of XAW in June
• 27.881 shares of Alphabet in June
• 21.817 shares of QQQ in June
• 8 shares of Royal Bank in July
• 55 shares of Brookfield Asset Management in August
• 94.862 shares of Canadian National Resources in August
• 28.5496 shares of XAW in August
• 6.0079 shares of Waste Connections in August
• 92.6356 shares of Canadian National Resources in September
• 152.8386 shares of XAW in December
• 75.6416 shares of Brookfield Corporation in December

A detailed summary of all our purchases is below:

Purchase month	Ticker	Shares	Price	Today’s Price	$ Delta	% Delta
Jan	NA.TO	70	$100.74	$132.49	+$2,222.31	31.5%
Jan	ATD.TO	93	$78.05	$76.54	-$140.73	-1.94%
Jan	QQQ	30	$402.87	$507.21	$3,130.20	+25.9%
Mar	TRP.TO	130	$54.13	$67.31	$1,713.19	+24.4%
Mar	XAW	128	$39.00	$44.46	$698.93	+14%
Apr	TD.TO	46	$81.42	$78.20	-$148.17	-4%
Apr	BAM.TO	21	$57.42	$75.15	+$1,578.15	+30.9%
Apr	V	7	$270.71	$307.71	+$259.02	+13.7%
May	WCN.TO	26.585	$225.69	$252.36	+$709	+11.82%
May	T.TO	75.146	$22.21	$19.69	-$189.38	-11.35%
Jun	NA.TO	48.502	$109.79	$132.49	+$1,101.03	+20.7%
Jun	XAW	135.126	$41.26	$44.46	+$432.69	+7.8%
Jun	GOOGL	27.881	$179.33	$192.04	+$354.28	+7.1%
Jun	QQQ	21.817	$476.49	$507.21	+$670.27	+6.4%
Jul	RY.TO	8	$149.49	$170.92	+$171.42	+14.3%
Aug	BAM.TO	55	$56.39	$75.15	+$1,031.80	+33.3%
Aug	CNQ.TO	94.862	$46.12	$47.27	+$109.11	+2.4%
Aug	XAW	28.5496	$40.46	$44.46	+$114.32	+9.9%
Aug	WCN.TO	6.00749	$249.67	$252.36	+$16.16	+1.1%
Sep	CNQ.TO	92.6356	$43.72	$47.27	+$328.85	+8.1%
Dec	XAW	152.8386	$45.80	$44.46	-$204.81	-2.9%
Dec	BN.TO	75.6416	$84.27	$79.25	-$379.72	-6%

In summary, we made 22 purchases totalling $107,988.10. At the time of writing, we have a gain of $13,577.92 or +12.6%. 

If we take out $37,145.27 that came from stock sales, it would mean we added $70,842.83 worth of new capital into our dividend portfolio. Please note that not all of this money came from our savings. Part of the money is from dividend income (i.e. money accumulated after dividend reinvestment plans). 

Considering 22 purchases, it’s quite incredible that we are positive 17 out of 22 purchases with only five purchases showing paper losses.

The best purchases were QQQ (tech was hot in 2024), BAM.TO, NA.TO, and TRP.TO. The worst purchase was T.TO as all Canadian telecoms struggled throughout 2024. 

Thoughts & Analysis on Dividend Stock Purchases

Here are some thoughts and analysis on our dividend stock purchases in 2024. 

