Author Archive: Brett Owens

Monthly bills are no problem for careful contrarian readers banking 9.1% yields in monthly divvies. Let’s discuss this rare but excellent dividend breed, the company or fund that pays monthly instead of quarterly.

Only 6% of dividend payers dish monthly. The rest are quarterly or annually, which will likely not be in time to cover your upcoming cell phone bill.

My monthly email from carrier Verizon arrives in a day or two. Another $267.26 will be debited from my account automatically on the 20th.

Fortunately, Verizon notes that there is “nothing I need to do” thanks to AutoPay. As if the automatic payment implies it costs any less money!… Read more

Drug development will never be the same! AI is compressing time-to-market and extending the sales calendar for pharma. More profits from new medications. More new medications, too.

Many pharma and biotech stocks will boom as we enter the “sci-fi” stage of research and development. And this elite 8.8% dividend will directly benefit.

It typically takes 10 to 15 years to develop a new drug. Every month matters because patents last only 20 years. The faster a company gets a drug to market, the more months and years it enjoys with monopoly pricing power.

When patents expire, the generic versions hit the market.… Read more

Our favorite dividends are now on sale—but we still need to make sure we’re buying this dip the right way.

That means zeroing in on rich payers that not only throw off big divvies, but cushion our downside, too.

I’ve got two closed-end funds (CEFs) for you that do just that—and throw off rich 7%+ yields, too. And they avoid the deadly mistake most investors are making now.

Index Funds Pay Little, “Bargain” Techs Even Less

That mistake? Most investors are looking to beaten-down tech stocks (which pay zilch—or close to it!) or they’re grabbing a “plain vanilla” index fund, like the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY)—current yield: 1.1%

One-point-one-percent!… Read more

We contrarians follow Wall Street analysts because we like to fade their opinions!

When most say Buy, we are cautious. There is nobody left to upgrade these shares.

When they slap a Sell label, we are intrigued. So you’re saying the next rating change will be an upgrade?

These slippery suits rate most stocks Buys because, well, that’s the business. As we speak, 400 of the S&P 500 (!) is rated a Buy!

Even at All-Time Highs, Analysts Say 80% of the Market Is a Buy!

Source: S&P Global Market Intelligence

So let’s sift through the Holds and the Sells. Today we’ll sort through a four-pack yielding between 7.9% and 20.6%.… Read more

Jerome Powell is preparing a wonderful holiday income dish for us.

The economy is running hot and he’s cutting rates anyway. Oh baby! “Lame Duck Jerry” is finally starting to cook.

But vanilla investors aren’t having it. They’re sprinting from the table! Recession fears dominate the headlines, even though the data scream otherwise.

The Atlanta Fed’s thermometer has GDP at a sizzling 4%. Four percent! In today’s AI-fueled, efficiency-obsessed economy, the old recession playbook simply doesn’t apply.

AI is eating traditional white-collar work. Business models from 2019 no longer apply in 2025. Some sectors are struggling while others hit new strides.… Read more

What a time to be a contrarian!

The economy is en fuego as AI boosts productivity (even if, yes, it’s cooling payrolls). Yet the mainstream crowd is hunkered down, terrified of an AI bubble.

That sets up some very attractive deals in 8%-paying closed-end funds (CEFs), many of which have gone on sale in the last few weeks.

2 “North Stars” Show Us What to Do Now

To get a feel for the setup in front of us, all we need to do is look at two things.

First, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow indicator, the most current economic “barometer” we have.… Read more

Will the stock market finish the year higher or lower?

Who cares?!

Paying attention to “the market” is a hopeless effort in 2025. The explosion of AI implementation plus the policies from Trump 2.0 are creating winners and losers in the economy.

So why buy a basket when we can cherry pick the undervalued front runners?

Even better? Some are cheap! As I write, four big dividend payers (dishing divvies between 5% and 6%) are trading at bargain-basement valuations. Let’s start with the most established of the four-pack, trading for less than its annual sales…

Sonoco Products (SON)
Dividend Yield: 5.2%

Sonoco Products (SON) is a packaging dinosaur turned value play.… Read more

My kids were minting money. One dollar for a regular bookmark. Two bucks for a fancy one!

Designed on the spot at the school bazaar. Took all of ten minutes. Aside from “labor,” the margins were huge. Paper and markers provided by the school.

The storefront? Courtesy of the school. Foot traffic from the local community! A captive, motivated audience!

The venture, Books and Marks (LLC?), also sold used books! Donated by parents and the campus, of course. Perfect margins for the operation.

The only thing that could slow this cash cow was 3pm—the end of the bazaar. Pack up the books, and the extra marks.… Read more

We’ve got a sweet deal on one of my favorite AI dividends (current yield: 7.9%). And it’s not just because of last week’s stock market drop—though that does help.

Truth is, the bargain on this stout fund has been hanging around for a while now. But it’s on borrowed time indeed. We need to make our move.

Forget NVIDIA: This Is the Best AI Buy on the Board 

The AI play in question is the Cohen & Steers Infrastructure Fund (UTF). It’s the closed-end fund (CEF) behind that 7.9% dividend (which, by the way, pays monthly).

In addition to the dividend, we like UTF because it’s a “tollbooth” play on AI.… Read more

Each of my kids collected more than three pounds of candy on Halloween Night. Three-plus pounds! Their efforts were not superhuman by my best late-80s-to-early-90s estimation.

We are going to have these bags until Easter.

The candy hangover was real. Both YMCA basketball games played “the day after” were utter disasters for their dad and coach.

Sugar-high crashes are real. Which is why we are talking “sleep well at night” dividends paying up to 8.6% today.

Don’t be Coach Brett the day after Halloween. If you’re worried about a Wall Street sugar withdrawal, the time to prepare ye ‘ol portfolio is right now.… Read more