Mortgage Cash Account, An Amazing Tool

A few days ago I said I would go into detail about what a Mortgage Cash Account is. This tool has really been around for some time now, and I think it is one of the best passive saving tools that exist to the average Canadian. My opinion is that it completely changes personal fund allocation rules

Mortgage Cash Account, or MCA, is a liquid and easily accessible virtual (I will explain this term later) account. The term MCA is the one used by Bank of Montreal. It likely exists at other banks as well, but may be called a different name, so don't worry if you haven't heard of it before!

Last Week of Q3, Preparing for 2013

There are only 3 months left in 2012. I'm still patiently waiting for the end of the world. Mayan calendar thing right? Well, if it doesn't happen this year, they will probably just tell us they forgot to carry a 1 somewhere, or got their positive/negative signs mixed up and it was actually 2014 instead. What causes the end of the world anyway? Since you can Google just about anything these days, I figured I'd give it a shot.

Okay.... LOL... WTF???

Anyway, enough end of the world talk.

Majority of average Joes & Janes probably think of the year as spring, summer, fall, winter, or March, July, October, etc. I find that ever since I started investing, I actually start thinking about my year in quarters, and weeks relative to earnings season. Perhaps if I believed the end of the world talk I might think of it as, 12 weeks before end of the world, 10 weeks before end of the world... etc?

QE...Infinity?

Yet another Quantitative Easing program out of the Fed. I'm not really even sure what to make of it.

On one hand, I think the US economy is doing remarkably well compared to other countries and regions. Housing is finally bottoming. Inventories have been worked down to very lean levels, prices have begun to stabilize, and home-builders are reporting solid growth of new orders for the first time since 2006.

On the other hand, jobs remain weak and below rates seen in typical recoveries. There still remains a record number of Americans who are either unemployed, or underemployed.

Bernanke and crew definitely seem unhappy about the second scenario, and looks like that is the primary cause of QE3.

Dividend Growth Portfolio, August 2012 Update

August was a typical month for me. A couple buys here and there, along with a couple intrinsic boosts by companies I own. I added to my previously established Becton (BDX) position and also a new position in a Canadian oil and gas services company, Pason Systems (TSE:PSI). There were also a couple intrinsic boosts in dividends by the Canadian banks. Always happy to see that, especially in this challenging economic  environment.

The annualized dividend now sits well over my 2012 goal, but my "real" annual goal (termed 'Whisper Goal' in reference to whisper earnings numbers) is actually around 10% higher than my upper range, so while I'm not quite there yet, I expect to achieve it easily as a few companies typically raise their dividend in Q4, like Mcdonalds, Becton Dickinson, Emerson Electric, Boeing, and Microsoft.

New Purchases
Becton Dickinson - $54.00
Pason Systems - $88.00

Sales
There were no equities divestitures this month.

Intrinsic Dividend Changes
Scotiabank - $4.40 (DRIP reinvested shares)
Scotiabank - $18.16 (quarterly dividend increase of 3.6% from 55 cents to 57 cents)
TD Bank - $5.00 (quarterly dividend increase 6.9% of from 72 cents to 77 cents)