MP Market Review – March 20, 2026
Last updated by BM on March 24, 2026
Summary
This is not a stock-picking newsletter.
It’s a behind-the-scenes look at how a dividend growth portfolio is built, maintained, and improved over time.
Welcome to this week’s MP Market Review. Each week, we track the Canadian dividend growth companies on The List, our curated watchlist of businesses designed to produce rising income. While we also publish a U.S. edition monthly, Canada remains our training ground.
Our objective is simple: grow dividend income by 7–10%+ annually while delivering capital appreciation that matches or exceeds the TSX Composite in Canada and the S&P 500 for our U.S. investors over a full market cycle.
What you’re about to read isn’t theory. It’s the real-time application of a dividend growth strategy using real money, with a clear objective: growing income first and letting capital growth follow.
Markets generate a lot of noise. We ignore most of it.
Instead, we track a small set of metrics that tell us whether our dividend growth strategy is working in real time. No forecasts. No opinions. Just results.
Here they are:
- Dividend income from The List: +6.0% year-to-date
- Capital value: -2.7% year-to-date
- Dividend announcements last week: None
- Earnings reports last week: One
- Earnings reports this week: Two
DGI Clipboard
“A true investor buys for the dividend return. The dividend return is the sum of yield plus growth. If one is not thinking of dividends, they must be speculating/hoping. Hoping that they can profit by selling the stock at a higher price.”
-Steve Hanke
All-Canadian DGI Portfolio: Built to Survive Anything the Market Throws at It
It has been a volatile month in the markets. Prices are down. The S&P 500 and TSX Composite have both dropped more than 6%.
For many investors, that creates pressure.
If your strategy depends on selling shares to fund your life, this is where things get uncomfortable. You are forced to sell into weakness. Losses become real.
Dividend growth investors operate differently.
Our income keeps showing up. More importantly, it keeps growing.
That is the quiet advantage of this strategy.
When prices fall, yields rise.
When yields rise, future income improves.
And nothing has changed with the underlying businesses.
Same companies. Same cash flow. Better prices.
Introducing The All-Canadian DGI Portfolio
We do not build portfolios based on where oil, gold, or interest rates might go next month.
We build portfolios around one thing: growing cash flow.
At all times, we hold quality businesses purchased at sensible prices. The common thread is simple. These companies have paid and increased dividends for decades.
No forecasting. No guessing. No micro-managing.
Just ownership.
On this blog, I have shown every trade in our model portfolios since May 2022. Real money. Real decisions. Full transparency. It has taken us four years to build out our portfolio and invest our initial capital.
If you are new to our strategy, the All-Canadian DGI Portfolio is your starting point.
Start with quality, invest slowly with proper position sizing. Then build over time as opportunities appear.
That is the process.
Here is the portfolio. Fourteen companies across six sectors with decades of dividend growth.
What Should Stand Out
First, the dividend streaks.
On average, these companies have increased their dividends every year for nearly 30 years.
Think about that.
Dot-com crash.
Financial crisis.
Pandemic.
Rate cycles.
Wars.
Through all of it, the dividends kept rising.
That is not luck. That is quality.
Second, the alignment between dividend growth and price growth.
Dividends have grown at 8.7% annually.
Prices have grown at 9.9% annually.
Total return: ~11.7% annually.
This is the formula:
Earnings up → Dividends up → Prices up
Not always in a straight line. But over time, it is highly predictable.
Where We Go Further
Most investors stop there.
We do not.
Those returns assume an equal-weight portfolio. Same money in every stock. No thought to valuation. No thought to quality differences.
We add a second layer: position sizing.
We allocate more capital to higher-quality businesses.
We scale in based on valuation.
We build positions over time, not all at once.
That is where the edge comes from.
Not stock picking.
Not timing the market.
Process.
How to Use This
You can deploy roughly 56% of your initial capital today across the quality names in the All-Canadian DGI Portfolio at sensible weights.
Then you let the process take over.
Follow the DGI alerts as PAID subscribers. Add on weakness. Reinvest dividends and let them compound.
Simple. Repeatable. Proven.
The Real Difference
I left the rat race a long time ago.
I do not rely on selling shares.
I buy businesses that pay me.
That cash shows up every month or quarter. I decide what to do with it.
Reinvest it. Spend it. Hold it.
My choice.
Selling is optional. Not required.
That changes everything.
Takeaway
Most investors watch prices.
We track income.
When cash keeps hitting your account, it becomes much easier to stay the course.
You stop thinking like a trader.
You start thinking like an owner.
That is the shift.
You can ride the market rollercoaster.
Or you can build a machine that pays you regardless.
Pick the one that lets you sleep at night.
For me, it is simple.
Build the income. Let the rest follow.
One dividend at a time.
Looking for a helping hand in the market? Members of Magic Pants Dividend Growth Investing get exclusive ideas and guidance to navigate any climate.
The Magic Pants model portfolios (Canadian and American) are real-money dividend growth portfolios funded with actual capital and executed in live accounts. Every position shown is owned, sized, and tracked in real time using our disciplined DGI process.
Become a paid subscriber, and I’ll show you exactly how I do it. In addition, gain full access to this post and exclusive, subscriber-only content. We do the work; you stay in control.
DGI Scorecard
The Magic Pants 2026 list (The List) includes 26 Canadian dividend growth stocks and our new American watchlist (The List-USA) contains 28 companies. Here are the criteria to be considered a candidate on our watchlists:
- Dividend growth streak: 10 years or more.
- Market cap: Minimum one billion dollars.
- Diversification: Limit of five companies per sector, preferably two per industry.
- Cyclicality: Exclude REITs and pure-play energy companies due to high cyclicality.
Based on these criteria, companies are added or removed from ‘The List’ annually on January 1. Prices and dividends are updated weekly.
‘The List’ is not a portfolio but a coaching tool that helps us think about ideas and risk manage our model portfolio. We own some but not all the companies on ‘The List’. In other words, we might want to buy these companies when valuation looks attractive.
Our newsletter provides readers with a comprehensive insight into the implementation and advantages of our Canadian dividend growth investing strategy. This evidence-based, unbiased approach empowers DIY investors to outperform both actively managed dividend funds and passively managed indexes and dividend ETFs over longer-term horizons.
Performance of ‘The List’
The dividend growth of The List stayed the same last week, with an average YTD increase of 6.0% (income).
The price of The List went down last week and now stands at -2.7% YTD (capital).
Top Performers Last Week:
- Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ-T), up +1.32%.
- Manulife Financial (MFC-T), up +1.20%.
- goeasy Ltd. (GSY-T), up +0.64%.
Worst Performer Last Week:
- Franco Nevada (FNV-N), down -11.64%.
Note: Stocks ending in “-N or -Q” declare earnings and dividends in US dollars. To achieve currency consistency between dividends and share price for these stocks, we have shown dividends in US dollars and share price in US dollars (these stocks are listed on a US exchange). The dividends for their Canadian counterparts (-T) would be converted into CDN dollars and would fluctuate with the exchange rate.
PAID subscribers enjoy full access to our enhanced weekly newsletter, premium content, and easy-to-follow trade alerts so they can build DGI portfolios alongside ours. This service provides the resources to develop your DGI business plan confidently. We do the work; you stay in control!
It truly is the subscription that pays dividends!
The greatest investment you can make is in yourself. Are you ready to take that step?
For more articles and the full newsletter, check us out on magicpants.substack.com.
