Author Archive: Brett Owens

A key insider has quietly snapped up 10,000 shares of his 13%-yielding stock. And we contrarian income seekers are putting the ticker on our buy list, too.

That’s because insider buying really is the ultimate “buy alert.” Legendary value investor Peter Lynch said it best:

“Insiders might sell their shares for any number of reasons, but they only buy for one: they think the price will rise.”

Heck, I can almost see my regular readers nodding along to this one. We’ve talked about it again and again in my Contrarian Income Report service. In fact, we’d go one step further than Lynch:

Insiders buy because they think the dividend will rise, too. … Read more

Quarterly dividends.

Getting paid every 90 days. Ninety. Who wants to wait that long?

That’s life as a vanilla income investor. These poor folks (literally!) have no idea about “special dividend” stocks.

These are companies that pay each shareholder hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars a year more than expected. The payments often come around the holidays. Think of them as year-end bonuses.

Beats a subscription to the jelly-of-the-month club!

These special dividends can make a big retirement difference. I’m talking about a 1.3% “headline yield” that actually adds up to 6%, and a 4% print that really totals 11% per year.… Read more

I staggered out of my Uber into a sea of orange. My next challenge—a monolithic 100,119-seat stadium—loomed in the distance.

Ever regret something instantly? That was me. Dumb decision. Zero chance your dividend guy could make it in and out of that sports palace.

Fortunately, as if sent from above, my new hype man walked by.

“That’s dedication!” An orange-clad Texas Longhorn fan and fellow father pointed at my CAM walker boot. Which, of course, housed my relatively newly-reconnected Achilles. Which was quickly appreciated outside Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium.

“Hardcore, man,” my new BFF reiterated. “I respect that.”

I tapped my chest and pointed back at him.… Read more

Look, we’ve all loved watching our dividend payers rocket to the moon these past few weeks. Best part is, most of the market has been onboard: 

Everyone Wins in This “Close Your Eyes and Throw a Dart” Market

Here we can see the jump in the S&P 500 as a whole (in purple) versus its return on an equal-weight basis (in orange). Sure, there’s a bit of a gap, but safe to say this has been an across-the-board surge.

We can (in a backhanded way!) thank Jay Powell—just as he hinted that high Treasury yields were doing the Fed’s work for it, the bond market (figuratively) flipped him off … and Treasury yields plunged from 5% to around 4.6% now.… Read more

The Fed “pause” is on—and that means we’re this much closer to the first rate cut since the COVID-caused race to zero.

It’ll soon be “game on” for fixed income of all sorts. And that includes one class of stock that has been kicked deep into value territory—giving us a potential one-two punch of high income (6.9% to 9.2% yields) and a violent bounce off the bottom.

More on these sweet payouts in just a second.

A High-Yield Way to Ride Powell’s Coattails

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and his henchmen at the central bank recently made the call to keep the benchmark fed funds rate level—a clear acknowledgement that the economy is indeed slowing.… Read more

Mr. and Ms. Market are manic. Always have been, always will be. My fellow contrarian, they reminded us of this fact yet again.

Fortunately we were zigging while the broader crowd was zagging.

The herd’s “FOMO panic” last week pushed many of our stocks higher. Vanilla investors covered their ill-timed short positions and scrambled to buy bargains. Like the dividend deals we bought in October!

Did you miss out? Have cash suddenly burning a hole in your pocket? If so, no worries, a few select dividend deals remain.

I’m talking about yields up to 12.3% and discounts up to—get this—46%.… Read more

2024 is setting up to be a great year for us contrarian dividend investors—but to take full advantage, we need to buy now—while fear is still in the air.

Because that terror is totally unjustified. 

Here’s how I see the current state of play: Fed rate hikes are toast, and a Santa Claus Rally is on tap. In fact, the more Jay Powell tries to persuade us he’s going to keep bringing the hurt (as he did again last week), the hollower it rings.

Look, inflation is on the wane, and the last thing Jay wants is a repeat of the March banking mess.… Read more

Small dividend stocks are dirt cheap right now. I’m talking about stocks trading for less than one year’s worth of sales. Yields up to 14.7%. And single-digit P/E ratios.

Why such deals? Well, because they’ve been pummeled into bargain territory of late. A number of high-yield bargains are staring us right in the face.

Small firms, straight up, are the cheapest stocks on the planet right now:

Value is great but show us the money! We’ll do so with five small-caps averaging a stellar 12% in yield among them. Are these deals or are these equities cheap for a reason?… Read more

Closed-end funds (CEFs) are ready to climb after a two-month decline. In preparation for this pop, select vanilla investors are buying this 11.1% dividend with its 14% downside.

Wait, what?!

Everyone hates bonds today. Yet, somehow, these bonds are selling for $1.14 on the dollar.

I sure wouldn’t do it. I’d favor the fixed income that everyone hates. (More on these discounted dividends in a moment.)

Who is this “I’ll pay a premium” belle of the basic income ball? Convertible bonds. Convertibles pay regular interest. In this way, they act like bonds. You buy them and “lock in” regular coupon payments.… Read more

Look, this deglobalization trend is hitting high gear—and if you miss your chance to tap it for surging dividend payouts, you will regret it down the road.

After all, it’s megatrends like this one that we contrarian income-seekers live for. Let the “basic” investors sweat headline-driven fears like rising rates and recessions. We’ll happily lock in our “megatrend” dividends and ride along for years, and even decades, as our payouts soar triple-digits!

Really, terms like “deglobalization,” “onshoring” and “friendshoring” are just fancy ways of talking about the flow of manufacturing jobs back to the US, or to US neighbors like Canada and Mexico, from basket cases like Xi’s China.… Read more