Portfolio Update : June 2017

        The month of June 2017 is now behind us. The markets have seen some major news during the month.  Amazon announced they are purchasing Whole Foods for around $13.7 Billion dollars. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has made a deal to help out Home Capital Group. 

        Home Capital Group is a Canadian public company that writes mortgages to people at a higher interest rates than at a bank. I have lost some money with Home Capital Group. So,  Home Capital Group has been in the news the last couple of months with Ontario Security Commissions investigation over the last year or so.  Savers who had the high interest savings accounts offered by Home Trust, part of Home Capital Group, pulled most of their money out of these accounts.  Banks depend on deposits by savers to be able to make mortgages and loans to their customers.

        Home Capital Group received a $2 billion line of credit from HOOPP, which is Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan.  The interest on the LOC was quite high, and the company decided to try to find a replacement source of cash to keep them solvent.

       They were in discussions with several financial organizations, which included some Canadian Banks, but the felt Bershire Hathaway was the best source to help them out.  Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, offered a line of credit and equity ownership in the company. 

Under the agreement, Berkshire will make an initial investment of $153.2 million for 16 million Home Capital shares at a price of $9.55, representing a 19.99 per cent stake in the company, subject to approval by the TSX.  

Berkshire Hathaway has also agreed to make a second investment of $246.7 million for nearly 24 million shares at a price of $10.30, which would take its stake in Home Capital to 38.4 per cent, subject to shareholder approval. (Source www.ctvnews.ca)

        Another major topic in the markets is the price of a barrel of crude oil.  The price per barrel of WTI crude oil had fallen to below $43.00 US per barrel, but rallied towards the end of the month close at $46.33 US per barrel. 

         British Columbia, Canada had a provincial election recently in which the Liberals retained power.  The won 2 seats more than the NDP and the Green Party won 3 seats.  So NDP and the Green Party came to a agreement that would mean these 2 parties will work together.  Last week, the liberals lost a non-confidence vote in the legislature.  Their premier and Liberal party leader accepted the results of the vote and visited the Lt. Governor. The Lt. Governor has given the NDP the right to form the government.

          So, now we will have NDP governments in both Alberta and British Columbia who are at "war" with each other.  Oil and gas plays a huge part in the economy of Alberta.  The federal government gave their OK for Kinder Morgan to build their pipeline from Alberta to the British Columbia coast.  The cost of this pipeline is $7.4 billion.  The NDP government and Green Party of British Columbia, along with environment activists and indigenous people.

        I made a purchase in my margin account in a stock that does not pay a dividend.  Titanium Transportation Group Inc. is a transportation and logistics company based out of Bolton, Ontario.  This company was created in 2002 and went public in April 2015 with the ticker symbol of TTR.  TTR trades on the Venture Exchange in Canada.

       I sold 2 put options in the month of June. I previously, had a put option expire on June 2.  The 2 short put options were 1 contract of $RY.TO with a strike price of $92.00.  The first short put option expired on June 16.  Few days after this expired I sold another put option for June 30 expiration.  I collected $24.05 and $35.05 in net premiums on the 2 short puts for a net profit of $59.10.

       I made two small purchasing in my TFSA to add to my units of HNY.TO.  This is Horizon's Natural Gas Yield ETF. I purchased these units with small commissions (i.e. ECN fees) has my brokerage offers commission free ETFs.

•  June 13  ->  4 units at $12.98 with $0.01 ECN fees
•  June 19  ->   2 units at $12.72 with $0.01 ECN fees

Shares Acquired Through DRIP

4 Unit of D.UN.TO @ $19.32137  for a total cost of $77.29 (Margin Account)

1 units  of CUF.UN @ $13.03499 for a total cost of $13.03 (TFSA)

1 unit of D.UN @ $19.32137 for a total cost of $19.32 (TFSA)

0.192 shares of ENB.TO @ $51.3021 for a total cost of $9.85 (Transfer Agent)           

Please note, that the DRIPs inside my margin account and TFSA are synthetic drips which indicate the distribution or dividend must be enough to purchase whole shares. 

I recently wrote about Dream Office REIT after they made an announcement. They are once again, cutting their annual distribution by around 33% starting with July's distribution which will be paid on August 15.  There annual distribution will be cut from $1.50 per unit to $1.00.  So, my annual dividend income will be cut by approximately $400.00.


As of July 1,  the value of the portfolio is $103266.23. This is a 1.485%  decrease over last month's total.  The spreadsheet in the investment tab above has been updated.

Note:  I do not have any option contracts currently in my portfolio as of July 1.

Disclosure:  Long D.UN, ENB, CUF.UN, TTR.V, HNY.TO

Please Note:  All stocks are from the Toronto Stock Exchange except TTR which trades on the Venture Exchange.
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DISCLAIMER

I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant or tax attorney. The information on this blog represents my own thoughts and opinions and should NOT be taken as investment or business advice.

Every individual should do their due diligence to make their own financial decisions based on their financial situation and tolerance for risk.