Author Archive: Brett Owens

Relax. You might already have enough money to retire on.

My favorite dividend stocks let people retire comfortably on $500,000 or so.

Got more cash? Great! You’re in elite company.

Fidelity Investments—apparently happy to share its customer’s financial info anonymously—says it has more than 750,000 seven-figure 401(k) and IRA accounts.

That sounds like a lot, but it means less than 1% of Americans have $1 million or more saved for retirement. And that’s OK—select dividend stocks can help us retire comfortably on $500,000 or so.

Sure, a chunk of money is great. Especially when we can leave it untouched and let it grow.… 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 one that’s hit us in the last few months.

Let’s say, for example, you own $200,000 worth of Cisco Systems (CSCO) shares.… Read more

Here’s the surest, safest way to double our money in any kind of market. This works whether we’re comparing 2019’s roaring bull run or 2022’s blabbering bear:

Buy the dividends that are growing the fastest.

Over long time periods (months to years), stock prices follow their dividends. For better or for worse! It’s that simple.

When a company cuts its payout, its stock price drops. On the other hand, firms that raise their dividends year after year enjoy steady annual gains. This is thanks to a financial phenomenon I call “the dividend magnet.”

The Dividend Magnet

Dividend growth is a one-two-three combo for income investors.… Read more

Floating-rate bonds are supposed to be sailing right now.

So why are they sinking?

Last week we lamented the reason most bond funds are down this year. The runaway long rate is to blame.

Ten-year Treasury bonds began the year yielding 1.5%. Now, they pay 2.4%, a whopping 60% more in a quarter!

Nobody wants the 1.5% vintage when they can “level up” to 2.4%. So the old 1.5% bonds, while still paying their coupons, lose value.

So do funds that own Treasuries. The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT), one of the most popular bond tickers on the planet, is down 10% year-to-date.… Read more

In just over a month, the script has flipped for us dividend investors: Russia’s war on Ukraine has cleaved the world into two teams: east vs. west.

Some pundits have dubbed it Cold War 2.0. But whatever you call it, I think you’ll agree that the risks in this new arrangement are higher for us: we’re likely looking at another pop in the inflation rate, for one, due to (seemingly) never-ending supply-chain issues.

So it follows that Fed Chair Jay Powell will probably hike interest rates further than he otherwise would have as he tries to fix those supply-chain problems by making borrowing more expensive (if you can follow the logic there, please let me know, because it beats me!).… Read more

Volatility is high, stocks are shaky and there’s a major land war in Europe. So we’ll take a pass on the highflyers, thanks.

Give us the monthly dividends instead.

Of course, easy enough for us to say. We “retire on dividends” folks have spent years building up a nest egg that would last us forever. Now, it’s time for us to turn this pile of cash into cash flow.

I’m talking about dividend payers that will keep on paying no matter what happens around the world. We’ll discuss some elite monthly dividend payers in a moment—the types that will dish us 9.8% per year, paid every 30 days.… Read more

“C’mon daddy.”

Pause. And a sigh.

“I’ll pay you back?”

Ah, there it was. The fiscal responsibility we’ve been working to instill in our seven-year-old clicking in. An acknowledgement that money does not grow on trees.

(Everyone knows that greenbacks only grow on the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet!)

My daughter’s intentions were sweet. She had successfully lobbied to reroute the “daddy bus” to a boutique retail store. The young boss had her eyes on a toy, and offered to buy one for her sister, too.

Well, I should clarify. Initially she offered me the opportunity to purchase both. Your income strategist offered a compromise:

“How about you pay for your own.… Read more

If this mess of a market has taught us anything (and it’s fair to say it’s taught us many things!), it’s the value of dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs).

DRIPs are always a popular topic here at Contrarian Outlook—they’re a smart “set it and forget it” way for us to plow the payouts we don’t need back into our favorite dividend-paying stocks.

Markets Crackups Make DRIPs Profitable

At their core, DRIPs essentially take dollar-cost averaging (which you likely used to build your portfolio) and apply it to our dividends. By reinvesting a fixed amount of dividend cash at specific times (i.e.,… Read more

I’m an investor in Invesco QQQ, a fund that gives me access to Nasdaq-100 innovations like volumetric video technology.

• Invesco TV ad for its Nasdaq-100 ETF 

My fellow hoops fans watching March Madness are seeing a million commercials for Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ). They feature flashy camera angles with average investors “dropping knowledge” about the tech stocks they are proud to own via this ETF.

In the spot, the investor humble brags about her “volumetric” video technology investment. English translation: The use of many cameras at different angles to make a sporting event look three dimensional on TV. (Last week, ESPN broadcast a professional basketball game for the first time using this technology.)… Read more

Here are eleven highly rated charities that benefit Ukrainians. Our extra dividend dollars can go a long way towards helping the millions of people who are suffering as a result of the Russian invasion.

All eleven nonprofits have a four-star rating from CharityNavigator.org, an independent service that rates charities for their financial efficiency and their transparency.

From there, I (Brett) cherry picked the very top candidates based on their individual Financial and Accountability & Transparency rating from CN. I have donated to each of these charities myself. Here they are in alphabetical order.

• A Chance in Life is preparing to help the 900,000 Ukrainian refugees (mostly women and children) that are expected to flee to Italy.