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Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing’s Podcast # 271 on April 18th of 2026.

My name is Ian Duncan MacDonald, and I am the author of 7 investment books. My seventh investment book, Achieving Financial Independence Safely - 200 NYSE Stocks Analyzed and Scored" became available January 3rd on Amazon. You can easily find it by searching in Amazon or Google for "Ian Duncan MacDonald books". For more information on all my books, stock scoring software and podcasts go to www.informus.ca

In this week's podcast I explore stock scoring. This is objectively measuring the benefits and risks of mathematically comparing one stock with another. There are about 14,000 stocks in North America that you could purchase. Is it possible to select and score all these stocks and narrow you stock purchase down to 20 that are going to give you the best return on your investment over six years?

To prove that stock scoring works I go back to 2020 when I released my book, "Safer Better Dividend Investing". How did the 20 highest scoring stocks identified in that book do over the last six years. You may be surprised.

Ian Duncan MacDonald
Author and Commercial Risk Consultant,
President of Informus Inc
2 Vista Humber Drive
Toronto, Ontario
Canada, M9P 3R7
Toronto Telephone - 416-245-4994
imacd@informus.ca

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Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing’s Podcast # 270 on April 11th of 2026.

My name is Ian Duncan MacDonald, and I am the author of 7 investment books. My seventh investment book, Achieving Financial Independence Safely - 200 NYSE Stocks Analyzed and Scored" became available January 3rd on Amazon. You can easily find it by searching in Amazon or Google for "Ian Duncan MacDonald books". If you invest in Canadian stocks, my book "Canadian High Dividend Investing - 215 Scored Stocks" would be recommended.

For more information on all my books, stock scoring software and podcasts go to www.informus.ca or do a search in Google or in Amazon for "Ian Duncan MacDonald Books". At Amazon you will find reviews by investors and sample chapters.

This podcast is an appeal to listeners to write to me about self-directed investing, financially strong companies and what surprises they have encountered in their investing.

These responses will be shared in future podcasts of Safe Dividend Investing.

Ian Duncan MacDonald
Author and Commercial Risk Consultant,
President of Informus Inc
2 Vista Humber Drive
Toronto, Ontario
Canada, M9P 3R7
Toronto Telephone - 416-245-4994
imacd@informus.ca

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Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing’s Podcast # 269 on April 4th of 2026.

My name is Ian Duncan MacDonald, and I am the author of 7 investment books. My seventh investment book, Achieving Financial Independence Safely - 200 NYSE Stocks Analyzed and Scored" became available January 3rd on Amazon. You can easily find it by searching in Amazon or Google for "Ian Duncan MacDonald books". For more information on all my books, stock scoring software and podcasts go to www.informus.ca

This week's podcast is a departure from my usual offering. Paul Musson went through my podcast and wrote comments about its content. He was a professional investor employed as a portfolio manager with MacKenzie Investments for almost 25 years. His responsibilities included managing ten billion dollars in assets.

I have encountered many investment advisors but Paul is the first portfolio manager I have met. I was curious whether he would be critical of my emphasis on investing safely in financially strong stocks paying high dividends. His written comments were recorded by me into the dialogue for the podcast.

What the podcast is about is how now faced with the sale of a stock where was I going to invest that cash. I have not had to buy or sell a stock in several years.

Usually most investors are speculators trying to quickly buy and sell their stock at the earliest opportunity to gain a profit or to avoid a loss. Would Paul see my infrequent trading and careful stock choices as contrary to a professional's approach to investing?

Ian Duncan MacDonald
Author and Commercial Risk Consultant,
President of Informus Inc
2 Vista Humber Drive
Toronto, Ontario
Canada, M9P 3R7
Toronto Telephone - 416-245-4994
imacd@informus.ca

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Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing’s Podcast # 268 on March 28th of 2026.

My name is Ian Duncan MacDonald, and I am the author of 7 investment books. My seventh investment book, Achieving Financial Independence Safely - 200 NYSE Stocks Analyzed and Scored" became available January 3rd on Amazon. You can easily find it by searching in Amazon or Google for "Ian Duncan MacDonald books". For more information on all my books, stock scoring software and podcasts go to www.informus.ca

Who are those ultra high dividend stocks that you are warned against investing in? Investment advisors like to paint high dividend stocks as traps to rob you of your money. I was curious to investigate if I should consider adding some ultra high dividend stocks to my portfolio.

While I have found that most advisors know little about dividend stocks, I was curious to investigate the differences between several ultra high dividend stocks paying a dividend yield percent exceeding 20% to a stock like Citigroup that 15 analysts recommend buying but only pays a dividend yield percent of 2.13%.

In this podcast I calculate the IDM stock scores of several ultra high dividend stocks and analyze their risk. If you have ever been considered adding an ultra high dividend stock to your portfolio, you will find this podcast interesting.

Ian Duncan MacDonald
Author and Commercial Risk Consultant,
President of Informus Inc
2 Vista Humber Drive
Toronto, Ontario
Canada, M9P 3R7
Toronto Telephone - 416-245-4994
New York Telephone - 929-800-2397
imacd@informus.ca

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Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing’s Podcast # 267 on March 21st of 2026.

My name is Ian Duncan MacDonald, and I am the author of 7 investment books. My seventh investment book, Achieving Financial Independence Safely - 200 NYSE Stocks Analyzed and Scored" became available January 3rd on Amazon. You can easily find it by searching in Amazon or Google for "Ian Duncan MacDonald books". For more information on all my books, stock scoring software and podcasts go to www.informus.ca

Geopolitical risk has now become the biggest threat to the stock market. It has created supply chain instability and has polarized countries into being either friends or enemies. Close behind this risk and being used as weapons to subjugate perceived enemy countries are tariffs, sanctions, export controls and restricted access to new technologies.

