Author Archive: Michael Foster

Plenty of investors will tell you that the higher an investment’s dividend yield, the greater the risk you’ll suffer a big dividend cut, especially in a market downturn.

To that I have one response: these folks have never invested in closed-end funds (CEFs)!

The portfolio of our CEF Insider service is a case in point. It yields a healthy 6.6% on average—five times more than the income-starved S&P 500 crowd gets—and the payouts on our funds have held up beautifully throughout this crisis.

Like the Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Global Dividend Fund (ETG), which we bought in January 2020, when it yielded a handsome 6.7%.… Read more

I get plenty of questions about specific closed-end funds from members of my CEF Insider service, which focuses on quick-moving smaller CEFs (here I mean those with sub-$1-billion market caps).

We love these CEF “small fry” because they hand us big dividends (7%+ yields are common in this corner of the CEF market) at a bargain, because these funds get little coverage from Wall Street and the mainstream media.

But when they do get “found,” their discounts disappear fast, catapulting us to some nice price gains to go along with our big payouts.

New 6.5%-Yielding PIMCO Fund: Buy, Hold or Sell?… Read more

Far too many investors think inflation is bad news for closed-end funds (CEFs), for a simple reason: they fear it’ll boost CEFs’ borrowing costs. (Because CEFs, of course, use leverage to varying degrees.)

That sounds like a reason to worry. Inflation, after all, boosts interest rates, and higher rates obviously mean CEFs would have to pay more to service their loans.

Bad news, right?

Not so fast! Because nearly everyone forgets the other side to the story—that inflation (at least these days) comes with a strong economy—and that drives investment returns that’ll more than offset any small rise in CEFs’ borrowing costs.… Read more

Let’s say you want to generate a middle-class wage using only dividends, but you’ve only got $300,000 to invest. Can it be done?

It certainly can—and it’s easy to do with just three funds you can buy right now.

Drop $300K into these three income generators and you’ll get an outsized 9.8% dividend stream. That translates into a steady $2,450 every single month. And since these funds pay dividends monthly (as opposed to your typical S&P 500 stock, which pays quarterly), you’ll start getting that income in just 30 days (or less) if you invest right now.

Best of all, none of these funds force you to buy into risky small companies, toxic financial derivatives or any other speculative investments.… Read more

Most people don’t realize this, but there’s a simple, two-step way to grab serious gains in high-yield closed-end funds (CEFs).

I call it the Index Boomerang Effect. And when I say it’s simple, I’m not kidding around.

It goes like this: over time, we can expect a CEF in a particular asset class to perform around as well as the index that represents it (though to be honest, the best CEFs tend to beat their indexes handily, which makes our strategy even more powerful).

But even the best CEFs do lag their indexes from time to time. The key is to spot those times and buy—then ride your CEF to strong gains as the index “pulls” its share price higher.… Read more

If you’re on the lookout for an expert to help you build your nest egg—and bulk up your dividend stream to, say, a 6%+ yield—you have two main choices: a professional wealth manager or an investment advisory service (or a newsletter, as they’re more commonly known).

Which is for you? Let’s break down both options. Then we’ll dive into the kind of three-fund portfolio a newsletter might tip you off to, with a healthy 6.1% income stream and a history of double-digit yearly returns, too.

Wealth Managers Charge More, But They’re a Help in a Crisis

With active wealth management, the main concern most people have is fees.… Read more

There’s an obvious reason why we love closed-end funds (CEFs): the dividends!

CEFs’ payouts average around 7% as I write this, and there are plenty paying well into the double digits. One fund we’ll touch on below, for example, yields more than 16%. A payout like that gets you $2,000 a month in dividends on just $150,000 invested.

But, as we often discuss in my CEF Insider service, when picking CEFs, we always need to look past those big yields.

We also need to examine the discount to net asset value (NAV, or the value of the fund’s portfolio) because buying a CEF at an unusually wide discount can net us strong price upside as that discount bounces back to normal, pulling the price up with it.… Read more

The once unthinkable has happened: AT&T (T), a Dividend Aristocrat that increased payouts for 30 years, said it will cut its payout nearly in half.

The move is especially infuriating because, as recently as April, we were hearing a lot about why the company would likely hike its payout in 2021, and management had stood by the dividend.

That’s now out the window—and the market’s not happy.

Dividend Cut Sends AT&T on a Wild Ride

It just goes to show you that even companies among the vaunted Dividend Aristocrats fall from grace from time to time. We all remember back in 2017, when another sacred cow, General Electric (GE), slashed its payout in half, as well.… Read more

There’s a new closed-end fund (CEF) on the market, and it comes from one of the biggest CEF issuers in the space: BlackRock.

It’s big—with $4.5 billion in assets under management. You can tell that straight from the ticker symbol: BIGZ. The fund’s full name: the BlackRock Innovation and Growth Trust (BIGZ).

So we know it’s got heft—and it’s got BlackRock’s deep bench of talent behind it (remember that BlackRock is the world’s biggest investment firm, with $7 trillion under management). But does BIGZ have a place in your portfolio? That’s the question we’re going to tackle today.

BIGZ got its start in March, and it’s currently trading flat from its inception and trailing the tech-heavy NASDAQ, which is the best benchmark for the tech-heavy BIGZ.… Read more

Manufacturing is as cyclical a business as there is, and it’s about to take off, driven by two vastly misunderstood factors:

1. An uptick in inflation, and
2. A big jump in stimulus spending

What most people don’t get is that these two trends are inextricably linked. And sitting right where they meet is a closed-end fund (CEF) trading for 88 cents on the dollar and just waiting to pay us a fat 5.3% dividend.

Let’s start by taking these trends one at a time.

Inflation: Likely Not as Hot as Most People Think

Let me start by saying that the breathless media coverage of inflation is focused entirely on how it will crimp stock market returns.… Read more