Author Archive: Brett Owens

I don’t always buy into stock bubbles. But when I do, I prefer dividend plays.

We can’t spell “mania” without AI, of course. Artificial intelligence has been the flavor of 2023. But what if—what if—the excitement around AI accelerates into 2024?

It could happen. Last week I spent half of a recent post-holiday-light-viewing dinner discussing AI with a friend. My buddy is increasingly looking to AI tools like ChatGPT and Bard to help run his services business. After all, why not—they are improving by the week and cheaper than humans. There is some steak behind the AI sizzle.

(What did we spend the other half of dinner doing?… Read more

What if I told you I’d uncovered a dividend “unicorn”: a stock with a 7.4% yield that’s hiked its payout by five digits in the last 14 years?

It’s the kind of thing that “breaks” common investing wisdom. Most folks, after all, think you can have a high yield or a fast-growing payout, but not both. Verizon (VZ) is the classic case, with its 6.9% current yield. Sure, the telco’s payout does grow, but only around a penny a year.

Verizon’s “Pay a Lot, Grow a Little” Dividend

On the other side of the scale is a company like Mastercard (MA), whose dividend has soared 500% in the last decade, from just $0.11 quarterly to today’s level of $0.66.… Read more

A safe double-digit yield makes it a lot easier to retire. Today we’ll discuss a portfolio that pays 14.1% (that’s no typo).

The math on 14.1% looks awesome. This yield generates $14,100 on a $100K every year. Or $141,000 on a million dollar portfolio.

Contrast this with “the market”—$1 million plunked into the S&P 500 would only net you $14,000 a year, which is actually below the federal poverty level!

And if you have even less to work with, well, you understand what I’m getting at.

Most importantly, if you manage to find these mega-yielders, you can finance your retirement on dividends alone.… Read more

The Internet is a wild place—and finally, we have irrefutable evidence! I mean, why else would investors dump this safe 12.8% dividend?

Hilariously, they are already feeling FOMO. After selling this stock low, it jumped 7.7% without them last Friday alone. Wow.

A basement blogger decided to pick on Arbor Realty Trust (ABR) in recent weeks. No name, no face, but hey, they whipped up a nifty little PDF saying they were short ABR, so we all should be too.

(Note: We don’t hate short sellers. In a world where every first-level investor wants to hear only the good news—true or not!—thoughtful,… Read more

A 7.7% payer we watch very closely just did something weird for a stock with such a high payout: it hiked its dividend—for the 29th straight year!

Most folks will tell you a 7.7% payer with a dividend that consistently grows is a myth at best—or a “yield trap” at worst. But these hikes are just another mark on the calendar for this company’s investors.

Its latest hike—and forecast of more of the same in 2024—came out in a press release from the company late last week. The firm is a little-known (at least here in the US) natural gas shipper.… Read more

First-level investors think the key to retiring on dividends alone is to find the largest yields they can and ride them into the sunset.

But while it’s important to lock down fat yields—like the five-pack of 5.5%-10.4% yielders I’ll share with you today—that’s only part of the puzzle. We need two more things from our long-term income holdings:

1. Dividend safety. A 10.4% payout is only helpful if it’s actually going to get paid for quarters and years to come. No dividend cuts, please.
2. Principal safety. We’re also not looking to lose 10.4% per year in price. Or anything in price, for that matter.

This two-year interest rate trend is about to turn. When it flips, JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon’s safe, somewhat-secret 7.4% dividend will directly benefit.

We’ll highlight the name and ticker of my favorite bond fund for 2024 in a moment. First, let’s discuss why we’re discussing it.

For two straight years, the US dollar has rallied relentlessly. Credit (or blame) the Federal Reserve. When the Fed hikes, the buck rallies.

But an inflection point is near. The Fed will pause in its interest-rate hikes soon. This means the greenback is near a top, give or take, because it moves along with its best friend, the Fed Funds Rate.… Read more

Look, our dividends—and the profits that power them—are set to soar in ’24. So it’s prime time for us to shift our returns away from whipsawing share-price action like this:

A Brutal 2 Years—Capped With a Loss

This is the wild ride folks who bought an S&P 500 index fund have been on over the last two years. And what “thanks” did they get for riding that particular roller-coaster?

A loss! They’re still in the red.

Instead, we’re going to shift our profits toward the smooth and steady hum of dividend growth. Check out this sweet “dividend escalator” from insurer UnitedHealth Group (UNH)—more on UNH in a second—showing the company’s incredible 571% payout growth in the past decade:

The Dividend Staircase We’ll Climb—Starting in ’24

Why Dividends Are Primed for Growth

The upshot here is that almost nobody makes the connection between dividends and share prices.… Read more

Stick with me for some “next level” dividend thinking. We have a potential opportunity right now to buy five payers yielding up to 14.9% as the economy heads into recession.

Wait, what? Why would we want to buy stocks as the economy slows?

Well, we don’t want to own any names. We’ll pass on sky-high AI darling NVIDIA Corp (NVDA). Give us cheap REITs (real estate investment trusts) because they are likely to rise as rates fall.

Yes, that’s what happens in a recession. Investors flood into fixed income. Interest rates fall, and REITs—which tend to move opposite rates—rise.

These landlords are already getting up off the mat after a rough two years in which rates rose relentlessly.… Read more

Seriously. Alerian MLP ETF (AMLP) pays a dividend that is now a sizzling 8.2% (read: eight-point-two). Plus, the fund raises its payout regularly. It dishes 12% more today than it did twelve months ago!

As a result, AMLP is so popular that investors keep the price up!

Seriously, check out this quarter-ending stock price chart. AMLP’s quote may drift for a quarter, or two, max. That’s why any meanderings lower are great buying opportunities:

Source: Income Calendar

AMLP is up 19% since we added it to our Contrarian Income Report portfolio just over a year ago. Despite this stellar performance by an income stock, it may indeed be the one missed by most plain-vanilla investors.… Read more