The beat the TSX portfolio skips a beat in 2023 and 2024, picks up the pace in 2025, but falls short.

The beat the TSX portfolio (hypothetical ticker BTSX) has a wonderful longer term habit of beating the market. The strategy is dead simple. BTSX will simply hold the top ten yielding stocks from the TSX 60. It will change the constituents (holdings) on the first trading day of each year, and it will continue to hold those ten stocks throughout the year. The beat the TSX portfolio underperformed in the pandemic year of 2020 as value was certainly out of favour. But it charged back. The BTSX portfolio was back to its winning ways in 2021 and 2022. The Beat The TSX Portfolio skipped a beat in 2023, and 2024. It gave it a go in 2025 but ended up falling short, underperforming the TSX by a small margin. That said, it did eke out a small advantage vs the TSX 60.

Why does it beat the TSX?

The BTSX finds successful and profitable companies that pay out large dividends. The TSX 60 screen adds a “bluer chip” layer. The strategy of selecting the TSX constituents with the greatest dividends is a classic value play. It finds some of the most beat up companies in the index. As the stock prices go down, up goes the current dividend yield. You are often buying much greater current earnings (compared to the market) to go along with the greater dividends. But remember, ironically the dividends are not contributing to the total returns.

The simple strategy has a long-term history of outperforming the market, to a very meaningful degree. Just earning about double the index returns over the last 30 years, ha 🙂 That said, there are underperforming years and periods; patience is required.

In the name of greater diversification, I’d suggest you hold more than the 10 stocks from BTSX. You might keep the discarded constituents from previous years. You can also look to the market-beating Canadian Wider Moat Portfolio for more stock ideas.

And stock picking is not for everyone. If that ‘s the case for you, consider the TSX 60 (XIU.TO) or the hard to beat BMO Low Volatlity ETF – ticker ZLB.TO. XDIV-T is a good option to consider as well if you’re a dividend fan.

And don’t forget to say goodbye to your Canadian home bias. Greater international diversification is crucial.

Let’s take a look at the 2025 total returns vs the TSX Composite. We’ll then take a look at the Beat The TSX Portfolio for 2026. You will then also find the performance comparisons from 2021 – 2024.

The Beat the TSX Portfolio for 2025

Given that the BTSX Portfolio has a habit of finding troubled stocks, it can’t quit Bell, Telus and Algonquin. Will those dogs continue to be dogs? And speaking of dogs, troubled TD has entered the mix thanks to massive fines in the U.S. for enabling money laundering. Regulators have put restrictions on TD’s U.S. expansion plans. TD’s stock fell 6% in 2024.

Here’s the performance for 2025 vs the TSX Composite. The portfolio gave it a go, but came up short as materials (XMA) drove the TSX composite to new highs.

And here’s the performance of the individual assets. BTSX 2025 did some successful value hunting in 2025 with TD, Scotiabank and Algonquin among the top performers. PowerCorp also powered the portfolio. The two banks beat the banking index in 2025. The telcos were a drag but managed to not deliver negative returns. The pipelines/utilities were solid, but not spectacular.

The TSX 60 delivered 28.89% in 2025, so BTSX offered a beat against that benchmark.

Here’s the Beat The TSX Portfolio for 2026

Company	2025 Performance	Yield
Telus	-0.48%	9.25%
Enbridge	12.57%	5.91%
Pembina	3.78%	5.43%
BCE	5.43%	5.35%
Canadian Natural Resources	10.41%	5.05%
TC Energy	17.02%	5.05%
Scotiabank	38.77%	4.35%
Emera	31.96%	4.33%
SunLife	4.36%	4.30%
Canadian Tire	14.71%	4.14%

Welcome CNQ, SunLife and Canadian Tire . As I’ve often suggested, you might keep the BTSX castoffs each year, and simply add any new additions.

Canadian Tire just made it as the last and smallest holding in the TSX 60. Kyle at Million Dollar Journey has PowerCorp in BTSX 2026. If you held your 2025 castoffs, you’ll hold them both.

Beat the TSX for retirement

While outperforming the market is a wonderful thing in retirement, keep in mind that the BTSX comes with greater volatility and has a history staying underwater for greater durations (compared to the TSX) during major corrections. That makes it a risky proposition in retirement if you’re using the portfolio to create ongoing income.

We discuss portfolio composition at Retirement Club for Canadians.

All said, I do like the more defensive stance of the 2025 and 2026 BTSX – lots of utilities and pipelines. Not advice, but you might consider BTSX members (or the full group) as you build your Canadian stock portfolio. You’ll be adding a value tilt.

I am more of a fan of building a Canadian Wide Moat Portfolio that will often include many of the BTSX members. Here’s an example using my wife’s Canadian Wide Moat RRSP portfolio. We see greater returns with less volatility, a very good combination in retirement. The some bonds in the mix for Joan’s portfolio, iShares XGRO is the appropriate benchmark.

Once again, we go over these defensive models at Retirement Club. You can join us for 2026. Use Contact Dale for more details.

The BTSX 11-20

In the name of diversification consider the next 10 for BTSX, the next highest yields who are also members of the TSX 60. The next 10 would be Suncor, Rogers, BMO, Magna, Restaurant Brands International, Fortis, Manulife, Nutrien, Cenovus and CIBC. 

The Beat The TSX Portfolio for 2022

With 5 energy companies in the mix, the portfolio is (obviously) well positioned in 2022 due to the ongoing strength in oil and natural gas prices. Pipelines are also taking advantage of the energy trends.

