I’m a contrarian at heart—but sometimes even contrarians have to go along with the mainstream opinion.

This (as much as it pains me!) is one of those times. You see, like most of the pundits out there, I expect another strong year for stocks in 2026. I see a roughly 12% gain for the S&P 500 this year, to be exact.

That bothers me. A lot.

I know that four strong years in a row is rare, indeed. But that’s what the data is telling me, and I’m not going to argue with it.

Still Plenty of Cheap CEF Dividends Out There—Even in This “Pricey” Market

Now this doesn’t mean there’s a lack of bargains waiting for us in our favorite income plays: 8%+ closed-end funds (CEFs).… Read more

When we buy dividend stocks, we’re looking for more than just the dividend. Price gains are preferred as well.

Greedy? Nah. Not if we time our buys right. It is possible to have our payouts and watch our stocks go up, too.

Two months ago, we recommended Annaly Capital (NLY) in these pages. Annaly dished a safe 12.9% dividend, well-funded by income. And the mortgage REIT (mREIT) had upside potential to boot.

Vanilla investors were worried about a recession, missing a time-tested maxim of income investing: As rates fall, REITs rise. This “rate-REIT seesaw” was about to tip and catapult Annaly’s price higher.… Read more

As contrarians, we love it when a solid dividend grower drops on headline-driven fear.

And I see the recent decline in shares of Visa (V)—a Hidden Yields holding that hikes its payout double-digits yearly—as our next opportunity to cash in as the mainstream crowd frets.

You probably know that the stock fell on President Trump’s talk of limiting credit-card interest rates to 10% for one year. Investors, in typical “knee jerk” fashion, swiftly sold off this reliable payment toll booth.

That’s too bad for them—but it’s great for us. We now have a chance to buy a stout dividend grower at a bargain.… Read more

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.