Author Archive: Brett Owens

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

“Efficient market” believers are adorable, but they are also wrong. It is possible to make 15% to 19% per year, every year, from perfectly safe dividend stocks.

In a moment, I’ll outline this little-known yet simple formula. But first, let’s talk about what not to do–just in case you’re following bad advice today!

“Buy and hope” investing is what most of your peers do. They purchase shares and root for them to appreciate in price. Unfortunately, they have no specific plan detailing how they are going to profit from their stocks.

Inevitably, pullbacks happen, and this is their undoing. They get scared and sell, often near lows.… Read more

Today I’m going to show you how to grab two growing income streams—in just one buy. Plus, we’re going to bank double-digit price profits to boot.

The strategy? Simple: we’re buying dividend-paying stocks poised to spin off one of their businesses into a brand new dividend-paying stock. The result? Two or more quarterly dividends where there used to be just one.

Two other things you should know: our “new” dividend(s) will likely grow even faster than our original payout! And we won’t have to do anything to get this extra cash.

The Profit Power of “Dividend Splits” 

The dividend-growth wave this “dividend split” can unleash is massive.… Read more

The blue-chip corporations that make up the Dividend Aristocrats are a tribute to the power of dividends. They have raised their payouts for 25 straight years or more and, most importantly, made many of their investors quite wealthy in the process.

Unfortunately for us, everyone already knows these firms are great. And as a result, their stocks are now overpriced and these well-run firms are producing mere also-ran returns. Check out the purple line below, which shows the Aristocrats trailing the popular Dow Jones and S&P 500 indices:

The Aristocrats Even Make the 124-Year-Old Dow Look Spry!

We can do better, and I’ll show you how in a moment.… Read more

A financial friend of mine, an income-focused money manager, called me to brag about one of his clients. He’s used his CIR subscription to smartly help her turn a modest $387,000 nest egg into monthly dividend income that’s on track to last, well, just about forever.

Three years ago, he explained how he was using my “retire on monthly dividends” strategy to help this nice grandmother.

“She brought me $387,000,” he told me originally. “And wants to take out $3,000 per month for ten years.”

Well, so far, so good for grandma. She’s now 38 months into her $3,000 per month dividend gravy train.… Read more

I’m annoyed with this bubbly stock market. It’s making it nearly impossible for regular people to find decent dividends.

Sure, we’ll always take upside, and despite overdone drops due to the coronavirus, the market has handed us a 4% total return since the New Year, building on the 31% it delivered last year.

But where the heck do we invest our gains?

Truth is, if you want to deploy cash into higher payers, you’re in for a tough slog: the S&P 500 yields just 1.7% today, a low we’ve only seen a couple times since the financial crisis.

US Stocks Rarely Pay so Little

Treasuries?… Read more

If you’re an income investor like me, these stock market all-time highs are pure misery. Fortunately, I have a fix, which I’ll explain in a moment.

High stock prices mean low yields for new money, which unfortunately minimizes dividend potential. Plus, buying overpriced stocks limits upside potential, too.

Why reach for a 2% yield when you could lose that in an overnight trading session?

Cheap dividend stocks are a rare breed right now. But there are a few bargains left, and not because they are risky. These misunderstood shares are the last bastions of dividend value remaining on the board today.… Read more

Until a flu-like virus emerged halfway around the world, it’s been three peaceful months since we’d seen a “1% up or down day” in stocks. As usual, the volatility inspired investors to reflect upon the advanced age (almost eleven years) of our current bull market.

To paraphrase the legendary rock band Chicago, does anybody really know what time it is in the rally right now? “Late cycle” is a popular guess. But how late?

Did the streetlights just pop on, or is it 2am with money managers stumbling into their taxis and Ubers outside?

Most rallies don’t make it to eleven, but then again, most don’t follow financial crises either.… Read more

I’m sure you’ve noticed stocks whipsawing in the past week on fears of the spreading coronavirus. We’ll talk income investment strategy shortly, with a specific focus on safe dividends and profits, regardless of where the markets go from here.

First, I should say that I’m not going to go into the health or political implications of this outbreak, which has infected thousands as I write this, with 99% of those in China.

As investors, we need to look at the situation through a clear, logical financial lens. And the good news is that right now we have a great opportunity to safeguard (and even grow) our nest egg—and our dividend income, too.… Read more

The stock market is driven by greed and fear. And when the latter takes full control of the wheel, as is the case right now, value-minded income investors need to stay sharp.

It’s been more than a decade since we’ve gotten a true bear market, which tends to bring stock valuations more in line with historical norms. Even so, since 2009, we’ve experienced a few quick drawdowns that resulted in more reasonable prices, and more generous yields, than this expensive market typically offers.

There was the August 2014 correction triggered by China’s “Black Monday.” There was our near-bear experience in 2018, prompted by tariff fears, Fed rate hikes and the partial government shutdown.… Read more