Automatic Data Processing (ADP) reported better than expected fiscal first quarter earnings (see earnings call transcript here) and hiked their dividend 3% to $0.34/share per quarter. This is the 35th year in a row that ADP has raised their dividend. Mounting unemployment in the U.S. continues to have an impact on ADP's revenues, as fewer workers for their clients means less fees to ADP.

ADP has forecasted EPS for fiscal 2010 to come in at about $2.37 per share. The stock is currently trading at 18.3x that forward earnings number and yielding 3%. The current dividend pay out indicates a pay out ratio of 57% on estimated 2010 earnings.

Canadian telecommunications firm Telus (TU) has failed to raise its dividend for the first time in several years. Telus left its quarterly dividend at $0.475/share for payment on January 4, 2010, the fifth straight quarter of this payment amount.

Some analysts believe that Telus is viewing 2009 as a year of investment in their business and they will resume dividend growth in 2010. Telus is striving to get ahead of the competition as they compete with Bell (BCE) and Rogers (RCI) among others including new potential entrants in Canada.

Given the slow advertising market lately the results reported today from Canadian telecommunications company Rogers Communications (RCI) looked pretty good.

• Earnings per share were up 12%
• Wireless revenue up 7%
• Overall revenue up 2%

Roger's Canadian exclusivity on the Apple (AAPL) iPhone helped these results. This headwind will be taken away now as competitors get the phone as well. Once advertising picks up again Rogers earnings should continue to grow. They are well positioned in the Canadian market and have gobbled up a lot of Bell Canada's customers over the last few years. I think this is a good company to hold for the long term as they have pretty consistent cash flow coming from a stable product. They have also been friendly to shareholders in the past with stock buybacks and dividend increases.

From the moment that I saw Dr.Oz receiving a flu shot from a Walgreen's (WAG) representative on his new daytime show, I knew that only good could come of it.

A combination of cost cutting, the H1N1 flu, and the recession coming to an end in the US seems to have Walgreen (WAG) up and at 'em again. The US drugstore chain beat expectations handily in their fiscal fourth quarter thanks in part to $0.07/share in savings from their Rewiring For Growth initiative.

Friday I doubled my position in Canadian oil firm, Husky Energy (HUSKF.PK), just in time for the hurricane season.

The reasons I added to Husky here are many:

With the run up the market has had since the March lows, it has become difficult to find stocks with attractive valuations. Many of the more cyclical stocks, as well as financials, have really run up and I'm not sure that future earnings will justify the current prices in some cases.

Luckily there are still a few good buys out there. For dividend growth investors, it's a nice bonus when a company is still raising its dividend through thick and thin. These two firms have solid balance sheets and fit that bill. They have stable product offerings and they've navigated through tough times before. Their dividends are growing and very secure. I've added to my positions in both companies over the past 6 months, and I am considering doing so again at these valuations.

The credit crisis has taken its toll on the dividend of Canadian-based insurance giant Manulife Financial (MFC). Manulife's decision to cut its dividend by 50% to $0.13/share is part of an effort to build a strong capital position for what is sounds like are future acquisitions.

The CEO made the following statement Thursday:

Dairy producer Saputo (SAPIF.PK) has increased its quarterly dividend by a meagre 3.6% to 14.5 cents per share after reporting a flattish quarter on the earnings front.

Saputo shares were up 5% Tuesday and the stock now yields 2.3%. The pay out ratio on the actual quarter's EPS was 35%.

Hey Shoppers Drug Mart (SHDMF.PK).

You just reported an earnings increase of 7.5% amid one of most difficult Canadian retail operating environments in a long time. How about throwing shareholders a bone and giving them a little boost to the dividend?

The moneygardener darling, US drugstore chain Walgreen Co. (WAG), has increased its quarterly dividend by 22%. This is the 35th consecutive year that Walgreen has raised its dividend. Walgreen has been growing its dividend at a torrid pace over the past few years. In fact, since 2006 WAG has roughly doubled its dividend.

The stock is now yielding only 1.8%, however a purchase during the depths of March, 2009, would have yielded 2.6% on cost. It is interesting that the company is choosing to increase the dividend at such a high rate given the current slowdown in earnings growth. Walgreen's last quarterly earning report was actually down 9% from 2008. The pay out ratio is rising and the company's traditional objective of rewarding shareholders with growth may be shifting to include paying out cash in the form of dividends.

I bought some shares of Caterpillar (CAT) today for my wife's RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan). The basic thesis for this purchase is that for a long term hold, Caterpillar offers exposure to a leader in building out the infrastructure of the world. The short term may look very gloomy for this company, which presents a buying opportunity as the shares are down 65% from their all time high.

Caterpillar's CEO is actually predicting a return to 2008 sales levels within five years. This may or may not occur, but it is interesting to note that CAT was trading at C$63-C$85 during 2008 before the crisis hit.