Supply chains have been thrown into disarray and long-established global alliances are being shredded. The flames of retaliatory trade wars between nations are being fanned.

In this week's podcast I discuss how to build a stock portfolio that will allow you to safely navigate these turbulent times and protect you from both the threat of inflation and a recession.

Ian Duncan MacDonald
Author and Commercial Risk Consultant,
President of Informus Inc
2 Vista Humber Drive
Toronto, Ontario
Canada, M9P 3R7
Toronto Telephone - 416-245-4994
New York Telephone - 929-800-2397
imacd@informus.ca

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Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing’s Podcast # 266 on March 14th of 2026.

My name is Ian Duncan MacDonald, and I am the author of 7 investment books. My seventh investment book, Achieving Financial Independence Safely - 200 NYSE Stocks Analyzed and Scored" became available January 3rd on Amazon. You can easily find it by searching in Amazon or Google for "Ian Duncan MacDonald books". For more information on all my books, stock scoring software and podcasts go to www.informus.ca

In this week's podcast I review what options exist when you are no longer able to manage your stock portfolio.

In my March 7th podcast I was once again not very complimentary of investment advisors. Being a self-directed investor is seen as being a better, safer and more cost-efficient method of investing than placing your portfolio in the hands of an investment advisor. However, what happens when your advanced age eventually makes self-directed management of your investment portfolio no longer possible?

One of the listeners to that podcast responded with a good question. He asked, if you cannot trust investment advisors employed by large financial institutions to manage your stock portfolio then who would you trust to handle your stock portfolio?

Until this listener raised this question with me, I had never considered what I would do if my wife and my children predeceased me and I needed someone to manage my affairs if I became incapacitated. I know from experience that I do not trust investment advisors employed by a large financial institution. As well, the lawyers and accountants I have dealt with knew little about commercial risk and judging the potential of stocks.

What professional would I then not hesitate to entrust the management of my stock portfolio to? I explain in this podcast that I would choose a trustee in bankruptcy and why I would do so. This would be a fiduciary role independent from their bankruptcy work.

Ian Duncan MacDonald
Author and Commercial Risk Consultant,
President of Informus Inc
2 Vista Humber Drive
Toronto, Ontario
Canada, M9P 3R7
Toronto Telephone - 416-245-4994
New York Telephone - 929-800-2397
imacd@informus.ca

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12 March 2026 -

While going back through all 265 Podcasts to find which podcast has had the most listeners, I found two Podcasts that for some reason had never been broadcast. One of them was Podcast #41 recorded December 8 or 2021.

Podcast #41 has some good insights into the problems with mutual funds and buybacks.

Unfortunately it did not have a transcript with it.

I made them available to listeners today.

IAN

Ian Duncan MacDonald
Author and Commercial Risk Consultant,
President of Informus Inc
2 Vista Humber Drive
Toronto, Ontario
Canada, M9P 3R7
Toronto Telephone - 416-245-4994
New York Telephone - 929-800-2397
imacd@informus.ca

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October 20, 2021

This podcast covers the final five chapters of my first investment book, "Income and Wealth from Self-Directed investing". In it, we explore how 9 information elements are graded to provide a public company's total stock score.

The higher the score, the safer and higher the dividend payments and the more likely the stock will show a capital gain of 9 percent or more in a year. The highest possible score would be 100 and the lowest would be zero. Out of the thousands of scores I have calculated, the highest score has been a 78 and the lowest has been a 7.

Being able to score and then sort by score, stocks traded on any stock exchange makes it easier for you to build a strong portfolio, The fact that the stocks in the charts in my books are sorted in descending order by score, price, dividend percent and alphabetically greatly speeds up the process.

The following questions are answered in this podcast:

(1) If a stock had a share price of $100 how many points would this contribute to its total score?

(2) If it was a stock that had not existed 4 years ago, how many points would it contribute to the total score?

(3) If five analysts recommended the stock, how many points would this contribute?

(4) If a stock was paying dividend yield percent of 8%, how many points would that contribute?

(5) If a stock's operating margin exceeded 85%, how many points would that add to the score.

(6) If the number of shares trading on average in a day was 9,000 how many points would be added to the score?

(7) If the stock were a high-flying technical stock with a price to earnings ratio of 350.1x how many points would such a high P/E ratio generate?

(8) What must you always do after you have identified the 20 stocks in the book you want for your portfolio, and you are now ready to buy?

(9) Why are preferred shares not recommended for your portfolio?

(10) What industry has the highest scores?

In these 32 podcasts I wanted to cover the content of at least one of my investment books to give those with an interest in investing an idea of what was involved in choosing stocks and building a portfolio. More importantly I wanted you to realize that with the tools I provide that you are perfectly capable of building a strong dividend portfolio on your own. If an 80-year-old Miss Innocence can build a strong dividend portfolio, that has grown by hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last 3 years while providing her with a generous income, you also can do it.

Next week, I will begin reviewing questions brought to my attention by investors over the last three years. Some questions in 2020 were projections about stocks being impacted by COVID-19.

If you have any questions, please email them to imacd@informus.ca. I am usually sitting at my desk working on the "American High Dividend Handbook" and I will likely see your message flash across my screen. It will give me a break from the tedious job of building hundreds of charts. That book should be available next month.

For information on my novels, investment books and art, visit my website:
www.saferbetterdividendinvesting.com

Ian Duncan MacDonald
Author and Commercial Risk Consultant,
President of Informus Inc
2 Vista Humber Drive
Toronto, Ontario
Canada, M9P 3R7
Toronto Telephone - 416-245-4994
New York Telephone - 929-800-2397
imacd@informus.ca