Author Archive: Brett Owens

What good is a 2% or 3% annual yield if you can lose it in a single trading session?

The Nasdaq and Russell 2000 are officially in bear markets, which means they’re down 20% from their peak. But bear markets don’t have to stop at 20%.

They can just keep on collapsing. And the weakest links can fall much, much farther than 20%.

In fact, they often do. Just take a look below at the 444 S&P 500 components that were part of the index during the 2007-09 selloff. Only a handful fell even close to the bear-market minimum.

Meanwhile, almost a quarter hemorrhaged 70% of their value or more!… Read more

Thanks to the December selloff, it’s relatively easy to find 9% yields. The stock market was a relentlessly receding tide in the fourth quarter, which is bad for “buy and hope” investors but quite helpful for income specialists like us.

Let’s look first at real estate investment trusts (REITs). Many now pay 9% – some good, some bad. The main index Vanguard Real Estate ETF (VNQ) has only paid this much (4.9%) twice before in the past ten years:

VNQ Is Rarely This Generous

By cherry picking the lot we can find 49 stocks paying 9% or more. But we should avoid names like Government Properties Income Trust (GOV), which frequently pops up on cute recession-proof dividend lists.… Read more

What if I told you there’s a way you can buy your favorite blue chips and get a dividend 5 times bigger than what your typical S&P 500 name pays today?

Let’s be honest: with an income stream like that, backed by popular names like cigarette maker Altria Group (MO), telco Verizon (VZ) and even Google, now known as Alphabet (GOOGL)—more on these three stocks below—you’d leap at the chance, right?

The truth is, you’d be crazy not to.

Well, now you can. And today I’m going to show you exactly how to do it—and 1 fund yielding 9.8% to get you there instantly.… Read more

Today we’re going to talk about the single biggest risk you face in your golden years.

But don’t worry—I’ll also show you how to clobber that risk and set yourself up for an easy $40,000 in cash in every year of your retirement. More on that below.

First, the risk I’m talking about is the very real chance you’ll outlive your nest egg. Because a sweeping study says you could be very wrong about the length of your retirement.

A Hidden Danger

Here’s what the numbers say: in 1992, the University of Michigan asked 26,000 Americans 50 years of age and older how long they thought they’d live.… Read more

I know it’s tempting, but right now is not the time to flee from stocks to cash. Markets are extremely oversold and due for some sort of relief rally (at least). Liquidate now and we’re no better than the average investor who underperforms by selling low after buying high.

Plus by collecting our dividends we’ll soon outpace the investors who smartly (or more likely, luckily) sold in September. Here’s why.

Studies show it’s very difficult (and really, impossible) to know when it’s time to “get back into stocks.” Hulbert Financial recently ran the numbers for Barron’s on the advisors it monitors.… Read more

You can double your money in perfectly safe, well-known dividend stocks. But only if you know the secret! Novice income investors gravitate toward higher current yields, but often that can result in hitching your sleigh to stagnant stocks with equally stagnant dividends.

For monster total returns, we want to pay attention to dividend increases. Because these hikes don’t just bump up the yield on your initial investment – they also trigger stock-price increases, too. If a stock is already paying out 3% but then juices its payout by 10%, investors will see that new 3.3% yield and buy more shares. That buying will drive the stock’s price up, and the yield back down, eventually toward 3%.… Read more

Moe Ansari, host of the popular Market Wrap radio show and podcast, recently asked me on air:

“Brett, how do you find dividend paying stocks that will double your money?”

He was intrigued enough by my analysis to ask me on his show, but I knew he was a bit skeptical as well. And that’s perfectly normal – even experienced investors and money managers like Moe think of dividend payers in terms of their current yields only.

Price appreciation potential often gets ignored, and the thought of achieving 100%+ profits from a safe dividend payer sounds absurd. But smart investors bank their payouts while their stocks double in price – whether it’s a bull, bear or sideways market.… Read more

I’ve zeroed in on five real estate investment trusts (REITs) set to hand you three critical things in 2019:

• High, safe payouts whose yields crush the typical S&P 500 dividend.

• Booming dividend growth: These five have already boosted their payouts an amazing 38%, on average, in the last five years—and they’re just getting started!

• Double-digit upside as an overlooked market shift kicks in, sending investors scrambling into these ironclad income plays.

Why am I so confident?

Because a long-running (and needless) worry that’s shackled REITs through 2018 has just been cast aside—but most folks are only starting to sense this big shift.… Read more

Today we’re going to discuss six “retirement maker” funds that pay dividends up to 10.8% annually. You will not find these types of yields in mainstream financial publications. Here’s why.

It’s important for you to fade Wall Street’s advertising machine and buy value, not hype – especially when it comes to dividend payers. Stick with excellent yet off-the-beaten-trail CEFs (closed-end funds) and ignore the marketing machines promoting their latest overrated ETFs (exchange traded funds).

Please, Whatever You Do, Don’t Buy Bond ETFs

Be careful how you buy your bonds. The most popular tickers have a few fatal flaws that’ll doom you to underperformance at best, or leave you hanging in the event of a market meltdown at worst!… Read more

Most dividend investors understandably love the idea of an 8% No Withdrawal Portfolio. It’s a simple yet “game changing” idea that you don’t hear much from mainstream pundits and advisors.

Find stocks that pay 7%, 8% or more and you can retire comfortably, living off dividend checks while your initial capital stays intact (or even appreciates).

Now this strategy is a bit more complicated than simply finding 8% yields and buying them. Granted the recent stock market pullback has benefited investors like us because we can snag more dividends for our dollar. Yields are higher overall, and that’s a good thing.… Read more