Author Archive: Brett Owens

Smart, innovative retail dividends are going to hold a special place in the hearts of many income investors when this pandemic is through. I recently mused about my springtime e-tailing adventures out of Puerto Backyarda. While I got my mister to stay cool, many opportunistic dividend buyers are going to enjoy hot payouts that double or better in the years ahead.

Stores such as Best Buy (BBY) and Home Depot (HD) have kept people slapping away on their keyboards and occupied with home projects. Even more importantly, retailers like Walmart (WMT), Amazon.com (AMZN) and Kroger (KR) not only supplied Americans with the basics, but they also kept cranking out services and strategies to keep people safer as they gathered up what they needed.… Read more

As our quarantine headquarters migrated from the cozy accommodations of Los Living Room in March to the spaciousness of Puerto Backyarda in April, life got a bit more manageable.

Then, in May, it got hot. Really hot.

“Want the hose?” I offered. “It doesn’t feel like it’s 103 if you get your feet wet.”

My Puerto guest, a friend who’d stopped over for an afternoon beer (actually, three 100 calorie “light hazy ales”) was not amused that we were stuck outside. The poor guy was wearing pants, and quite frankly, he didn’t stand a chance.

It goes without saying that he has not yet returned.… Read more

With the epic “relief rally” finally on fumes, it’s time to consider jettisoning any dividends that (let’s be honest) should have been sold in February. Stock prices are quite disconnected from their underlying fundamentals, and the four firms we’re going to discuss today have particularly poor prospects.

Sure, these yields appear generous. But these days, we can lose this much in a few bad trading sessions.

(Low payout ratios—the percentage of cash flow being paid as dividends—are usually preferable. A negative ratio is not! More on this wreck shortly.)

As you know, I don’t provide personal financial advice. That said, if I owned any of these shares, I’d sell ’em!… Read more

With pandemic cases once again in full focus, the market is (once again) trading like its assets. Everything’s up big one day, everything’s down big the next.

We rational, contrarian-minded income investors however know that the stock market is indeed a “market of stocks.” It doesn’t make sense for everything to trade “as one.” We should look to buy the underappreciated, underowned dividends on these dips.

I’m tracking a number of undiscovered dividend growth stories in the underfollowed small-cap space. Most investors don’t consider income from small caps. These companies don’t attract the eyeballs that mega-cap tech firms and well-known consumer brands do, so analysts and the media typically avoid the small-cap space, even in good years.… Read more

Money printing is back in a big way, and we’ve been on the beat all month long. Two weeks ago, your income writer mentioned the other “I” word, inflation, and watched our customer service email box fill up.

Readers, rightfully so, were concerned that Fed Chair Jay Powell has been not-so-subtly orchestrating the largest money creation effort of all time. JP created more than $2.5 trillion since March, and in doing so, made all previous quantitative easing (QE) efforts look like amateur hour:

“Now That’s How You QE!” – Chairman JP

Lat week, your dividend analyst further stirred the pot by mentioning the other “D” word, deflation.… Read more

Need more proof this market is completely upside down? Look no further than this mess with Hertz Global Holdings (HTZ).

You likely know the story: the car-rental chain, run off the road by the coronavirus, filed for bankruptcy over the Memorial Day weekend. On the first trading day afterward, May 26, the stock fell to $0.56 … then soared 10X!

Investors Compete to See Who Can Lose the Most

It’s pulled back a bit since, but is still up 200% from where it stood right after its bankruptcy filing.

And get this: 159,000 of users of the popular Robinhood trading app owned Hertz as of June 19, according to Robintrack.… Read more

Successful dividend investing is simple, though not necessarily easy. There are nuances which trip up many investors (including most professionals!). These twists and turns create “yield alpha” opportunities for contrarian-minded income investors like us.

If everyone else in the market were perfectly grounded and calculated, there would be no chance for us to make above-average returns. Thanks to these inefficiencies, we are able to bank big yields and price gains in Dividend Land. Ready to retire on dividends? Follow these five steps and we’ll do it together. Let’s start with an obvious yet underappreciated rule for income investors.

Step 1: Count Your Dividends

Since we focus on high yield, most of our returns come from the “yield” component of stocks.… Read more

I sure started a stir last week when I mentioned the other “I” word. Our usual beat here is income, but last week we discussed inflation and what it means for our dividend-paying bonds and stocks.

We received quite the response. A big hat tip to our excellent customer service team for fielding your questions!

I owe you a bit more detail, so let’s get into our financial FAQs this week. And while we’re at it, let me stir the pot a bit more by dropping the other “D” word, deflation.

We’re not getting theoretical for the sake of it.… Read more

This crisis has caused a lot of folks to develop a crippling fear when it comes to REITs: they see the beating mall owners like Simon Property Group (SPG) have taken and swear REITs off for good. 

To be sure, SPG took it on the chin in March, and has not gotten up:

Simon’s Business Model: Broken for Good

But way too many people think REITs are about shopping malls, and that’s about it. It’s too bad, because this first-level thinking causes them to miss out on a lot of upside—and dividend growth, too.

Beyond the Mall

Members of my Hidden Yields service know better: we wanted nothing to do with mall landlords before this crisis, because Amazon.com… Read more

The broader market, as defined by the S&P 500, has rallied like crazy. But don’t worry, you haven’t “missed out” on anything. The rally has been carried by large, and largely non-dividend paying stocks!

Most income plays are just now getting up off the mat. We’ll discuss one of my favorites today.

Energy, for example, is in the middle of a “crash-and-rally” pattern. The ultimate cure for low energy prices is (or perhaps, was) low energy prices. Reason being, low prices force producers to slash output like crazy to save money, which in turn reduces supply which in turn boosts prices.… Read more