Author Archive: Brett Owens

Market gyrations don’t matter when you can generate $63,720 over the next 12 months on a capital base as modest as $350,000. The secret? Monthly cash flow that adds up to 20% average annual returns regardless of what stocks do.

It’s an income investors’ dream – banking regular payments without having to worry about a pullback for the pricey (and increasingly wobbly) stock market.

“Buy and hope” investors are, understandably, terrified today. They’ve bought their shares – and now all they can do is hope the aging bull market keeps climbing higher.

We income investors prefer to calculate rather than gamble.… Read more

Subscribers to my Contrarian Income Report have enjoyed safe yields of 7% or more over time – and enjoyed long-term price stability – thanks to two simple principles:

1. Buy stocks and funds when they’re out of favor. That way, prices are lower and yields are higher when we make our purchase.
2. Rely on dividends alone for income. That way, ups and downs in the stock price won’t cripple their usefulness to a retirement portfolio. In fact, we use them in our favor.

2018 hasn’t exactly been up to snuff. Most market experts expected the Trump tax cuts, breakneck economic growth and fat corporate earnings to shoot the market to the moon.… Read more

If you’ve held off on bank stocks for the last few months, I have good and bad news for you.

The good? You’ve still got time to get in before the banks take off on their next surge.

The bad? After the big profits this hated sector has posted in the last couple weeks, your window is closing fast!

So today we’re going to look at why 5 of the 6 biggest US banks look strong now … but being the dividend hounds we are, we’re not going to buy “regular” bank stocks, with their pathetic sub-2% dividend yields.

No way.… Read more

The credit card business naturally lends itself to good investor returns over most time periods.  But we can bank 50% to 100% gains per year by purchasing when dividend growth is high but a stock is cheap due to headline worries.

And today, we have the perfect news story to set us up for 51% profits over the next twelve months. After a decade of runaway gains, there is actually but one cheap credit card stock to buy for income and upside. And it’s not one of these popular horses:

Plastic Always Pays (Investors): 223% to 770% Returns

The “Big 5” enjoyed total returns up to 770% over the last decade thanks to incredible dividend growth in recent years:

Nothing Plastic About These Payout Curves

Investors have caught on to the fact that Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA) – which returned 770% and 758% over the last decade, and increased their dividends more than ten-fold – are excellent businesses.… Read more

It’s a question I get from investors all the time: “Should I take my dividends in cash or reinvest them through a dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP)?”

My answer: unless you want your cash sitting in your account earning zero, your best bet is to reinvest any dividend money you don’t need to pay your bills.

But we don’t want to practice “buy and hope” investing, either, whether we do it through obsolete DRIPs or the old-fashioned way.

When I say “buy and hope,” I mean putting your cash into household names like the so-called Dividend Aristocrats and “hoping” for higher stock prices when you cash out in retirement.… Read more

Is it possible to double your money – quickly – buying safe dividend stocks? You bet. Let me explain how…

“Basic” income investors are enamored with higher current yields. These are OK for payouts today, but they’re not going to get us 100%+ gains.

For triple-digit profits we must pay attention to the underrated dividend hike. These raises not only increase the yield on your initial investment, but they trigger stock price increases, too.

For example, if a stock pays a 3% current yield and then hikes its payout by 10%, it’s unlikely that its stock price will stagnate for long.… Read more

It’s a good time to be a virtual landlord. REIT (real estate investment trust) dividends just got a tax break, their stock prices are kicking off a rally and their yields are still on the generous side.

Let’s start with those yields, because that’s why we buy REITs. These firms get a pass from Uncle Sam if they dish most of their profits to us investors as dividends. (This generosity, by the way, has helped REITs outperform the broader stock market for much of their history.)

Current yields are higher than usual today:

REIT Yields are Higher Than Usual

Generally this means that REIT prices are too low (and should be bought).… Read more

My best advice for you today is this: ignore the breathless trade-war panicking and focus on one thing: cash.

Because the truth is, US companies—like the 3 stout dividend growers we’ll dive into below—are swimming in it. So much so, in fact, that they don’t know what to do with it all … so they’re sending it right back out the door to us!

A Colossal Cash Stash

But don’t take my word for it; ask the folks at UBS, who just said that US companies are sitting on nearly $2.5 trillion in cash. And that’s just what they’re holding inside America’s borders.… Read more

S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats are great if you’ve already owned them for many years or decades. These stocks have raised their payouts for 25 straight years or more. Since share prices rise as their underlying dividends rise, these stocks have showered investors with 500% to 1,000% returns or better.

BUT – if you’re looking for yield today, “Club Aristocrat” is a tough place to find new income. On average, these stocks pay 2.2%. This means you can put a million dollars into them and collect only $22,000 per year – yikes.

Instead let’s consider the High Yield Dividend Aristocrats.… Read more

“You can really find 7% yields today? Safe ones?”

“Where???”

My personal trainer – a financially savvy person and investor – didn’t believe it.

He’s a young guy with two or three decades of active income left, so he’s as interested in building a giant pile of cash as he is in collecting dividends. So when I told him about closed-end funds (CEFs) – and the capital gains available in this inefficient market – he was blown away.

My kettlebell guru isn’t the only one, according to the big response we received from last week’s piece about “advanced level” CEF investing.… Read more