Author Archive: Michael Foster

With stocks looking choppy—and toppy—and more chaos flowing out of DC seemingly every day, you may be pondering taking some money off the table these days.

I have one word for you.

Don’t.

Because as I wrote on August 10, US companies are killing it on the earnings front, and that great-news story is getting completely lost in the breathless coverage of Trump’s latest tweet and saber rattling from North Korea.

At times like these, it’s best to remember the words of the world’s most successful investor, Warren Buffett: “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.”… Read more

After months of grinding higher, stocks have taken a bit of a breather. And one obscure corner of the market went lower still.

I know I don’t have to tell you that when that happens, contrarians like us are set up for some nice gains, so long as we don’t let emotion cloud our judgment.

And there are indeed some nice gains on tap with 3 cheap funds I’ll tell you about shortly. They’re all closed-end funds, a special kind of investment that throws off eye-popping dividend yields (one of the 3 CEFs I’ll show you yields a hefty 9.3% now!).… Read more

If you’ve held Apple (AAPL) for a long time, you’re probably feeling pretty smug. And you should—the stock is way up over just about any time period and has nearly doubled in the last five years:

Apple’s Sparkling Performance

Clearly, Apple is an amazing stock. But what if I told you we can top that 96.3% gain in the next five years?

All we have to do is go someplace most investors aren’t. I’m talking about high-yielding—and almost totally ignored—closed-end funds.

The three I want to show you today are the PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund (PDI), the Tekla Life Sciences Investors Fund (HQL) and the Western Asset Mortgage Defined Opportunity Fund (DMO).… Read more

There’s one very simple mistake millions of folks are making right now—and it’s costing them billions every year.

Of course, there are many boneheaded errors people make every day, like betting a lot of cash on a single stock. Or not having an investment plan.

While both of those will also drain your portfolio—and could even put your retirement on the rocks—neither is the most common pitfall you’ll find.

So what is?

Simple. Being scared.

That may sound strange, but hear me out.

Because fearful investors avoid risk, but they don’t realize that all investing involves risk. You might think putting your money in U.S.… Read more

Today we’re going to dive into 3 blue chip names your friends are probably dodging like a co-worker with a bad cold right now.

That’s too bad, because they’re making a big mistake.

Because even though they’ve gapped way higher in 2017, these 3 stout picks are just getting started. So if they’ve been taking up space on your watch list (and you’re far from alone if they have), now’s the time to make your move!

And that goes double if you’re investing for the long haul. Say 10 years or more.

I’ll share their names in a second. First, let’s dive into precisely why these 3 American icons are fueling up for their next jump higher.… Read more

If you’re worried that you’ll struggle to profit from stocks for the next few years, you shouldn’t. There are still plenty of outsized gains waiting to be had—and today I’m going to show you exactly how to get in on the action.

First, we need to talk about what’s making stocks harder to invest in these days. It boils down to two points:

1. Valuations are high.
2. Interest rates are rising.

When stock valuations rise too far, they inevitably come back to earth. The S&P 500 is now trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of almost 25—the highest level in a generation except for two other times: 2000 and 2007.… Read more

There’s a secret way to make a killing in the stock market, and one superstar investor is jumping in with over $1 billion.

You may not have heard of Boaz Weinstein, but he’s become a legend on Wall Street. Back in 2012, he made a ton of money betting against J.P. Morgan’s London Whale—whose name is now linked with risky, poor investments.

Seeing the London Whale’s ridiculous trading strategies, Weinstein bet aggressively against the Whale—and won big. J.P. Morgan lost $2 billion because of this one trader, causing the bank’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, to admit that the firm had lost the money due to “egregious mistakes” in trading.… Read more

Today I’m going to show you three funds that are clobbering the market while throwing off a princely income stream.

These three funds have all gained 30% so far in 2017, even though the market is up a more modest (but still solid) 10%. And thanks to their skilled management teams and the exploding corners of the market they play in, they still have plenty of room to run.

The best part: between them, they pay an average 6.5% dividend! And thanks to their strong outperformance, those payouts are going to keep flowing to shareholders.

So you could buy all three of these funds, get a huge passive income stream now and position yourself for strong capital gains, thanks to the steady growth in these funds’ net asset values (or the value of their underlying holdings).… Read more

If you invest outside the US, you’re probably pretty happy with 2017 so far.

Heck, even if you’ve stayed inside America’s borders, you’re looking a nice 10% return through the first 7 months, going by the performance of the S&P 500.

(And speaking of the US, my colleague Brett Owens recently revealed 4 great all-American stocks yielding up to 10%. You can get their names by clicking here.)

But those who play in the global sandbox have seen some truly spectacular returns, especially folks who hold closed-end funds that invest in foreign stocks. In fact, the CEF Insider Foreign Sub-Index is up a whopping 20.1% since the start of the year—and it isn’t slowing down.… Read more

If you’ve been on the sidelines as this market grinds higher, you’re probably suffering a severe case of FOMO (fear of missing out).

It’s a terrible feeling, but today I’m going to cure you of it entirely, because it’s not too late to jump in!

The key is to zero in on a group of investments known as closed-end funds.

I’ll tell you about them—and introduce you to 5 attractive CEFs—in a moment. But for now, here’s the upshot: these overlooked, easy-to-buy funds are beating the market, but some are still priced at big discounts to their “true” value.

That means you’re not only going to get a strong return here, but you’ll also get a lot of income, too.… Read more