BTSX update for total 2022

November and December were not kind to stock markets. The Beat The TSX Portfolio declined modestly and gave up its positive gains for the year. That said, BTSX still greatly ouperformed the TSX Composite and the S&P 500.

• BTSX down 1.85%
• TSX down 5.82%
• S&P 500 down 18.16%

Here’s the performance of the 10 stocks for 2022. The energy exposure was not enough to float the portfolio in 2022.

2023 Beat The TSX Portfolio

There is only one change. We remove Suncor and add struggling CIBC.

The BTSX portfolio slipped in the second half of 2023. It underperformed the TSX Composite by 4%.

And here’s the Beat The TSX Portfolio asset performance for 2023.

We can see that the insurance heavy Manulife and Power Corp plus CIBC saved the portfolio in 2023. Pipelines offered modest returns while the Telco’s had a rough year. Algonquin offered a surprise with a flat year, given that it cut its dividend in 2023.

The Beat the TSX Portfolio for 2024

Manulife gets the boot, while Emera powers its way into the index. Once again, I’d suggest that you keep the previous BTSX constituents in the portfolio. That will increase diversification, reduce risk and it may increase returns at times. As you’ll discover the Manulife for Emera was a terrible trade and the reason for the under performance.

Here’s the returns comparison to the TSX Composite in 2024, to the end of December. BTSX attempted a comeback, but offered another year of underperformance.

And perhaps the Sunday Reads for May 11 shows that thing are looking up for Canadian telco as well after Bell finally cut its dividend. That should help them repair their balance sheet. I was guessing the bottom was in for Canadian telco, but only time will tell.

The numbers. We have lesser returns and greater volatility (Stdev).

Here’s the performance of the Canadian BTSX’ers for 2024. It mostly was a year of hit or miss. Only Emera had a year of ‘modest returns’.

Just as is the case in the Canadian Wide Moat Portfolio, we see the telcos struggling. That is the risk of a concentrated portfolio – a few names can bring the ship down. Manulife has delivered 59.32% in 2024. If BTSX had not made that trade, it would have matched the TSX Composite.

Here’s the sector breakdown …

• Financials 34.0%
• Pipelines 36.9%
• Utilities -2.4%
• Telcos – 18.4%

The sectors are batting .500

The telco sector has been beat up due to regulatory harassment and the increased borrowing costs created by the higher rate environment. The failure of utilities for the BTSX comes down to company risk. Algonquin management failed investors.

The next 10 for the TSX 60 yields – 2024

I would personally have no problem holding that Beat The TSX 20 as a personal and permanent Canadian portfolio. Not advice, that’s just me.

As I suspected, the Next Ten outperformed the BTSX in 2024, 1%. Though it also underperformed the TSX.

Looking further back – BTSX in 2021

Here are the holdings. This also includes the starting yield for 2021.

On this link you find this article on the beat the TXS BTSX portfolio. That post offered the portfolio for 2019 and the 2020 BTSX portfolio. You’ll see there is not a lot of turnover, there are only two replacements for 2021 from 2020. There was only one replacement in 2020 from 2019.

For the record if I was holding or following the BTSX approach, I would keep the past holdings and simply add any new holdings each year.

Also, I was happy to see Canadian energy producer Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ) make it into the portfolio. In October of 2020 I had suggested that readers take a look at the value in Canadian energy stocks. That suggestion was about 380% ago, ha.

In 2020 the BTSX portfolio underperformed considerably. That underperformance trend was duly noted when we checked in on the Canadian dividend ETFs in 2020. Value stocks were out of favour during the pandemic. Though we’ve seen a reversal towards value at the end of 2020 and into 2021.

When I wrote on the Beat The TSX portfolio in December of 2020, I had suggested that there was greater value in the high dividend strategy from that point in time.

From that Cut The Crap Investing post …

The BTSX portfolio is down by 10% in 2020 while the TSX 60 is up by 6.8% to the end of last week. That is a significant underperformance. This is when patience will/may pay off for those that embrace the BTSX approach. If history repeats, there is even more value today in that high yield mix; so says that drastic underperformance in 2020.

My instincts / guess proved correct.

The 2021 returns for BTSX

Here’s the returns for the individual assets.

• Pembina 36.1%
• Enbridge 30.0%
• TC Energy 20.3% 
• Bell 27.9%
• Power Corp 49.9%
• CNQ 82.6%
• CIBC 41.5%
• Shaw 78.4%
• Scotiabank 38.0%
• Emera 22.3%

Average of 42.7% 

• For 2021 the TSX 60 delivered 27.9%.
• The TSX Composite returned 25.1%

Outperformance for BTSX of 14.8% of the TSX 60.

We continue to see that the TSX 60 is superior to the TSX Composite. For couch potato portfolios I suggest the TSX 60 (XIU) on the Canadian ETF portfolio page.

Longer term outperformance

And even more impressive, here’s what happens when you outperform over time. An average of 2% to 2.5% annual outperformance can ‘add up’ to a tremendous advantage in portfolio value. Of course, that’s life changing.

As always, past performance does not guarantee future market crushing. 🙂

We can’t argue with success.

It’s a viable investment idea that you might use or build around. For more Canadian growth you might bolt on the Canadian tech sector. You might layer in other types of stocks such as the Canadian retail stocks.

And of course always consider the total portfolio mix and risk level. Geographic diversification is important. Know the tax considerations. And ensure the investment portfolio and approach is part of a greater life and financial plan.

The self-directed investor can check in with a fee for service planner. You’ll find the planning basics and checklist in that post. And this might also be a good time to read my personal finance book. Ok it’s a blog post. I only needed 1000 words.

Thanks for reading. We’ll see you in the comment section. You got the beat?

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