• National Bank: we like National Bank because it is not one of the Big Five Banks. Being the sixth largest bank in Canada, it allows National Bank to grow faster than the Big Five. In fact, National Bank is acquiring Canadian Western Bank to grow its footprint in Western Canada. At around $100, we thought the share price had room to grow. This is why we initially purchased National Bank shares in January. We purchased more shares when the CWB acquisition news broke and NA’s share price stumbled. These two purchases turned out to be quite profitable. Looking ahead, we may consider adding more NA shares when there’s a dip.
• Alimentation Couche-Tard: We have been building up our ATD position over the past few years. ATD’s share price was somewhat volatile in 2024, swinging between a low of $71 to a high of $87. I thought $78.05 was a fair price to buy ATD. Although the share price climbed to about $81 in early December 2024, the price then started retreating since then. At the time of the writing, we are slightly in the red. I’m not too worried though. Despite ATD making multiple attempts to purchase 7-Eleven, it looks like the deal may not go through. I’m confident that ATD’s share price will continue to trend upward so the current price volatility allows us to continue to add more shares at a discounted price. 
• QQQ: about five or six years ago, we considered starting a position in QQQ but never did. I finally came around and started one. The NASDAQ 100 index well outperformed the S&P 500 index in the past. I know past performance doesn’t guarantee future performance but the tech sector and innovations typically drive growth so there’s a trend for history to continue.  We have since switched from QQQ to QQQM to save the MER fees. We plan to continue to add more QQQ shares to increase our position. 
• TC Energy Corp: we purchased quite a bit of TRP shares in 2023 and we continued that trend by adding another 130 shares. We thought the split of TC Energy and South Bow would improve operational efficiency and deliver higher values to shareholders. We added these shares assuming we’d receive some South Bow shares. Since the split of the two companies, both stocks have done well. Post-split, I really like TC Energy as an industry-leading natural gas and energy solutions company. For now, we aren’t planning to purchase any more TRP shares and will only add shares via DRIP.
• XAW: long-time readers will remember that we utilize XAW ETF to increase our international exposure. So from time to time, we would add more XAW shares. It is currently one of our top five holdings. It is our goal to continue adding more shares and eventually move XAW as the number 1 holding in our dividend portfolio. XAW returned +26.60% in 2024. Although our three purchases returned less than that, I’m not too concerned at all.
• TD: based on my analysis, I thought TD at around $80 was fairly valued and perhaps slightly undervalued so I decided to buy more shares to increase our TD exposure. What I didn’t expect was the US money laundering charge, the fine of more than $3 billion, and the US growth restrictions. Since then TD’s share price has been bouncing below $80. I suspect TD’s share price will bounce around for a while. We may consider adding more TD shares to take advantage of the discounted price. Yes, the US growth restrictions will hurt TD’s profitability but since TD also operates in Canada, I believe long term TD will do just fine.
• Brookfield Asset Management: we added BAM two separate times and have done well thanks to these two purchases. BAM has been growing its AUM (asset under management) tremendously, going from $3M AUM in 2001 to over $1T by the end of 2024. BAM is one of Reader B’s favourite stocks so it makes sense to follow someone who receives over $350k in dividend income per year. We added more BAM shares in 2024 to try to increase our exposure. We plan to continue to do so throughout this year. 
• Visa: this was a relatively small purchase. Since Visa is considered one of our long term holdings, we wanted to add more Visa shares to increase our exposure. 
• Waste Connections: I have mentioned many times on this blog that I like the garbage collection sector. It’s an easy business to understand. Waste Connections has done well over the years and I believe it will continue to perform well for years to come. At the time of writing, the stock price has dropped about 7% from the all-time high but I’m not too worried about it. We plan to continue to add more WCN shares throughout this year. 

WCN five-year performance

• Telus: like other Canadian telecoms, Telus has seen better days. We purchased more Telus on the premise that it is the only big three Canadian telecom company that doesn’t have a media arm. Creating content costs a lot of money and is definitely hurting the likes of Rogers and BCE. Unlike BCE, I believe Telus’ dividends are relatively safe, so we can collect dividends and wait for the share price to recover.
• Alphabet Inc Class A: we used some of the proceeds from Starbucks and Johnson & Johnson sales to purchase more GOOGL shares. The stock was doing quite well then it dropped a bit due to the news that the DOJ is mandating Google to sell Chrome, breaking up the company’s search monopoly. The share price has recovered since this news as Alphabet is pushing back on the DOJ’s decision. Alphabet is a giant conglomerate holding company with a lot of future potential growth. The company also started paying dividends in 2024. Many high-tech companies like Apple and Microsoft all saw significant share price growth after initiating dividend payments so I expect Alphabet to follow a similar trend too. I believe Alphabet is one of those companies that will continue to grow its revenues and business year over year.
• Royal Bank: like Visa, this was a relatively small purchase. We simply purchased more RY shares with the money accumulated after DRIPs we had in the account. It would be nice to add more RY shares in 2025 but we’d need a bit of pullback. At over $165, I think RY isn’t a good bargain. If RY were to drop below $150, I’d buy more. 
• Canadian Natural Resources: In April CNQ hit a high of around $56 but the share price has retreated since. I thought at $46 and below it was a good opportunity to add more CNQ shares. I also believe that CNQ may distribute a special dividend soon as the company is sitting on a lot of cash ($6.2 billion of liquidity). We may continue to accumulate more CNQ shares if the price stays below $47. Yes, I know that I mentioned about us getting out of pure oil producers. The reason for holding on to CNQ and adding more shares? CNQ didn’t cut its dividends during COVID whereas Suncor cut its dividends. We felt that having one oil producer (CNQ also produces natural gas) is OK. 
• Brookfield Corporation:  this was an end of the year purchase and as luck would have it, a few days after our purchase, BN share price dropped significantly. However, I’m not overly concerned. As the parent company of the Brookfield empire, I believe Brookfield Corporation will continue to generate above market returns. 

Summary – 2024 Stock Transactions Analysis

Phew, that was a long write up; much longer than I anticipated. I like doing this analysis because it gives me the opportunity to review and go through our sales and purchases and helps me to improve as a DIY investor.

2024 was an amazing year for the stock market. Nobody knows whether the last two years of +20 return will continue or not in 2025. Since we have no control over the market, the only thing we can control is what we buy and sell. Therefore, it’s important to learn and improve as a DIY investor so we can make rational buying and selling decisions. 

Overall, I was happy with our transactions. Knowing what I know today, I would still make all of these transactions perhaps with the possible exception of Telus and Suncor. 

Dear readers, did you find this post useful? I’d love to hear from you.