Author Archive: Brett Owens

Most Wall Street “suits” are allergic to dividend cuts. These spreadsheet jockeys sooooo lack imagination. They prefer linear trends—up and to the right.

Dividend growers model nicely. Payout “resets” (cuts!) do not. So, there is often a knee-jerk reaction from analysts to sell every divvie slash they see.

Same goes for most individual income investors. These vanilla beans sold BlackRock Health Sciences Term Trust (BMEZ) late last week when BlackRock sliced the dividends for three of its popular funds.

The weaker hands sold. Big payouts remain. As contrarians, we’re intrigued.

Dividend cuts, ironically, often mark the start of opportunity. Here’s what the knee-jerk sellers miss:

• Even after the trim, BMEZ still yields 9.2%.

While Wall Street chases NVIDIA (NVDA), the real AI dividend story is unfolding in the sleepy insurance sector. These “boring” firms are quietly leveraging AI tools to slash costs, grow premiums, and—best of all—dish us bigger dividends.

AI is spreading across the economy much faster than many expected. That means we need to move even faster to front-run that shift.

We’ve already been hard at it. In July, we talked about our favorite dividend payer to grab as AI reworks farming. Few people realize it, but “ag” has a long history of leveraging tech. It’s a big reason why productivity per farm worker has shot up 16X since 1948.… Read more

Wall Street suits tend to avoid business development companies (BDCs). That’s a mistake. For us income seekers, these “Main Street bankers” can be the best dividend machines in the market.

Forget the “penny yields” most stocks pay. BDCs can dish divvies between 10.6% and 12.6%. Unlike vanilla blue chips, BDCs are mandated by Congress to flip us at least 90% of their taxable income.

In other words, the dividends are a “built in” feature.

Of course we don’t just close our eyes and buy any 12% payer. Some BDCs are dividend machines, others are disasters. Our job: separate the stars from the scrubs and only buy the cash cows.… Read more

Last Friday’s jobs report confirmed what we contrarians have been discussing for months now—thanks to AI, employers no longer need to hire more employees to grow.

Bosses simply need to implement AI tools to grow their businesses. The machines are a managerial dream. Once trained they are, in many cases, better, faster and cheaper than people.

Robots always report for work. They will grind all the time. And they are never sick or hungover!

Two years ago, my current software company engaged about 15 contractors in various capacities. Today, thanks to AI, we have only two-and-a-half. Yet even with only one-sixth the “manpower,” sales are climbing, and the bottom line has never looked better!… Read more

It’s a trap I see investors fall into all the time: pouncing on yields that are so high as to be, frankly, absurd. Case in point: the 89% (not a typo!) yielder we’re going to talk about today.

I get where the temptation of a payout like that comes from. Inflation is sticking around. The job market? Precarious, to say the least, with AI replacing humans at an accelerating pace. Another disappointing jobs report, released on Friday, sure doesn’t help here, either.

At a time like this, an 89% annualized payout sounds like a dream, especially if you’re looking to get to (and hopefully stay in!)… Read more

Small companies are sneaky AI-friendly plays because they are implementing these tools faster than their larger competitors.

Expect to see these smaller firms become more efficient in the quarters ahead. Sales will continue to increase while headcounts will remain relatively flat as robots take up the slack—a boon to future profits.

Ironically, small caps are currently the cheapest sector on the board:

Broad-Market Forward P/Es:

• S&P 500: 22.2
• S&P MidCap 400: 16.2
• S&P SmallCap 600: 15.6

So, we turn our attention to a six pack of small but mighty dividend payers. Let’s start with a lender that yields “only” 15.7% per year and work our way up from there.… Read more

Drill baby, drill is driving vanilla energy investors nuts. Drilling permits spike one month and plunge the next. Crude oil itself is sitting in the $60s, too low for producers to make real money.

Our contrarian solution? Focus on the energy toll collectors—particularly a dividend duo dishing up to 8.1%.

Pipeline owners are paid every time oil and gas flow through their pipes. The latest headlines about GDP, drilling permits or (heck) the Federal Reserve don’t matter here, because there are plenty of hydrocarbons that need to move.

Big picture, US oil output has doubled since 2008. Back then, we were pumping about 5 million barrels per day.… Read more

If tariffs really are going to crush the economy, someone forgot to tell the nation’s small businesses! Truth is, these “mom-and-pop shops” are thinking big—and growing.

And we’re here to play this “disconnect” for sweet 8.8%+ dividends.

Small Biz Bullishness by the Numbers

According to the latest NFIB survey, in July, 13% of small business owners said their businesses were in “excellent” shape, a five-point gain since June. And 52% said they were in “good” condition (a three-point rise). Only 4% said “poor,” a three-point drop.

The good times look set to keep rolling for these businesses, too: 36% of owners said they see higher sales ahead.… Read more

Healthcare stocks haven’t moved since the April lows. As contrarian investors, this neglect piques our interest.

As income investors, seven healthcare yields up to 7.1% are equally intriguing. These dividend deals are available because these stocks have been left behind by the broader market. Since April 7, the S&P 500 has soared a terrific 27% while the healthcare sector hasn’t budged:

Healthcare Stocks Have Flatlined Since the April Lows

Of course there is plenty of uncertainty surrounding these stocks:

• Pharmaceutical tariffs
• Cuts to Medicaid
• Cuts to health research funding
• Initiatives to lower drug costs
• Presidential letters to pharma CEOs demanding they lower drug prices

Let’s wade through this political mess to evaluate these payers.… Read more

We’ve been dividend-hungry lately. Our Wednesday missives have brought ten income ideas since the start of July!

It’s a busy week for our brood! If you bought these payers, you have five ex-dividend dates (the dates when the stock trades at a price minus—“ex”—the dividend per share) on deck this week.

Plus, we have three more next week!

Income Calendar for the Week of  September 1

This neat weekly view comes to us courtesy of Income Calendar, our homegrown dividend tracker. We developed IC for serious income investors like yourself. The tool projects every dividend payment with accuracy that is unmatched in the industry.… Read more