Author Archive: Brett Owens

We dividend investors know that 2023’s going to throw us some curveballs. So let’s talk about a simple strategy that helps us buy more shares of our favorite stocks during pullbacks.

Because the truth is, the Fed is still hiking, inflation is well north of 2% and the economy is humming along. That last point is a headache for Fed officials as they need to “cool” the economy to get inflation down. That’s code for inducing a recession.

A New Spin on a Classic Strategy

This uncertainty is why I’m counseling caution when it comes to buying stocks these days. But if you are tiptoeing into this market, only do so if:

• You have a long time horizon and …
  

• You do so gradually, using our “modified” dollar-cost averaging (DCA) approach.

A dividend hike is the ultimate sign of dividend safety. It’s also the surest, safest way to “get rich soon-ish” in stocks.

Find me stocks that are raising their dividends quickly and regularly, and I’ll show you some stocks that are doubling every few years.

What drives the dividend? Well, the likelihood that a company is going to raise its dividend (or cut it) is directly related to its payout ratio, or the percentage of its profits that it is dishing out to shareholders as dividends.

As a rule of thumb, a payout ratio below 50% is a sign of dividend safety.… Read more

Shall we turn 2023 into a bounce back year for our retirement portfolios?

How about we shoot for, say, 23% total returns?

The surest way to do it is by employing a technique I call the dividend magnet. It’s safe. Reliable. And works beautifully on the back side of a bear market.

A few weeks back I gave a guest lecture for a finance class at California State University, Sacramento. One of the students, to put it lightly, was excited to make money in stocks.

His hand went up from the back of the classroom. (Nobody sits in the front rows.… Read more

Everywhere you look, there’s a subscription service begging for your attention: from Netflix (NFLX) to cable TV … and even a Hot Sauce of the Month Club.

Pretty well everyone has at least one, and many folks have several. One study showed that 7% of American households have six or more services for video alone!

There’s a reason why companies charge recurring revenues, of course. It’s a great business model to hit up our credit cards monthly.

But great businesses don’t always translate to rewarding stocks. We contrarian dividend seekers tend to steer clear of the streamers because:

1. They pay no dividends!

We are heading into the most telegraphed recession in American history. Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell said it himself last month:

“As rates go higher, it’s hard to see a soft landing.”

Gee Jay, no kidding. Your Fed is squeezing us directly into a slowdown with these short-term rate hikes and balance sheet drawdowns.

Now I’m not saying it’s the wrong move, Jay. You printed a lot of money in 2020—so much that we fell way behind the inflation curve in 2021. Economic indicators and price numbers are still running hot.

So I’m not surprised to see your feet on the breaks for most of the year.… Read more

Last week in these pages we sang the praises of bond god Jeffrey Gundlach. His DoubleLine Income Solutions Fund (DSL) looked poised to pop:

DSL investors have three ways to win here. First, the fund pays an electric 11.5% yield. Next, its NAV is likely to rise as both short and long rates decline. And finally, the fund trades today at a 4% discount, which means we are getting paid to ride shotgun with Gundlach.

DSL: 3 Ways to Win (Last Week’s View)

We also discussed that DSL dishes its dividend monthly. Which is almost 1% every 30 days! Unheard of.… Read more

China’s over-the-top COVID lockdowns are setting up a surprising “all-American” dividend opportunity for us contrarians.

The pushback, which President Xi (shockingly) didn’t see coming, has shuttered plants left and right. Last Monday alone, Honda, Yamaha and Volkswagen closed factories in China, as did Nissan, Mazda and Mitsubishi.

And Apple (AAPL) has likely lost out on six million high-margin iPhone 14 Pros as protests shut down a factory in Zhengzhou run by key supplier Foxconn. The stock responded instantly:

Apple: Still a Little Too Multinational for Wall Street

How, you may wonder, is all this bad news setting up a dividend opportunity for us?… Read more

Bonds are finally an intriguing place for retirement income.

Safe Treasuries still pay a respectable (by their standards, at least) 3.7%. But we contrarians can do better.

Today we’re going to discuss three bond funds ready to rally. They pay 8.6%, 9.1% and—get this—9.6% per year.

Those are not typos. These are fat freaking yields.

Yes, These Bond Yields Are Real. And They Are Spectacular.

And even better still, you can buy these bonds for as low as 90 cents on the dollar! How is that? Well, the cheapest fund trades for just 90% of its net asset value (NAV).… Read more

“Get tomorrow’s Bloomberg headline, today, at Contrarian Outlook!”

Our new slogan for 2023? Perhaps. I bring it up because our bond recession trade has already gained steam into an outright bandwagon.

Just three weeks ago, we contrarians shouted alone in the dividend woods. “Buy these safe bonds paying 4.2% before a 2023 recession!”

Our logic was simple. The 10-year Treasury bond hadn’t paid 4% or more in 14 years. With stocks looking shaky (to say the least!), the 4-handle coupon was attracting some whale buyers, including our man the “bond god” Jeffrey Gundlach (more on him in a moment).… Read more

Beware of Wall Street “wisdom” now more than ever. Especially when it comes to the most commonly quoted maxim for retirement: it’s based on a rule that was never designed for times like these!

I’m talking about the so-called “4% rule,” which says you should sell 4% of your nest egg every year in retirement.

Sounds simple, right?

Trouble is, it slashes your income stream and caps your upside in one go! It’s especially dangerous advice to follow in a downturn like the 2022 mess.

Let’s say, for example, you own $200,000 worth of Cisco Systems (CSCO) shares. Cisco is one of the most reliable dividend payers in the tech space, hiking its payout for years and continuously growing it (though not spectacularly: Cisco’s annual hikes usually only come in at just one or two cents a share).… Read more