Author Archive: Brett Owens

If pricey stocks and low dividend yields have you frustrated, it’s time to consider publicly traded (and perfectly legal) “tax loopholes” that yield up to 9.8%. They’re as easy to buy as any stock or fund – in fact, they are stocks. They just happen to pay more.

Private equity investing is a proven way to print money. Problem is, it’s typically expensive for individual investors like you and me to get involved. Private equity minimums range anywhere from $10 million at the high end to “just” $250,000 depending on the fund. Frankly, that’s more than most normal retirement investors can or even should put in any one investment.… Read more

The IRS already allows REITs (real estate investment trusts) to avoid paying income taxes if they pay out most of their earnings to shareholders. As a result these firms tend to collect rent checks, pay their bills and send most of the rest of the cash to us as dividends.

But the IRS considers the dividends you and I receive from our REITs “nonqualified” dividends. This means they are taxed at our regular income rate.

Until now, that is. REIT investors will benefit from the tax breaks that “pass through” businesses will receive in the 2018 tax code. Investors will be allowed deduct 20% of their REIT dividend income (per U.S.… Read more

Right now, there are 2 fears giving first-level investors night terrors (and costing them huge gains and income).

1. Rising interest rates will kill stocks, and…
2. Nosebleed valuations (along with more record highs for the S&P 500) will kill stocks.

The problem? Both are nonsense!

Let’s take the second one first—then we’ll push on to 4 buys that not only survive rising rates but soar faster than rates do!

A Painful Wait on the Sidelines

Sure, the market’s current P/E ratio looks scary at around 23, and that alone could keep you clear of stocks now. Trouble is, sitting in cash isn’t exactly comforting as stocks rise and inflation chews up your nest egg.… Read more

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) and their typically high dividend yields are a key part of a payout-powered retirement portfolio that’s built to dish out higher and higher dividends every single year.

The five REITs we’ll discuss today will pay you 4% to 7.3% per year in dividends alone. And this income stream will only grow as time passes, because these firms have growing cash flow streams they must pass on to shareholders in order to keep their privileged REIT status.

REITs may not get much mainstream coverage, but the academics are starting to catch on to these dividend machines. Last year, I pointed you to a study from Wilshire Research that showed “dramatic” results when REITs were added to a retirement portfolio.… Read more

If you’re not yet as rich as you hoped you’d be by now, don’t worry – we still have plenty of time to get you there.

And I’m not talking about investing your “growth capital” into risky fly-by-night names like Tesla (TSLA) and Snap (SNAP).

We can scale our money more securely – but just as spectacularly – by purchasing sound dividend payers that happen to be growing their payouts rapidly. Here’s why.

The Most Lucrative Way Shareholders Get Paid

There are three – and only three – ways a company’s stock can pay us:

1. A cash dividend.
2. A dividend hike.

Amazon.com (AMZN) blatantly defies all of my investing rules, and gets away with it every time.

It drives me crazy! But instead of staying mad, we’re going to “get even” by banking some backdoor payouts the firm’s landlords dish out.

Of course Jeff Bezos’ company pays no dividend, nor does it buy back shares (and as I’ve written before, growing dividends and well-timed buybacks are sacred cows to me—and 2 keys to a rising share price).

In fact, the e-commerce giant has done the opposite, thumbing its nose at repurchases—busily adding to its share count since the late ’90s!

Amazon Waters Down Its Shares …

But just to show you what an incredible business this is, you can see that even though Amazon has diluted investors’ holdings with these share issues, that’s done zilch to crimp its massive per-share earnings and cash-flow growth:

… and Banks Huge Profits Anyway

To top it off, this stock is the definition of pricey: it’s never traded below 25 times earnings in its history—and today it trades at an absurd 158 times!… Read more

Even with the 10-year Treasury “rallying” of late, it still pays just 2.9%. Put a million bucks in T-Bills, and you’re banking $29,000 per year. Barely above poverty levels!

Hence the appeal of closed-end funds (CEFs), which often pay 8% or better. That’s the difference between a paltry minimum-wage income of $29,000 on a million saved or a respectable $80,000 annually.

And if you’re smart about your CEF purchases, you can even buy them at discounts and snare some price upside to boot!

Here’s why: CEFs (unlike their ETF and mutual fund cousins) have fixed pools of shares. Meanwhile their prices trade up and down like stocks – which means these funds can sometimes trade at a discount to the value of their underlying assets!… Read more

We’re 11 days into September, and if you’re like many folks, you’re probably just a little on edge—expecting the bottom to fall out of stocks any minute.

The truth is, there’s very good reason to be nervous.

After all, according to Bespoke Investment Group, September is the worst month for stocks, with the S&P 500 averaging a 1.05% drop since 1928.

That may not sound like much, but remember that it’s just the average. Some Septembers have been far worse. For example, let me take you back to September 2011, when the market tanked 6.4% in just 21 trading days.

That’s enough to bleed $6,400 off every $100k invested in very short order.… Read more

You might think a $500,000 nest egg isn’t enough to retire on, and I wouldn’t blame you. The financial media loves to tout $1 million as the end-all be-all mark of financial security.

But today, I’ll show you how wrong they are, and how secure you can be even with just half of what “conventional wisdom” says you need – as long as you’re in the right kind of dividend stock.

And I’ll also show you exactly what kind of dividend stocks you need to get the job done and the bills paid.

Those bills, by the way, come every month.… Read more

If you’re worried that stocks are expensive, well, they are. The current bull market is making a run at history. But it’s also costly to stay in cash (and lock in zero income). Fortunately, it’s possible to buy some downside protection with yield (hint: think recession-proof REITs – real estate investment trusts).

I understand the “I’m worried so I’m sitting in cash” concern. And I know many investors who continue to sit on their money and hope for a big pullback. But wouldn’t it be nicer to bank 32% total returns with 8%, 9% or even 10% or more of it coming as dividends?… Read more