Author Archive: Michael Foster

You may not know it, but big pension funds are pulling billions of dollars out of one sector, leaving behind a group of stocks these big players will never buy again.

That’s a clear signal that we need to avoid these stocks, too.

I’m talking about oil companies. In New Jersey, for example, legislators are trying to ban the state pension fund from fossil fuels. The state’s Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill has bipartisan support, mainly because oil has been a clear loser for investors. We can clearly see this when we look at the chart of the biggest oil major of them all:

Exxon’s Long Decline

Exxon-Mobil (XOM) peaked at a $500-billion market cap in 2007 and has been in a downward spiral since, pushed lower by the 2014 and 2020 drops in oil prices.… Read more

The market’s fall pullback is starting to reverse itself, but don’t worry: there are still bargain dividend payers yielding 7.4%+ dividends to be had out there.

But investing (along with everything in our lives!) has changed. You simply won’t get safe, high payouts by clutching to old habits and buying big-name, high-yielding S&P 500 stocks. The real dividend bargains are in closed-end funds (CEFs), which give you higher payouts, greater safety and often better returns over the long haul.

To show you what I mean, let’s line up three S&P 500 “dividend darlings” against the CEF competition and see how they compare.… Read more

There are four funds sitting right under investors’ noses throwing off rich 10.6% dividends today. What’s more, these high-yield closed-end funds (CEFs) deliver these rich payouts monthly.

We can thank the recent selloff for this opportunity. It’s weighed on these CEFs’ prices, tweaking their yields higher.

With a 10.6% payout, you can get a yearly dividend stream of $40,000 on just a $378,000 investment. If you went with an index fund like the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) or Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO), which both yield 1.7% as I write this, you’d have to invest $2.4 million to get the same payout!… Read more

There is a proven way to grab sturdy double-digit dividends in this income-starved market.

Today we’re going to follow it. The secret? Take a contrarian approach to a group of stocks most folks have (wrongly) soured on. Those stocks would be real estate investment trusts (REITs), which yield just over 4%, on average, putting the 1.7% paid by the typical S&P 500 stock to shame.

And if you make the simple move I’ll show you shortly, you could easily triple that 4% payout! You’ll give yourself a solid chance of beating the typical REIT investor’s returns, too.

I’ll give you names and tickers in a minute, but let’s talk first about an obvious trap most investors are falling into with REITs these days.… Read more

If we can be sure of one thing these days, it’s that millions of investors are fed up with the pathetic 0.7% yields offered by so-called “safe” plays like Treasuries. And the 1.7% dividend that the average S&P 500 stock pays? Nobody’s not retiring on that, either!

So it follows that many more investors will go on the hunt for high, safe dividends in the coming months.

That means a group of 500 big yielders called closed-end funds (CEFs) will draw a lot more interest. The average CEF yields 7.2% now, and the biggest payers yield well into the double digits, like the 14.6%+ yielders we’ll dive into below.… Read more

You’ve probably heard of the “4% rule.” It refers to the amount you can safely take out of a portfolio without running out of money in retirement. It even comes with a catchy acronym: SWR, or “safe withdrawal rate.”

This “wisdom” is gospel for many advisors, but it’s completely wrong! Blindly following it could mean staying in the workforce for years, even decades, longer than you have to.

Here are three reasons why you should ignore this myth. Further on, we’ll look at a better option that will hand you rich 7% dividends and price upside, too.

Reason #1: It’s not really 4% anymore

The first reason is that the 4% rule has even been disavowed by its author.… Read more

Here’s something most people don’t realize: in the world of high-yield closed-end funds (CEFs), 7% dividends are actually on the smaller side.

While the more conventional ETFs will pay you 3% if you’re lucky, high-yield closed-end funds can pay out a lot more. With an average yield of 7.2%, according to data from my CEF Insider service, CEFs pay much more than the SPDR S&P Dividend ETF (SDY), which yields a meager 2.7%!

Source: CEF Insider

There are some off-the-beaten path ETFs that do have big yields, like the Global X SuperDividend ETF (SDIV), which pays a shocking 12.3% dividend as I write this.… Read more

If there’s one trap I’ve seen investors fall into time and time again, it’s “chasing yield”: getting pulled in by a high dividend yield and not digging deeper to see if that payout is really sustainable.

An asset class that’s collapsed in 2020—and is now on the verge of vanishing completely—is a classic example of the dangers of getting distracted by a high current yield.

The investments in question are called exchange-traded notes (ETNs), some of which held out the promise of mid-double-digit yields. Unfortunately, these funds—which some folks disastrously confuse with their bigger brothers, exchange traded funds (ETFs)—came with a  catch that’s now sending their values to zero.… Read more

Closed-end funds (CEFs) are the ultimate “sleeper” investment—if you hold them, you know they hand out massive dividends (7% yields, on average!). Plus, their often-discounted share prices set you up for serious upside, too.

But it looks like the mainstream crowd is about to crash our CEF party. That means if you’re not in now, this is the time to climb aboard, before our CEFs’ big discounts become a distant memory.

CEF Managers Put Out the Bait

Funnily enough, the ones drawing attention to CEFs these days are CEF managers themselves. According to The Wall Street Journal, these pros have been cutting their fees in a bid to draw in new investors.… Read more

When I ask closed-end fund (CEF) investors what they like most about these funds, their answer is almost always the same: the dividends!

It’s easy to see why. The average CEF yields 7.1%, and that majority of the 500 CEFs in existence pay dividends monthly. Those two strengths put you miles ahead of someone who bought the average S&P 500 stock, with its pathetic 1.6% payout.

CEF Dividends Reign Supreme

Source: CEF Insider

With a 7.1% dividend, you’d collect just under $50,000 in annual income on a $700,000 investment. Compare that to a popular index fund like the 1.6%-paying SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY): you’d need over $3.1 million to collect the same $50,000 of income!… Read more