While tech is all over the news these days, there’s another corner of the market throwing investors cheap, and surging, dividends. These stocks quietly soared in 2025, but they’re still cheap enough for us to get in on now.

And we have plenty of ways to do so at a bargain.

Chief among them? A growing 7.2% dividend that’s suddenly on sale.

Let’s set the table on that strong fund with the 50,000-foot view: I’m talking about the financial sector, which returned 15% in 2025, going by the performance of the Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLF).

That makes it the fourth-best performer of all sectors, behind tech, industrials and communication-services stocks—the latter of which actually includes tech names like Meta Platforms (META) and Alphabet (GOOGL).… Read more

Dozens of companies are poised to raise their dividends over the next few months once the quarterly earnings season gets underway. Most of those are going to be token upgrades—just enough to pacify shareholders.

We’ll let Wall Street keep the tokens. We are “elephant hunting” big dividend raises.

I’m talking about companies with both the potential and the track record to hike their cash distributions by a minimum of 39%—though a lot more could be in store.

Why are hikes like these retirement makers? Simple—the “dividend magnet” effect.

Lockheed Martin (LMT) is an example of this magnet in action.… Read more

Is 2026 going to be the year the AI “bubble” finally bursts?

Maybe my use of quotes there tipped you off to my true opinion: Worries about an AI bubble are vastly overdone.

And today we’re going to grab a 10.6%-paying closed-end fund (CEF) that wins either way: If I’m wrong and there is an AI bubble (that pops), cash will flow into it. If not, that’s fine: We’ll happily collect its growing 10.6% payout.

From Silicon Valley to Wall Street

Of course, the AI CEOs agree with me that there is no AI bubble: Sam Altman, Elon Musk and the heads of Microsoft (MSFT), Meta Platforms (META), Alphabet (GOOGL) and Oracle (ORCL) are all bullish and willing to spend trillions on the tech.… Read more

Wall Street, please. Enough with the narratives.

CNBC and Bloomberg have become the ESPN and Fox Sports of the financial world. Stories are simplified, spun and spoon-fed to the audience.

We thoughtful contrarians can’t stomach this junk any longer!

These “experts” have vanilla investors sweating every headline. The always-impending recession. Job losses. Trade wars. Geopolitical battles. Domestic political dysfunction.

Sure, there’s a kernel of truth to every story. But investors who ride this roller coaster suffer heart palpitations and (worse!) retirement portfolio underperformance. They get scared stiff by the media coverage, sell stocks at the wrong time (near lows) and stay on the sidelines for too long.… Read more

We’re not even two weeks into 2026, and vanilla investors have already lost the plot. Their blindness has tossed 3 cheap—and growing—dividends into our laps.

More on this trio below. First, let’s look at 4 things the crowd has totally blown it on:

• The AI boom.
• A revolution in US manufacturing.
• The power of politics to shape markets, and …
• The Venezuela situation.

Let’s start with politics (I promise I won’t linger here for long!) because this year, everything will flow from it.

And, quite frankly, the fix is in here.

Truth is, we’re entering a period of “administered growth”: The administration has made clear that it wants cheaper borrowing costs, lower mortgage rates and less regulation for American businesses.… Read more

Let me start the new year by laying out a proven investment fact:

If you want to find the coming year’s biggest losers, start by looking at the previous year’s biggest winners.

So let’s do that.

On the closed-end fund (CEF) side of things, last year’s top performer was a fund called ASA Gold & Precious Metals Limited (ASA), with a near-200% return.

ASA Romped in 2025 

But don’t let that return, or the fund’s “cheap” 9.6% discount to net asset value (NAV)—more on that in a moment—pull you in. Because I see ASA flipping from 2025’s best CEF to 2026’s worst.… Read more

The Dow Jones Industrial Average itself yields modestly, but the Dogs of the Dow 2026 pack more dividend bite. The index’s top payers dish up to 6.8%. Collectively, they provide 3X more yield than the miserly S&P!

We’ll review every one of the Dow’s 10 Dogs (and their dividends) in a moment. First, a refresher on how the “Dogs of the Dow” strategy works:

1. After the final close of 2025, we identify the 10 highest-yielding stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
2. The strategy buys all 10 stocks in equal amounts and holds them for the full calendar year.
3. At the end of the year, the stocks are sold.

The run that AI poster child NVIDIA (NVDA) has been on these last few years is truly incredible. That’s not news, of course. But what matters now is whether investors are overpaying for that growth—in both NVIDIA and AI as a whole.

NVIDIA’s Monstrous Run

Once a chipmaker known for appealing mainly to gamers, NVIDIA started to climb in 2023, thanks to a new technology only a few people really understood at the time: generative AI.

Then, as AI spread in 2024, hopes—and NVIDIA’s stock—soared. That was followed by more fears of a bubble in AI. As with NVIDIA’s share price, a chart is the best way to do these worries justice:

The Bubble in Worries About an AI Bubble 

There’s so much discussion of an AI bubble now that we seem to be in a bubble of talking about bubbles!… Read more

Wall Street is treating Venezuela like the next “black gold” rush.

Nah—I don’t think so. Let me explain why and share my favorite US-based energy dividends up to 8.4%.

Vanilla investors are piling into the majors like Exxon Mobil (XOM) and Chevron (CVX), betting that regime change is a “buy” signal for anyone with a drill bit near Venezuela’s flush Orinoco Belt. But we careful contrarians know better. Energy infrastructure does not simply bounce back overnight. (Fictional TV “landman” Tommy Norris is not taking a plane south to instantly fix production with a few phone calls, hard lines and Michelob Ultras!)… Read more

Ignore the doom-and-gloom “predictions” about 2026. There are plenty of gains—and growing dividends—to be had for us this year.

And if we do see a short-term pullback—possible, as we discussed a few weeks ago—the “smart money” is already setting up for a rebound. We’re going to join them by targeting three “depressed” corners of the market. We’ll get into those (and three tickers) below.

DC Stacks the Deck

Why am I so optimistic? Because, to be frank, the fix is in.

We are entering a year of “administered growth.” The Trump team has made its wishes clear: It wants lower mortgage rates, cheaper borrowing costs and a laissez-faire backdrop for American businesses.… Read more