Best Stock Buy of 2013 - Telus

At the risk of posting early, and seeing my stock purchases from 2013 plummet, the table below shows how the stocks I've bought this year have progressed. Note, dividends aren't included in the return (misleading giving every one of these securities has healthy, growing dividends), and the returns are not time or dollar weighted either.

Stock Symbol	Percentage Gain/Loss
HR.UN	-5.3
IPL	15.8
NA	15.3
T (Unregistered)	5.7
LB	7.5
PFE	9.8
POT	-19.4
O	4.1
CAR	5.6
ENF	-0.6
REI.UN	5.8
INTC	12.7
T (RRSP)	17.8
Average:	7.6

Some shares I bought of Telus (TSX: T) in my RRSP are my top returning stocks for the year at 17.8%. The current dividend yield is around 3.8%, and they are expected to continue to grow their distributions at about 10%/year in the future. I'm also very impressed with Inter Pipeline (IPL) and National Bank (NA), who both yield around 5%, and are up about 15% from the time I bought them. 

On the flip side, I wish I held off on buying Potash (POT) by about 2 weeks, before the cartel they were part of came apart. That said, I still feel comfortable holding the stock. Despite the 19% paper loss, I'm considering buying some additional shares given I think the 4.5% dividend is safe, and I see it as a long-term play in the fertilizer industry. HR REIT (HR.UN) is also a bit down, but they pay a very nice dividend that would completely eliminate the loss, and then some. I just bought my shares of Enbridge Income Fund (ENF) a couple weeks ago, and am hoping it stays low so I can buy some more shares before the end of the year.

All in all, I'm very happy with the performance of my stock picks in 2013.