Canadian Screen Awards spread the wealth—among Quebec talent + MORE Mar 10th

Welcome to my latest dividend income update for 2014.  For those of you new to these posts on my site, every month I discuss my approach to investing using dividend paying stocks and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and how reinvesting the dividends and distributions paid are helping me reach financial freedom.   You can check out my previous dividend income update here.
Last month, I shared some financial lessons from a few legendary investors on what to do with our money.  One of the best brains in the business said to:

invest for the long-term,
stay in equities,
focus on low-costs, and
seek out a plan to live off dividend income.

Over the last month, I’ve seen a stock that I have a small position in cut their dividend (a first for my portfolio) but I’ve also seen a few companies raise their dividends.  Bad news or good news, my investing approach has not changed.  I continue to own these companies through thick and thin.  I’ve also become more attached to indexed products in recent years for these reasons:

great diversification,
low-costs,
transparent holdings,
no stock selection,
market-like returns, and
regular distributions with capital appreciation…

Global mining companies took a hit Monday as the price of iron ore saw its worst one-day decline since the 2008 financial crisis.

Cast and crew of ‘Gabrielle’: (from left) producer Kim McGraw, Gabrielle Marion-Rivard, Alexandre Landry, director Louise Archambault, producer Luc Dery
“I’m thrilled to be back in Toronto, especially now that you’ve legalized crack!” With those words, Martin Short kicked off the Canadian Screen Awards gala, broadcast on CBC-TV Sunday night. It was among a volley of Ford jokes that Short unleashed with vaudevillian panache—examples of the kind of cheap humour he said would never stoop to exploit. Opting for barbed wit over cheap hometown sentiment, Short greeted the glam crowd by saying, “It reminds me of luge . . . So many of you have come so far by simply lying on your backs.”
Welcome to Canadian showbiz. This is an awards show where the biggest star in the room is the host delivering the monologue. After inaugurating the CSA gala last year, Short was back on board for the sophomore year of this newly amalgamated awards show, where Canadian film and TV folk are celebrated on the same red carpet in a push to maximize the country’s struggling star system…

Early influences matter.

DALLAS – Airlines are still tallying up the damage from this winter’s storms, but solid demand for travel means they are likely to weather the rocky start to 2014 in good shape.
Reports from some of the airlines point to higher average prices, and executives say spring bookings look strong.
This has been the worst winter for flight cancellations since the government started keeping track more than 25 years ago. The top four airline companies by miles flown — American, which includes US Airways; United; Delta; and Southwest — have cancelled nearly 75,000 flights this year. Snow and ice storms have fouled schedules at big airports in Chicago, Atlanta, the New York City area and elsewhere.
Since Jan. 1, Delta Air Lines Inc. has cancelled 17,000 flights. In weaker times for the industry, that might have been devastating, said Ed Bastian, the airline’s president. Those cancellations will cut revenue by $90 million and pretax earnings by $55 million, but Delta still expects to post a record profit for the first quarter, usually the weakest season for airlines, he said…