A great day indeed…my morning commute to work was almost traffic congestion free; I didn’t spill my coffee; the weather was great, the sun was shining…and it’s the start of a loonngg weekend no less! …But that’s not the only Sun shining today…
After checking my investment with Sun Life, I was happy to see I earned almost 8 new shares this quarter thanks to my DRIP with them. Yesterday, Sun Life common stock paid $0.36 in dividends and continues to yield over 4%. While SLF doesn’t have the market cap that MFC has, I’m bullish on its long-term prospects and for good reason. As they proclaim on their website, they operate from “…Toronto to Tianjin”, helping millions of clients meet their financial goals, health insurance and protection needs, or often both. Over the last 10 years as a publicly traded company, they have also forged many new partnerships and grown their brand. While SLF also took a small beating like its bank-stock cousins in late 2008 and early 2009, it appears to be on the rebound just like the rest of the financial sector, and that’s good news for dividend-holders of Sun Life. One of my favourite new sites (endingtheratrace.com) had a great thread recently about the financial sector and Canadian bank stocks – Your Best Friend? I answer “yes” because whether you hold an equity mutual fund or an equity-based ETF, “The Rat is Right” – there’s a good chance you hold many financial stocks and probably SLF is one of your top-10 holdings. Instead of a holder I became an owner last year when my wife and I were fortunate enough to buy a few SLF shares when it was trading below $30. Looks like the stock is going to tip $33 soon and like the title says, here comes the Sun…let’s hope it continues to shine! Enjoy the sunny, warm weather Ottawans!