Author Archive: Brett Owens

Stocks are climbing a wall of worry, which is a hallmark of bull markets. Higher equity prices really do require fear!

Today we’ll highlight the least-liked stocks on Wall Street. Why? Because each analyst has nothing to do but upgrade these plays from here. As always, we’ll focus on big dividends—I’m talking about yields starting at 6% and going all the way up to 24%.

Let’s recap our profitable sources of fear. First, the broader market per one of our preferred “vanilla gauges”:

Source: CNN Fear & Greed Index

While retail investors are fearful, analysts at large are quite bullish. At least on paper.… Read more

Inflation continues to creep higher. Meanwhile tariffs are here, and more are on the way.

Vanilla investors are rattled. The AAII (American Association of Individual Investors) Investor Sentiment Survey reveals 47% bears and only 28% bulls, its highest level of despair in a year.

Contrarians like us, meanwhile, are salivating. We like it when individual investors are down in the dumps. And it’s not just AAII members—CNN’s Fear and Greed Index has been floundering in fear territory for the last month:

Inflation fears? Tariff worries? Bring ‘em on!

Let’s talk inflation first. The basic spreadsheet jockeys are surprised—sad even—that the Fed may not be cutting rates at all this year.… Read more

Bonds (and bond proxies) are hated right now. That’s our shot at big dividends—because mainstream investors’ thinking here is totally backward.

We’re going to pounce, and use this opportunity to grab ourselves a huge 7.6% payout sporting an unusual “discount in disguise.”

Tariffs: Don’t Believe the Hype

The reason for this opportunity comes back to tariffs—which I admit, dear reader, I’ve heard so much about that I’m starting to dream about them at night!

The badly flawed logic most people are applying to tariffs is this: Tariffs will drive up prices, adding to an inflation rate that, according to last week’s CPI report, hit 3% year over year, up from 2.9% the month before and a mere 2.4% in October (and was ahead of expectations, to boot).… Read more

President Trump has been talking about tariffs since 1989, when he advocated for a 15% to 20% tax on imports from Japan because of unfair trade practices. This is how he describes Canada, China, Mexico and Europe today.

Trump has already imposed a 10% levy on Chinese imports. Meanwhile, Mexico and Canada have secured a 30-day reprieve from planned 25% tariffs, contingent upon their commitments to bolster border security and curb the flow of illicit drugs into the United States.

More tariffs are coming. Trump says he is willing to take the short-term pain for potential benefits.

We contrarians don’t have to grit our teeth and suffer with stocks that are suddenly tariff losers.… Read more

Have you refinanced your house recently?

Me neither. Somehow, for our house it’s already four years ago, though I can remember the transaction like it was yesterday.

Full credit for the smart financial move to my wife, who asked about refi timing over (and over) and fortunately got it through my thick head before interest rates really started to rise. Fed Chair Jay Powell was running the printing presses like crazy and long rates (mortgage included) would eventually lift from basement levels.

When refi activity slows, it is bullish for elite 8.5%-yielding Rithm Capital (RITM). RITM, our old Contrarian Income Report friend, smartly purchased a stockpile of mortgage service rights (MSRs), which gain in value as rates grind sideways or up.… Read more

Contrarians that we are, we know when we hear things that sound like “common wisdom,” we need to look just a little bit deeper.

Today, that’s what we’re going to do, with a common refrain we’re hearing a lot—that tariffs will lead to a spike in interest rates.

Then we’ll look at a bond play that’s set to benefit from this misunderstood mantra. This smartly run fund pays a dividend that yields 10.4% and comes our way monthly, too.

Tariffs Here, Tariffs There …

To be sure, tariffs have arrived. President Trump has imposed a 10% levy on all products China exports to the US (and 15% on liquefied natural gas and certain types of coal), effective last Tuesday.… Read more

Worried about the next round of tariffs? Tech disruption from DeepSeek? The geopolitical landscape?

All of the above?

Fret not my contrarian friend—here are seven wonderfully-sleepy dividend stocks. They yield between 5% and 14.1% and we are discussing them today because all seven boast low betas.

This means these shares move less than the overall market. An admirable quality when it comes to a dividend stock because we’re not here for the price drama, we’re here for the payout.

Beta represents an investment’s volatility against a benchmark. Stock beta is typically benchmarked against the S&P 500, aka “the market.” Beta is based around the number 1, so a stock with a beta equal to 1 moves with the market.… Read more

Many of you have written in asking about DeepSeek’s latest release and its potential effects on our income portfolio and strategies. Let’s discuss the latest in AI because, yes, there are ripples into Dividendland that are not fully appreciated by mainstream investors.

(And tariff questions, we’ll get to you in the coming weeks!)

First the DeepSeek disruption in AI, and let’s take vanilla dividend darling Nasdaq 100 Covered Call ETF (QYLD), which yields 12.2% as our example. Is that big divvie still safe and secure? Income seekers are constantly staring at the fund, writing in to ask me if they have permission to:

1. Buy QYLD.

Here at Contrarian Outlook, we are—unequivocally—bullish on the US economy. We’re also big fans of the 6.1% dividend we’re going to discuss below, which trades for less than half its annual sales.

That’s pretty much the opposite of the nosebleed 26 times sales (and 0.03% yield—not a typo!) over at NVIDIA (NVDA), even after last week’s panic over Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek.

US Stocks Are Wealth-Building Machines …

Fact is, it’s easy to be bullish on the US these days, with the country’s economy leading (and in many cases lapping!) those of other countries.

The IMF, for example, sees the US economy growing 2.7% in 2025, tops in the G7 and nearly triple the forecast 1% growth in the Eurozone.… Read more

This week’s AI panic has opened up a rare bargain window in big tech names that were disposed of with the DeepSeek bathwater.

Nosebleed Nvidia (NVDA)—which we warned about here and here—is a “stay away.” But there are tech dividends worth exploring, with some paying us up to 13% a year.

Investors have been herded into the same AI and technology names that have been at the forefront for years, and—shockingly—those shares have largely been priced for perfection.

Chinese AI upstart DeepSeek has shown that deep pockets are not needed to build smart AI models. This should have come as no surprise, as China is home to many smart technologists.… Read more