For a while, utilities were that sneaky play on AI. A picks-and-shovels provider, if you will.

Here’s why: AI usage is booming. What does AI use? It uses energy. AI is a notable energy hog, so the local utility company was the sneaky early beneficiary. Power prices would go up with more demand from that new data center down the street, and it was another customer for this utility’s captive audience.

Now things have changed a bit. Everyone publicly hates data centers:

Source: Economist/YouGov

What does it mean when poll numbers like this happen? It means everyone who’s left to sell utilities has already sold.… Read more

Let’s break down this cloud of pessimism hanging over the economy. As far as I can tell, it’s mainly coming from two sources:

1. The bond market.
2. The labor market.

Concerns around both are overblown, and that’s been a plus for us at my CEF Insider service. It’s pushed out the discounts to net asset value (NAV) on these funds, setting up some nice buying opportunities over the last few months.

It’s increased the dividend yields on some of these funds, too. In some cases near double digits.

General American Investors (GAM), one of the more popular equity CEFs, tells the tale here.… Read more

Yeah, we’re here for the dividends. But isn’t it nice when we buy a stock and it goes up, like, right away?

And it happens for us. We are contrarians! We buy payers when they are out of favor because that maximizes our yield (more dividends per dollar!) and minimizes our downside (everyone has already sold!).

Sometimes this works and we buy, say, a 6% dividend stock that quickly gains 10%. The hated setup gave us a quick paper buck. Cool—but now what do we do?

Well, we need to understand that a dividend acts like an anchor in both directions.… Read more

This year, Christmas (for dividend investors!) is set to arrive two months early.

Our gift?

A chance to grab our favorite high yielders—closed-end funds (CEFs) paying 10% and more—on an early “year-end” sale.

How cheap are we talking here? How about 90 cents on the dollar? In some cases less.

We’ve got an early start to the year-end tax-loss selling season to thank for this opportunity.

Forget Year-End: The Best Dividend Deals Are Right Now

Our play starts with the fact that CEFs are a small market, with only around 365 out there. That means they’re mainly held by individual investors, since most CEFs aren’t big enough to move the needle for the big guys.… Read more

Ten-year Treasuries yield 5.3%. We’re still not buying.

Because the truth is, that 5.3% yield is an illusion, for two reasons.

First, inflation is at 3.4%. Knock that off your 5.3% yield and you’re left with a real return of just 1.9%.

And second, if the government continues to print money to meet its obligations (likely!), it could fuel more inflation, and higher bond yields. That increases the likelihood that anyone buying a Treasury today will sell at a loss if they do so before maturity.

So where does an income investor turn?

Two words: US stocks.

Trouble is, the S&P 500 yields a mere 1%.… Read more

Is there anything better than a closed-end fund (CEF) paying 7% or more in dividends? I’ll tell you what: it’s when that fund is discounted by 10% or more with respect to the fair value of its portfolio. This is a feature, a fantastic one, of CEFs: they tend to trade at discounts to their fair values.

Why do CEF values wander from the underlying value of their portfolios? It’s because these vehicles issue fixed amounts of shares, so when investors are greedy, they can bid up the prices of these funds in excess of their net asset values, or NAVs.… Read more

Joblessness rose last month. And stocks jumped on the news.

It’s weird. And it’s giving us a rare chance to pick up a well-funded 6.8% dividend for 12.3% off its “regular” price.

This deal exists because the fund behind that healthy payout—a tech-focused closed-end fund (CEF) called the BlackRock Technology and Private Equity Term Trust (BTX)—is smack in the middle of a very profitable setup.

That is, both its price on the stock market (in purple below) and the value of its underlying portfolio (its net asset value, or NAV, in orange) are soaring this year:

BTX Skyrockets in 2026 …

The fact that both the portfolio and market price can move independently of each other is a unique feature of CEFs.… Read more

“He hasn’t picked up a basketball since…” My fellow dad winced slightly, and I completed the sentence for him.

“Since last season.”

He shrugged.

“I get it,” I admitted. “He’s a seasonal hooper.”

My friend’s son has a body built for basketball. Tall. Loooooong arms.

He’s athletic, too. There’s just one thing holding him back: He doesn’t actually care about the sport of basketball. I know this because I’ve coached him (let’s call him Seasonal) since he was seven.

Every November, Seasonal shows up with his friends. He puts forth a somewhere-between-minimal-and-reasonable effort in practices. In games he has more fun and works harder.… Read more

It’s an app only Silicon Valley could come up with.

One of its key selling points? It can help users root out the monthly subscriptions they signed up for and forgot about—and cancel them.

I’m talking about Muse, the AI agent Meta Platforms (META) launched last month. While Muse offers a free version (with a usage limit), it also offers—get this—a paid monthly plan.

Which raises the question: If you don’t use it enough, will Muse suggest canceling itself?

Not likely.

But that didn’t stop the (reliably) skittish mainstream crowd from doing what they always seem to when the threat of AI disruption rears its head: sell.… Read more

Our favorite 9.5% dividends are on sale, and very few investors realize it.

It’s a striking situation because a payout that size handily beats a 10-year Treasury. Sure, the 10-year pays about 5% now. And it’ll pay you that for a decade, until you get your principal back.

But that’s still only a bit more than half of what these 9.5% payers—called closed-end funds (CEFs)—pay on average. Plus, unlike a Treasury, we can buy these funds’ portfolios for less than they’re actually worth, putting the potential for big upside on the table, too.

In fact, because so many investors are currently dazzled by those Treasury yields, we have a unique chance to buy our favorite CEFs at an unusually deep 7.8% average discount (more on that in a moment).… Read more