Author Archive: Michael Foster

Ignore the overtorqued headlines about inflation: even though prices are rising, they won’t take out the economy.

In fact, rising inflation is setting us up with a contrarian opportunity to grab double-digit dividends in a corner of the market everyone’s written off. That would be consumer-discretionary stocks, which you’d think would be the main victims of inflation, but that’s far from the case, for reasons we’ll get into shortly.

We’ll also delve into one smartly run consumer-focused closed-end fund (CEF) yielding an outsized 11% below. But first we have to talk strategy, because while there are opportunities for us, this twitchy market also includes some traps we need to watch for.… Read more

This market’s insistence on falling—even though earnings are soaring—has opened up a strong buying opportunity for us dividend investors.

And we’re going to tap it to grab a rare “double discount” on an 8%-yielding closed-end fund (CEF) that no one’s noticed. This income-and-growth machine has soared 260% since inception and has the potential to crush stocks this year, thanks to its undeserved markdown.

More on that below. First, let’s talk about this stock-market disconnect, because recent declines have yanked the S&P 500’s price-to-earnings ratio down to 23.8. That may not sound cheap, but it’s far below last year at this time, when valuations hit a nosebleed 43.7.… Read more

These are trying times, so let’s talk about how we’re going to protect our retirement (and our families’ futures) as market volatility increases.

The Ukraine crisis is, of course, first and foremost a humanitarian tragedy the world is racing to respond to, as it should. It’s also being felt well beyond the borders of Russia and Ukraine, with rising energy prices fueling inflation fears, which are, in turn, causing panic in global markets.

High, Monthly CEF Dividends Help Stabilize Our Portfolios

At times like these, closed-end funds (CEFs) are a good investment choice because their high dividends help us meet our income needs while volatility increases: as I write this, our CEF Insider portfolio is delivering an 8% yield, on average, and we’re getting a predictable income stream, too, with 16 of our 21 holdings paying us monthly.… Read more

With the swift stock-market decline we’ve seen since the start of 2022, and now, you can be forgiven if your stomach tightens just a bit when you go to check your retirement account.

So today I’m going to give you my three best tips for securing your hard-earned cash—and even better, locking in a dividend stream you can easily live off of in retirement. And no, you won’t need a seven-figure nest egg to pull off what I’m going to show you now.

Step #1: Diversify the Right Way

You no doubt know that diversification is key to protecting your wealth, but if you only go halfway, you’re hurting your gain potential (and exposing yourself to potentially severe losses).… Read more

Far too many investors ignore dividends, even in a bull market. When there’s a correction, like the one we’ve seen over the last few weeks, they flip the script, making safe cash dividends a lot more popular.

Luckily for us, there’s one ignored corner of the market where we can grab payouts that triple what the typical stock dribbles out.

That would be in municipal bonds, or “munis” for short. We hold one fund that owns such bonds, the RiverNorth Managed-Duration Municipal Income Fund (RMM), in our .

Munis are a kind of debt instrument issued by local governments to fund infrastructure.… Read more

If you’re relying on income from your portfolio, you know how annoying it is to manage a collection of quarterly dividend payers.

Take five of the most popular dividend stocks on the market today: Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Home Depot (HD), Procter & Gamble (PG) and Bank of America (BAC).

These are staples of every investor’s portfolio, but a route to a steady income stream they are not! Here’s what your monthly payouts would look like with this quintet if you held, say, $100,000 in each one, for a $500,000 total investment:

Source: CEF Insider

That’s a nightmare!… Read more

I always have a good laugh when the press talks about our favorite high-yield plays—closed-end funds (CEFs)—like they’re some new thing! Of course, we seasoned CEF investors have long known that these funds, which pay out average dividend yields of 7.5%, are the key to retiring on dividends alone.

(The 20 CEFs in our CEF Insider service’s portfolio do even better than that, yielding 8% as I write this, with the highest payer of the bunch paying a life-changing 9.8%.)

Nonetheless, the media continues to be floored by this news!

The latest occurrence came on February 9, when CNBC ran an article called “Retirees Seeking Income May Want to Consider Closed-End Funds.”… Read more

We’ve got a pullback-driven (and tax-free!) dividend opportunity waiting for us now, and we can thank the Fed’s looming rate hikes for it. It’s a “safety first” closed-end fund (CEF) paying a 4.5% tax-free dividend and trading at a rare 8.4% discount to its “true” value.

This opportunity comes our way through municipal bonds, or “munis.” If you follow the market for these bonds, which are issued by state and local governments to fund infrastructure projects, you know that they’ve pulled back this year:

Munis Slip, Giving Us an “In”

A 2.9% drop, as we see here in the iShares National Muni Bond ETF (MUB), the benchmark ETF for the space, is small compared to the much bigger declines in stocks, but this is pretty rare: as an asset class, muni bonds are less volatile than other kinds of bonds, let alone stocks, which is why any short-term drop tends to be a buying opportunity.… Read more

One of the best things about closed-end funds (CEFs) is that, even though there are only about 500 or so of these 7%+ yielders out there, you can find CEFs that win in every kind of market.

So with a few clicks, you can build a diverse CEF portfolio yielding well north of 7%. (The 20 holdings in our CEF Insider service’s portfolio, for example, yield 7.7% on average and hold everything from tech stocks to municipal bonds and real estate investment trusts, or REITs.)

Below I’ve got an 8% monthly dividend payer that’s primed for “snap-back” upside as one group of stocks—those that sell discretionary products, from electronics to clothing—spring back to life.… Read more

We’re seeing signs every day that this pouting market is way oversold—and contrarians that we are, we’re going to work this sentiment to grab stout closed-end funds (CEF) paying dividends yielding north of 7% that have been unfairly beaten down.

Here’s my take on how far off-base today’s investor mood is. In a moment, we’ll dive into 2 CEFs yielding up to 8.5% we can buy to cash in.

1. Inflation is not hurting corporate profits. If anything, profits are going up across the board. Many companies have seen their profits—and profit margins—rise in the earnings season that’s currently underway.
2. Supply chains have challenged businesses, but they haven’t caused the economy to grind to a halt.