Author Archive: Brett Owens

After a decade in the basement, interest rates are finally starting to move meaningfully higher. Let’s discuss the best stocks and bonds to buy with this backdrop.

If it feels like we had forever to prepare our portfolios for this moment – well, we did. This interest rate run has largely taken place on a treadmill. We’re almost two-and-a-half years into the Fed’s current rate hike cycle, and the Fed Funds rate is up a modest 1.25%.

Meanwhile the 10-year Treasury rate hadn’t really moved until recently. At all. The benchmark long bond now pays 2.86%:

Rates Slowly Grind Higher

If you believe your portfolio is behind the rate hike curve, it’s not by much.… Read more

Let me show you 3 headlines I ran across last week:

“Tax Cuts and Confidence Drive Surge of Payouts”
—Barron’s

“Global Dividends Break New Record in 2017, With More to Come for the Year Ahead”
—Institutional Asset Manager

“Trump’s Tax Cuts in Hand, Companies Spend More on Themselves Than Wages”
—New York Times

What do they have in common?

They’re all blaring out the fact that American companies have so much cash that they can’t ship it out to investors fast enough! Funny thing is, the herd is completely ignoring this fact. Check this out:

The Black Sheep …

We’re looking at the performance of the Vanguard Dividend Growth ETF (VIG), a good benchmark for stocks that consistently grow their dividend payouts, compared to the benchmark SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) as of March 1.… Read more

Legendary investor and Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) CEO Warren Buffett recently gave us an insight into the type of dividend-paying fund he’d invest in if he could:

“Our aversion to leverage has dampened our returns over the years. But (partner Charlie Munger) and I sleep well. Both of us believe it is insane to risk what you have and need in order to obtain what you don’t need.”

“Leverage” stands out because it’s a common tool used among several high-yield classes, from mortgage real estate investment trusts (mREITs) to business development companies (BDCs). Even closed-end funds (CEFs) – which some investors turn to for relative safety versus individual stocks given CEFs’ diverse portfolios – can sport high leverage of between 30% and 60%.… Read more

I had to laugh when I saw this Barron’s headline last week:

“REITs Are Sending a Powerful Buy Signal”

My response? Of course they are! They have been for a while now!

If you’ve been following my articles on Contrarian Outlook, you know I’m a big fan of real estate investment trusts, with their outsized dividends (and dividend growth) and upside potential.

And now the press is finally paying attention.

It is satisfying when the pundits finally catch up to us. But the bad news is that it also means our shot at the biggest gains (and dividends) is likely on borrowed time as the headline-driven herd piles in.… Read more

Insider buying can be a useful tool in identifying stocks that may be ready to move. I typically don’t put much weight into analyst recommendations because they don’t have any skin in the game. But when CEOs and other executives – who know more about the company than you and I – put their money where their mouths are and make significant purchases, I listen.

And I’ve had my ear especially close to the ground over the past few weeks. Market chaos like what we’ve seen of late chums the water, turning insiders into frenzied buyers who think they can get a deal.… Read more

Most of your friends are going to struggle to make any money in U.S. stocks for the next five to seven years. They’re battling not one, not two, but three major headwinds:

1. Low yields,
2. High valuations, and
3. Rising interest rates.

Historically, half of the stock market’s returns (or more, depending on the study you believe) have come from dividends. With the S&P 500 paying just 1.8%, the math isn’t promising.

An expensive market is also problematic because it makes rising multiples unlikely. The S&P index trades for 25-times earnings today – where can it really go from here but down?

Finally, rising interest rates are a concern for many income investors.… Read more

Let’s assume that higher long-term rates (3%+) are here to stay. Can REITs (real estate investment trusts) and high rates co-exist? Or must there be just one winner in this suddenly one-sided tug of war?

After all, as the 10-year Treasury’s yield has rallied, REITs have suspiciously suffered:

REITs and Rates: Oil and Water?

And the headline arguments against REITs during rising rate periods seem to make sense:

• REITs need cheap money to grow, and
• When risk-free assets pay more, income investors will buy them instead of REITs.

These knocks may apply to low-yielding shares, especially static payers, but they historically haven’t applied to firms (REIT or otherwise) that have been able to grow their payouts meaningfully as rates have risen.… Read more

If you’re like most dividend investors, you’re probably keeping a nervous eye on bond yields right now.

And, well, you should be—but only if you own low-yielding (or slow-growing) Dividend Aristocrats like, say, PepsiCo (PEP).

But if you buy (or already own) the 5 “undercover” high yielders I’ll show you at the end of this article, I have great news for you. You can ignore inflation, bond yields and the Fed and simply keep on collecting your fat dividend checks.

In fact, this overdone selloff has given us an open window to buy more!

Bond Yields: 1, PepsiCo: 0

Before we get to that, back to PepsiCo.… Read more

The market just dropped the big, ugly “C” word on us. “Correction,” that is. The old stalwart Dow Jones Industrial Average recently broke into correction territory, dipping just over 10% in two weeks before clawing a little bit of it back. Along the way, the VIX – you know, the “fear index” – spiked to its highest levels since the 2007-09 bear market.

But while many investors might see this sudden burst of volatility as a reason to run or duck for cover, I see it as a chance to go hunting in high-yield dividend stocks.

They call it a “correction” for a reason: It’s because something was broken, and a price decline fixes it.… Read more

Dividend Aristocrats – those companies that have improved their payouts annually for 50 years or more – have a mixed reputation. Sure, they’re great for dividend growth, but the likes of Coca-Cola (KO) and Procter & Gamble (PG) give off the impression that price returns can be difficult to come by.

But dividend growth and actual performance don’t have to be an either/or proposition. Today, I want to show you five dividend growth stocks that will prove just that.

Why would any investor think poorly of the height of dividend nobility? After all, the ability to crank out more cash every year without interruption for half a century is a testament to not just a company’s market-share dominance and fiscal responsibility, but also the agility to survive and remain relevant across decades of market and economic shudders.… Read more