Author Archive: Brett Owens

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!

Enter the “Dividend Death Spiral”

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 we’re experiencing.

Let’s say, for example, you owned $200,000 worth of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) shares, which pay $3.80 in dividends on an annualized basis, for a 2.9% yield.… Read more

The stock market is in a full-blown panic, which means it’s time for us contrarian income seekers to go shopping.

Few firms have been spared from the “flash-bear” we are experiencing. It may be an ominous sign for the rest of 2020, too. So, if you are worried about the rest of the year, but you still need income from your investments, let’s consider some steady payers that are typically more stable than the broader market.

After all, when the markets begin to function properly again–and they will, no matter how shaky things seem at the moment–these are the types of dividend payers that we want in our portfolio (at cheap prices, too).… Read more

We named our income investing website Contrarian Outlook for times like these. When the rest of the world is selling everything, we are sorting through their hastily discarded dividend bargains.

Sales like this don’t happen every year. In fact, the last blue-light special actually began to wind down the last time I reminded readers to “keep calm and 8% on.” It was December 26, 2018, and the stock market had just plunged nearly 20%.

Fear was rampant, which meant it was time for us contrarians to be greedy. Or, at minimum, not panic.

I don’t take the responsibility of being your Chief Investment Strategist lightly.… Read more

I don’t know why you’d try to cobble together an income stream with miserly ETFs when, thanks to this selloff, we’ve got a huge sale on closed-end funds (CEFs) throwing off life-changing 7%+ payouts.

Why are CEFs a great deal now?

In short, the coronavirus scare has caused a “panic disconnect” between many of these funds’ share prices and the value of the assets in their portfolios, known as the net asset value, or NAV.

These discounts are a quirk that only exists with CEFs, and they make our plan simple: buy when discounts are particularly wide, then ride these markdowns higher as they evaporate—pulling the fund’s market price up with them.… Read more

Have four months of “dead money” ever caused this much drama?

Let’s put last week’s pullback in perspective. As uncomfortable as it may have been for investors who watch the market daily, it simply served as a public service reminder that most investors are probably better off not watching the market daily.

The result of one of the worst weeks in Wall Street history? A mere return to late October 2019 price levels:

Wall Street’s Tower of Terror

Typically, an erasure of four months’ worth of gains wouldn’t be a big deal. However, this stock market had been unusually bullish, gaining nearly 12% in less than four months.… Read more

During volatile times like these, the best thing to do is this: stay calm and keep collecting your dividends.

Fighting the urge to sell is critical, because doing so could slash your dividend income by 82% or more.

Here’s where I’m getting that number: let’s say you hold the stocks in our Contrarian Income Report portfolio, which yields an average of 7.2% as I write this. (If you bought a while back, you’re likely yielding more on your investment, thanks to our picks’ dividend growth, but let’s use 7.2% as our benchmark here.)

And let’s say you’ve got a reasonable nest egg—about $350K—invested.… Read more

Should we use this dip to load up on dividend stocks?

It is always a good time to put high quality payers in our portfolio. Especially now, when their yields are noticeably higher than they were this time just last week.

However, please do note my emphasis on quality. “Junk dividends” are cheaper, too, but we should continue to steer clear of these. To show you what I mean, let’s pick on three money-losing stocks paying unreal high yields. I’m talking about 8.3% all the way up to 16 (per year, yes, you’re reading correctly.)

These particular yields, believe it or not, are likely to go even higher in the months ahead.… Read more

If you own any real estate investment trusts (REITs), make sure you forward this article along to your tax advisor!

Historically, REIT distributions have been considered nonqualified dividends by the IRS. This means they usually get taxed at your regular income tax rate.

However, REIT investors now benefit from the same tax break that “pass through” businesses receive. As a general rule, REIT investors are now allowed to deduct 20% of their REIT dividend income.

(This tax update is adapted from our new book How to Retire on Dividends: Earn a Safe 8%, Leave Your Principal Intact. You can grab your copy here.)… Read more

At my Contrarian Income Report service, we hunt down huge dividends on the regular. Right now, our portfolio is knocking out a 6.9% average payout from 16 real estate investment trusts (REITs), stocks and closed-end funds (CEFs).

We’ve grabbed serious price gains, too: since launch in 2015, CIR has delivered a 12.5% annualized return. Not bad for a set of “boring” income plays!

Beyond Big Yields

Even though our CIR club is “high yields only,” I get that many folks look to stocks with low (or no) dividends for gains, too: names like Apple (AAPL), whose 1% yield won’t get it within a mile of Contrarian Income Report.… Read more

If you want to live off dividends in retirement, you can’t depend on “blue-chip stocks.” They simply haven’t paid enough yield for years:

Even High-Yield Savings Accounts Start to Look Good at These Levels

Source: Multpl.com

The S&P 500’s yield recently hit 1.7%. Think about it in “retirement spending” terms. If you took an entire million-dollar nest egg and put it in the S&P 500, you’d be looking at just $17,000 in dividend income per year. If you have even less to invest, like $500,000, that’s just $8,500 a year—several thousands of dollars below the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ poverty guideline of $12,760!… Read more