The grow your dough throwdown: My investments

To kick off the brand new year, Jeff Rose from Good Financial Cents is focusing on an investing movement. As part of this movement, he’s comparing different brokerages.

But that’s not all. He’s also facilitating a fun investing challenge with a number of bloggers. I’m one of the bloggers (and I believe the only Canadian) participating in Jeff’s Grow Your Dough Throwdown.

What would you do if you had $1,000 to invest?

One of the things I like about Jeff’s Throwdown is that he is encouraging us to think about investing in a fun way. The participants all started off 2014 investing $1,000. We aren’t supposed to add new money to the account, but we can trade throughout the year if we want. (I have to admit that I did accidentally go over $30 over on margin.)

I have my investments held at Questrade. I picked Questrade because of the low transaction fees charged. This brokerage is among the best deals in Canada when it comes to regular investing.

At the end of the year, we’re all going to compare our portfolios to see how we’ve done.

My investments for this challenge are very simple and straightforward. I’m only investing in two different companies, at least for now. I might change things up a little bit later on if it makes sense to me.

I do have other accounts, including my RRSP with TD e-Series Funds and TFSA with Questrade, so I’ve had to take that into account since I don’t want to end up throwing off my investing plan with this challenge.

The two companies I chose are:

1. Bird Construction (TSE: BDT) – I don’t have any construction stocks in my portfolio right now, so I thought it would make sense to add a little diversity in that area. I’ve bought 50 shares, and since Bird has a very low price right now, there is potential for upside if the economy continues to improve.
2. Corus Entertainment (TSE: CJR.B) – Another sector that is underrepresented in my portfolio is TV/Radio. As a result, I decided that Corus would be interesting to get. They continue to expand with new specialty television channels and new radio stations. I have 15 shares of this stock to add to my portfolio.

Both of these stocks are dividend stocks. I chose them for a couple of reasons. First of all, qualified Canadian dividend stocks have favored tax treatment. Since I am using a non-registered account for this challenge, it makes sense to go with investments that are favorably treated. My taxes on gains will be lower if I sell later on.

Another reason that I chose a couple of dividend stocks is due to the fact that I can reinvest the dividends. They are earnings, so it isn’t “new” money. This should help me boost my returns for the challenge.

I expect this to be a fun exercise in stock picking, and it will give me a chance to try something a little different with my portfolio.

What do you think of my stock picks? If you had $1,000 to invest, where would you put that money?