New Rogers Share Certificates Arrive

Yep, they finally showed up. I had sent the share certificate for my 12 shares of Rogers Wireless Communication; Class B shares in a while back to get them exchanged for the RCI:b shares that they were swapped for.

When I opened up the envelope, I beheld two share certificates for 21 shares each. That means that the 2006 stock split doubled my holdings. Along with the certificates, the envelope also included a $23.32 cheque for past dividends and interest. Now if I can just figure out if Computershare will let me do a DRIP. At the quarterly dividends of $10.50 I'll get a whole new share each year. OOOoooohhhhhh. What the hell. It's going to be a couple of years before we get all the unsecured debt paid off and save for the downpayment.

I certainly like what I read in Derek Fosters book "The Lazy Investor". I'm thinking that while we are paying off the debt I can pick up individual shares in the companies I want to hold long term, set up the dividend reinvestment and stock purchase plans. Then in a few years I can begin to sock money into the skeleton I've prepared.

Well, lots more to learn! Good night.

Dow Jones Has Lost 9.2% Since Jan. 1

I read this article from the New York Times today that stated that the Dow Jones had lost 9.2% of it's value since the first of January. That's quite a hit and I'm sure that a lot of investors are screaming. On the other hand I'm just wishing that my debts were paid off so I could be buying stocks at these prices. I've just started learning about the market, but this seems to really be the time to scoop up some bargains.

So are any of you taking advantage of this down turn? If not, can you tell me why?

Rogers Stocks

I came across the fact recently that Rogers Communications was raising their dividends to $1 a share yesterday. This is interesting because I own some Rogers shares from back in 2000 when I worked there. At the time, the shares I got were Rogers Wireless shares and the share certificate has been stuffed into a file folder ever since.

When I decided to get out of debt, I tried to find out how much they worth, in order to pay off some debt with them. I couldn't find a record of RWI as a stock. A little more research turned up the fact that the parent company had bought out each RWI share for 1.75 RCI shares. This meant that my 12 shares where now 21 shares.

Next, I wondered how much I might expect in the past 7 years of dividends. So I turned to google. I found some info about something else besides dividends. According to one site, there have been 2 stock splits of RCI stock. A 3:2 split in2004 and a 2:1 split in 2007. Now my google-fu isn't as good as some and I have not been able to confirm the 2004 split.

If both are valid I should have something like 63 shares. If only the 2007 happened, I will have 42 shares. Either way they are worth more that I expected.

As far as past dividends go, they were only paying out 10 cents a year back in the early 2000's so I'm not holding my breath.