There’s a clear “disconnect” happening in the US economy right now. And most investors are on the wrong side of it.

Funny thing about it is, it’s pretty obvious. We hear about both sides of it in the news daily, but few people truly see it for what it is. And the 10.5% dividend we’re going to discuss today is the perfect play on this misconception.

The first part of our opportunity? Consumer sentiment, which I’m sure you’ve heard is in the tank:

Here’s the University of Michigan consumer-sentiment survey over the last 50 years. At the right side of this chart we see that the current level is the lowest it’s been in all of that time.… Read more

Using vanilla websites for your dividend research? Be careful.

Many of these mainstream sites miss the most important payment of the year for “special” dividend companies!

This oversight could have us overlooking thousands of dollars in potential yearly income. And yields up to 14.6%!

Would you believe what this 14.6% payer is listed at on these lame sites? 0.2%. Zero-point-two percent.

Yup. Which is why we contrarians do our research with a focus on special dividends.

Specials uncommon enough that many investors don’t know much (if anything) about them. In short, they’re one-time cash payouts, usually the result of a massive capital boost—say, selling off a piece of the company or delivering blowout annual profits.… Read more

Closed-end funds (CEFs) yield around 8% today—and that’s on average. Plenty yield more—and deliver their payouts safely, predictably and often monthly, too.

Members of my CEF Insider service know this. As I write this, our portfolio yields a high 8.8% on average, even as many of our funds’ prices have risen with this year’s strong market. And 12 of our current 21 holdings pay us every month.

All that said, we also know the old adage that something that seems too good to be true usually is. That also applies to CEF yields, especially when we spot a vastly overinflated one (24.6%, say).… Read more

Two dividend cuts in the last two quarters, and we are buying.

Wait. What?

When do we ever chase one dividend cut, let alone two? Let me tell you when, my fellow contrarian!

A Terrible Divvie Trend and We’re In?

Let’s start with the fantastic yield. At 15.3%, FS KKR Capital Corp (FSK) has our attention. That doesn’t mean buy—we don’t chase headline yields around here without doing our homework. But in this case, management is redirecting the money saved from these cuts into share buybacks. 

Which means we’ll likely see price appreciation as shares move closer to fair value.… Read more

Last week’s hot inflation reports have handed us a timely “two-step” 10.3% dividend opportunity. We’re going to jump on it today.

Here’s our plan:

• Step 1: We grab a 10.3% average dividend now, to fend off rising inflation, then …
• Step 2: We ride along as interest rates fall, driving up the value of the two funds behind that steady 10.3% divvie.

I know, I know. How can I be talking about falling rates at a time like this?

The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Oil is at $100. And last week saw two hot inflation reports: CPI hit 3.8% in April, and the PPI (producer price index) soared 6%.… Read more

Stocks are up, and the media is finally coming around to what we’ve been saying at my CEF Insider service for months now.

Last week, The Economist wrote a breathless piece about how the US economy is firing on all cylinders—and fears that a recession will sideswipe stocks are just plain wrong.

We’re happy to see a leading publication like The Economist come around on this point, of course. Even better, we now we have the data to prove it:

Across the board, the S&P 500 saw a 27.7% earnings gain in the first quarter. That’s shocking when, historically, profits have risen in the 5% to 8% range.… Read more

Let’s capitalize on analyst incompetence—and bank yields up to 18.3%, with upside to boot!

A widely cited academic study on analyst target price accuracy found that only about 54% of 12-month price targets correctly predicted even the direction of the subsequent price move.

Fifty-four percent. On direction alone. That’s barely better than a coin flip!

Analysts give specific price targets to stocks like they are scripture. In reality, they don’t even know if the thing is going to move up or down.

And it gets uglier. A 2024 Yale School of Management study found that analysts systematically delay downgrading stocks after bad news—to curry favor with the companies they cover.… Read more

If you ask the average investor what, say, an ETF is, you’ll likely get a good answer. A closed-end fund (CEF)? Likely a blank stare.

That’s because CEFs are a tiny corner of the market, with only about $300 billion in assets among them. ETFs? About $13.5 trillion. The scale is way out of whack here.

At CEF Insider, of course, we like it this way. It’s why “Insider” is in the service’s title.

Since CEFs are obscure, we can easily find overlooked ones trading at big discounts to net asset value (NAV, or the value of their underlying portfolios).… Read more

“Merci beaucoup,” your dividend strategist said as he handed three suitcases to his to-the-Paris-airport Uber driver. (I was very proud of myself. Eight days and basically Parisian…)

“Francais?” the driver called my bluff.

“Ah no,” I admitted, hands up, waving off the offer. “She does!” I quickly scapegoated my wife. Who, to her credit, speaks French reasonably well. But the driver was flying with his urgent ask.

Fortunately for phones. She didn’t know what he was asking either, but his phone was translating into English in real time:

There is a bug in my application. Can we cancel the ride?

Then he punched a number into a calculator.… Read more

Stocks are surging—but they’re also developing a case of “bad breadth.” That is, most of the gains are coming from a small slice of the market (I’m looking at you, tech).

That’s good news for us contrarians because this shift has left us some sweet dividend deals in other corners of the market. We’re going to capitalize through 3 discounted closed-end funds (CEFs) yielding up to 11.8%.

Together, they form a tidy “mini-portfolio” that includes blue chips (sans tech), bonds and infrastructure plays. Two of these funds offer payouts that roll out monthly, too.

Start With Stocks—and the Gabelli Equity Trust (GAB)

GAB stands out for another reason beyond its hefty 10.6% payout: It’s one of the few US-stock-focused CEFs whose top-10 holdings aren’t heavily weighted toward tech.… Read more