Author Archive: Brett Owens

If you hold any of these five risky REITs, you should sell them immediately. And put that money into two recession-proof bargains (paying up to 8%) that we’ll discuss shortly.

REITs aren’t always as safe as their dividends appear on paper. Consider Investors Real Estate Trust (IRET), which slashed its dividend by nearly half late last year. This wasn’t a sudden decision – it followed years of share declines as falling oil prices crushed rents across IRET’s markets.

IRET has now lost 40% in four years and seen its high-single-digit yield reduced to less than 5%. Even IRET’s brief recovery after the dividend cut has withered away, and shares are off double digits in 2017.… Read more

Worried about a pullback? I don’t blame you. But you shouldn’t stash your portfolio in cash when you can bank this 10% dividend and be protect yourself from a drop in the stock market.

Rather than buying stocks for their payouts and hoping they don’t crash, you can extract more money from them – and protect your downside risk – by “writing” covered calls. And don’t worry, we’re not going to get into an Options 101 course here.

I’m going to explain the strategy to you – and then recommend my favorite fund which is easy to buy, and will do all of the heavy lifting for you.… Read more

Is there a bond bubble? There’s certainly more froth than not, with investors recklessly reaching for the riskiest of yields.

But there’s one last 10% dividend on the board worthy of our consideration. It’s available thanks to investors’ misunderstanding (and laziness) – we’ll discuss details in a minute.

But first, let’s review three key rules that will help us navigate this budding bond bubble.

Rule #1: Maximize Your Upside

Our favorite second-level thinker Howard Marks noted in an op-ed for Barron’s that Netflix (NFLX) bond buyers – who recently scooped up €1.3 billion of Eurobonds paying just 3.625% – might have exposed themselves to significant downside without much upside.… Read more

If you’re looking for a place to park some fresh cash now—and open it up to 100%+ upside—I have three words for you:

Buy dividend growth.

I’ve told you before how a portfolio of stout dividend growers is the best way to clobber the market in the long run.

The best dividend champs do double duty: fatten our pockets with surging payouts while hitting the gas on R&D spending. That locks in their competitive edge … setting the stage for even higher dividends!

It’s the kind of vicious cycle I love, and most folks pay far too little attention to.

Below I’ll give you 5 reasons why now is the perfect time to buy dividend-growth stocks, and why I’m personally doubling down on these elite companies.… Read more

Many investors mistakenly believe that the world of private equity and its home-run potential are hopelessly out of reach. Privately held PE firms are difficult to access and often require seven-figure sums to start. Plus the handful of publicly traded PE companies are organized as limited partnerships – which means a hassle come tax time.

But there’s a promising group of easy-to-buy private equity firms hiding in plain sight: business development companies (BDCs).

And BDCs are dividend behemoths. In fact, I’ll highlight three today paying up to 9%!

Business development companies are the lifeblood of American small business, providing financing to small and mid-sized business in many instances when banks and other financiers consider the risk to be too great.… Read more

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) are now a core source of income for investors and retirees. REITs represent more than $1.1 trillion worth of equity market capitalization. Their popularity has soared – the amount spent trading REITs is nearly double what it was just 10 years ago.

The downside of fame? There aren’t nearly as many hidden gems in the sector as there used to be. At this point, companies like Simon Property Group (SPG), Realty Income (O) and even Public Storage (PSA) are widely known and covered – and their valuations show it.

But I have my eye on four lesser-discussed REITs that still have a little something special to add to the REIT space.… Read more

Wall Street’s pundits love touting the Dividend Aristocrats as the crème de la crème of the income world. I get it. The ability to not only pay, but increase, corporate distributions uninterrupted for two-and-a-half decades is an impressive feat that clearly illustrates financial fortitude and sound fiscal management.

But that doesn’t make all Dividend Aristocrats buys. And in fact, five of them – which I will highlight for you today – are downright dreadful long-term dividend holdings.

When investors think of dangerous dividends, they tend to think of companies whose payouts could evaporate overnight. As well they should – nothing can derail your retirement plans faster than watching the dividends you rely on disappear in a flash.… Read more

If you want to find the best high-yield opportunities on Wall Street, you don’t follow bright neon signs – you turn over rocks.

Years of research has shown that the most widely recommended names are typically overcrowded trades, killing any chance you have at wringing out any value. Worse, analysts’ and pundits’ picks are often so conservative that they actually pose a danger to your retirement by producing sleepy returns and only so-so dividends.

That’s why I love closed-end funds (CEFs) like the three high yielders (between 7% and 9.5%) that I’m going to show you today. They garner no media coverage, so they’re less likely to develop into bubbles.… Read more

Today I’m going to show you a proven way to collect $5,094 in cash, on average, every month—without buying a single stock, bond or fund.

In fact, you won’t have to buy anything at all. (I’ll show you precisely how this works in a moment.)

That amounts to a nice $61,000-a-year income stream, easily enough for you to live on pretty well anywhere in America. And if you pick one of the cheapest corners of the country (like Indianapolis, say, where the cost of living is 16% below the national average), it’s a fortune!

Beyond the Obvious

It’s certainly way better than trying to squeak by on the 1.9% your typical S&P 500 stock pays—and that payout slips a little more each day as stocks march higher.… Read more

What exactly does the Catholic Church think about dividends?

A lot, as it turns out. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops outlines a number of principles and policies in a roughly 6,000-word document you can find here. Highlights include:

• Protecting human life
• Protecting human dignity
• Reducing arms production
• Pursuing economic justice
• Protecting the environment
• Encouraging corporate responsibility

Also the USCCB has dual-mandate that requires “a reasonable return on its investments and is required to operate in a fiscally sound, responsible and accountable manner.” In other words, just like you and I, the Catholic Church expects returns.

The Global X S&P 500 Catholic Values ETF (CATH) invests in hundreds of S&P 500 components that qualify according to the USCCB’s stated values.… Read more