Focus on the Match, Not Every Point—Winning Without Perfection

MP Market Review - June 20, 2025

Summary

Welcome to this week’s MP Market Review – your go-to source for insights and updates on the Canadian dividend growth companies we track on The List! While we’ve expanded our watchlists to include U.S. companies, The List-USA, our Canadian lineup remains the cornerstone of our coaching approach.

Don’t miss out on exclusive newsletters and premium content that will help you sharpen your investing strategy. Explore it all at magicpants.substack.com.

Your journey to dividend growth mastery starts here – let’s dive in!

• Last week, dividend growth stayed the same with an average return of +6.9% YTD (income).

• Last week, the price of The List was down from the previous week with an average return of +6.3% YTD (capital).

• Last week, there were no dividend announcements from companies on The List.

• Last week, there were no earnings reports from companies on The List.

• This week, one company on The List will report on earnings.

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DGI Clipboard

“When you lose every second point, on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot. The goal isn’t to win every point. It’s to play the next one with full commitment.”

- Roger Federer

Focus on the Match, Not Every Point—Winning Without Perfection

Intro

In investing, success is often portrayed as the ability to consistently predict market moves, uncover the next Nvidia early, and exit just before a crash. But this image is not only unrealistic—it’s a harmful illusion that can derail good decision-making.

In 2021, BlackRock portfolio manager Ronald van Loon published research in the Journal of Portfolio Management that posed a simple question: How often do professional investors actually need to be right to beat the market?

His answer: not very often. In U.S. equities, a success rate just over 53% was enough to outperform. In fixed income, it was closer to 51%.

That aligns perfectly with a quote we’ve shared before from tennis legend Roger Federer:

“In tennis, perfection is impossible… In the 1,526 singles matches I played in my career, I won almost 80% of those matches… Now, I have a question for all of you… what percentage of the points do you think I won in those matches? Only 54%.”

That’s the key: You can win the match without winning every point.

Just like Federer, investors don’t need to be right all the time—they need to be right about the things that matter. With a sound process and a long-term focus, being “wrong” nearly half the time still leads to success.

Many investors fall into the trap of thinking every trade has to be spot on. But sustainable long-term success doesn’t come from flawless execution. It comes from consistency, patience, and the discipline to follow a sound investment process.

Our approach is grounded in owning high-quality dividend growth companies with the ability to compound cash flows for decades. We don’t try to win every trade—we focus on building portfolios with reliable, growing income and long-term capital appreciation.

As of last Friday:

• Our Canadian model portfolio has a “point-win rate” of 66% (based on our timestamped trades).

• Our U.S. model portfolio is even stronger at 74%.

A quick look at our Performance tab on the site shows how this translates into consistent income growth and capital returns over time.

Takeaway

Roger Federer didn’t win every point, but he won the ones that mattered. Great investors do the same. Success doesn’t come from perfection; it comes from process. Trust it. Stick to it. Play the long game.

Join as a paying subscriber to gain full access to this post and exclusive, subscriber-only content. Plus, get real-time DGI alerts from our model signaling service whenever we make trades in our portfolios. We do the work; you stay in control. Subscribe today and take your dividend growth investing to the next level!

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DGI Scorecard

The List (2025)

The Magic Pants 2025 list includes 29 Canadian dividend growth stocks. Here are the criteria to be considered a candidate on ‘The List’:

1. Dividend growth streak: 10 years or more.

2. Market cap: Minimum one billion dollars.

3. Diversification: Limit of five companies per sector, preferably two per industry.

4. 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 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.

Note: In the last week of every month, I will show the updated watchlist for our American dividend growers, The List-USA. It will be shown after the Canadian watchlist below.

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Performance of 'The List'

Last week, dividend growth stayed the same, with an average return of +6.9% YTD (income).

The price of 'The List' was down from the previous week, with an average YTD return of +6.3% (capital).

Even though prices may fluctuate, the dependable growth in our income does not. Stay the course. You will be happy you did.

Last week's best performers on 'The List' were goeasy Ltd. (GSY-T), up +6.97%.; Canadian Tire (CTC-A-T), up +3.09%; and TD Bank (TD-T) up +2.72%.

Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. (ATD-T) was the worst performer last week, down -4.23%.

In the News section below, you'll find two key stories. The first highlights how many investors harm long-term returns by waiting for breakeven or selling too soon out of fear—often, simply staying the course is the smarter move. The second covers Franco-Nevada’s decision to suspend its arbitration against Panama, a development that could pave the way for further capital returns from this quality dividend grower.

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