On Monday I made my first equity purchase in my non-registered portfolio since February. I doubled my position in food service firm SYSCO (SYY) at $22.95/share.

For my thoughts on SYSCO click here.

"If 'buy & hold' is dead, then I am the embalming fluid"

• Capitalism is dead, and no longer works as an economic system
• More regulation, and less leverage is always better.
• Everyone took on too much debt, and the recent crash will cause everyone to be very debt averse forever; let the de-leveraging begin.
• The right thing to do with your money all along was to play it safe, and sock it all away in a savings account; assets with risk associated with them should be avoided at all costs.
• Don't speculate, don't invest in stocks, don't buy real estate, don't take risks in starting a new business venture or making any kind of investment where loss is a possibility

...and my personal favourite:

Yellow Pages Income Fund (YLWPF.PK) has cut their distribution by 31.6% to $0.80/unit annually. This move was based on their expectation for continued difficult market conditions, and their objective of securing additional financial flexibility. The company also announced that their preliminary dividend policy at conversion to a corporation in 2011 will be 60-70% of earnings.

Despite the extremely weak economy Yellow Pages announced results that were virtually flat to slightly up from Q1 2008. Organic online growth was up 30% and directories were essentially flat. YLO's consolidated net earnings actually rose 3.6% in the worst advertising market in years. This company continues to show their resiliency in unprecedented market conditions.

It’s funny how emotions and psychology influence us all as investors. Depending on one’s personality type, investment time horizon, future outlook, and current general state of mind, one can be desperately bearish or exuberantly bullish in the same stock market environment.

What investors have been through over the past 2 years is nothing short of one of the steepest, gut wrenching stock market declines ever. The S&P 500 index plunged from an all time high of around 1,562 in October of 2007 down an astonishing 57% to around 666 in early March of 2009. Most of this precipitous decline came after September 15, 2008 when global financial services firm, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which was founded in 1850, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy marking the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Canada has recently been lavished with praise because of the strength of their financial institutions amid all of the global financial turmoil. Despite this halo effect, these banks have had their challenges. Royal Bank of Canada (RY) just took a large write down on their US assets. That may be a bell weather for other institutions such as Toronto Dominion (TD) and Bank of Montreal (BMO), who also have large assets in the US.

I can’t help but thinking that Canadian banks are not looking attractive right now as investments whatsoever. With headwinds of further write-downs, low consumer confidence, increasing unemployment, increasing loan losses, and Canadian real estate value declines, the big 5 Canadian lenders share prices look downright frothy. This is quite a change from a few months ago when you could have bought some of the banks at decade lows and towering yields.

Every once in a while on the moneygardener, I get the urge to explain why I like a certain company as an investment. The reasons why I own the stocks that I own for the long term are not as simple as past dividend growth or current low price to earnings ratios. I have specific qualitative, forward looking reasons for owning each and every stock that I own.

Right now, one stock that I am watching intently because I want to add to my position is Canadian Pacific (CP). I was not as interested in CP when it was trading at C$86.00 back in July of 2007, but now that the stock is trading below C$40.00 I believe CP is ripe for an attractive long term investment. So other than the reasonable valuation, why am I so bullish on Canadian Pacific?

We are in a recession and the economy is looking very bleak. From accelerating job losses in many industries to the potential bankruptcy of GM there is a lot of bad news to digest out there. So this being what it is, why is the stock market rallying like nobody's business? The S&P 500 index is up a whopping 23% since just March 9.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article in the 'Smart Money' section of their website titled Dow 8,000 - 5 Reasons Driving The Rally. This article outlines 5 reasons why the market is rallying despite the despair saturating the economy.

Just in case anyone hasn't noticed, consumer staples stocks, those that are usually deemed to be safe havens in a market storm, having been falling like rocks lately. Procter & Gamble (PG) is down 22% year to date, Coca Cola (KO) (10%), Diageo (DEO) (19%), Pepsico (PEP) (11%), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) (14%), and Wal-Mart (WMT) down 13%.

I think this is just a natural stage in a major market decline where investors are realizing that these names have been piled into when the market got ugly and they are now being liquidated due to their relatively higher value. Another reason for the declines are likely due to evidence in some sectors that consumers are trading down and using less brand name goods that people might normally consider recession resistant. For example, alcohol and some health care goods have shown signs lately of reduced demand. For these large global names, the fact that the US dollar has strengthened over the past year has not helped.

A Company's Book Value is defined by Investopedia as follows:

1. It is the total value of the company's assets that shareholders would theoretically receive if a company were liquidated.
2. By being compared to the company's market value, the book value can indicate whether a stock is under- or overpriced.

The Price to Book ratio is used to compare a stock's market value to its book value. The following stocks have been beaten down to the point where their market price is actually less than their liquidation value (book value). Therefore, in a way, the company is getting little credit for any future earnings, and in fact the market is betting earnings will decline and is valuing the company at less than the sum of it's parts. Another way to look at it is that the market is betting that book value will decline due to company specific issues.