Articles

At my CEF Insider service, we’ve been bullish on corporate bonds (especially corporate bond–focused closed-end funds yielding 8%+) for a long time now.

We remain so, because we’ve got a nice “goldilocks” setup for these funds right now:

1. The US economy, while not booming at a rate that makes everyone happy, has steadily improved since the pandemic, prompting inflation to slow but remain elevated.
2. The Federal Reserve, seeing this, is getting set to lower interest rates in late 2024, or possibly at some point next year.

These are both bullish signs for corporate bonds—and the closed-end funds that hold them. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you they were hit hard in 2022, resulting in an array of bargains.… Read more

Be honest. I won’t be mad, but just admit it.

You’ve got some SPY in your portfolio. So much in fact you’re probably trying to quickly change the subject from the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY).

I’m not mad. (I’m just disappointed—ha!) We refer to SPY as “America’s ticker for a reason.” It is everywhere.

And it’s OK. Really it is. Holding SPY has worked out this year. But we’re now at an inflection point—which is why we are having this conversation.

Only three stocks account for 21% of the S&P 500. Apple (AAPL), Nvidia (NVDA) and Microsoft (MSFT) determine the entire market’s moves!… Read more

Look, I know pretty well everyone loves ETFs—mainly for the cheap management fees.

But here’s the thing: ETFs—especially dividend-growth ETFs—are almost always a raw deal. You’re better to go with carefully chosen individual stocks instead.

Today I’m going to prove it, with two popular ETFs whose lousy performance is costing investors thousands in lost gains. So we’re going to “swap” these losers for two terrific stocks whose payouts have exploded 379%+ in the last decade.

Their secret? An eye-opening “Dividend Magnet” pattern no one’s talking about (but as you’ll see in a moment, they should be).

Let’s start with the laggards, then move on to the Dividend Magnet—and these two overlooked individual stock buys.… Read more

This levitating stock market has brought back worries about a crash (and a recession). I know, I know. We’ve been hearing that doomsday forecast for what feels like forever—and nothing of the sort has come to pass.

But a recession will eventually show up. We just don’t know when. In the meantime, stocks could keep drifting higher.

We do not want to miss out on that. But we do want to pay special attention to assets beyond stocks now (and minimize the amount we have sitting in cash, by the way, which is getting eaten up by still-hot inflation).

This is where corporate bonds (many of which are oversold) enter the scene, particularly bond-focused closed-end funds (CEFs), many of which yield well over 8%.… Read more

With the market at nosebleed valuations, where can we look for value and yield?

Let’s turn to our favorite three-letter acronym. C-E-Fs.

As usual we have a handful of closed-end funds (CEFs) getting no love from Wall Street. This is perfect for us as we’re talking about dividends up to 14% and discounts between 10% and 15%.

In other words, these fat payers are trading for 85 to 90 cents on the dollar. Let’s discuss.

Gabelli Dividend & Income Trust (GDV)
Distribution Rate: 5.8%
Discount to NAV: 15.0%

We begin with Gabelli Dividend & Income Trust (GDV), a top-rate closed-end fund whose management team includes legendary value investor Mario Gabelli.… Read more

Closed-end funds (CEFs)—our favorite 8%+ yielding investments—have a new (and popular!) fan. And he’s making a big move I see sending CEF prices higher.

Bill Ackman Discovers What We’ve Known for Years

I’m talking about Bill Ackman, one of the best-known activist investors out there. You’ve probably seen the head of Pershing Square Capital Management, a hedge fund with $18.3 billion in assets, in the media. He’s a regular commentator.

Ackman has scored some big wins in his career, such as his 2005 investment in The Wendy’s Co. (WEN). But he’s probably better known for his dramatic misses, like his losing bid to change the board of directors at Target Corp.… Read more

I have a pop payout quiz for you, my contrarian friend. Can you tell me how much dividend income you earned last week?

And if so, can you tell me how much you earned each day?

These details are now available in Income Calendar, the dividend tracking tool that we created in-house here at Contrarian Outlook. IC’s ability to project divvies down to the day tells us that:

• We collected $1,844.75 last Monday.
• Another $264.80 in divvies followed on Wednesday.
• And our holiday week was capped off with $340.55 in income on Friday.

The tool took my newsletter portfolio as input—with tickers and sample share counts—and did the rest of the work.… Read more

Railroad stocks are set to roll and we’re going to climb aboard with two stocks—including one that’s hiked payouts by 50% in five years—we’ll delve into in a sec.

What’s driving this opportunity? Our usual contrarian mix of overlooked growth and stocks that have been tossed overboard, of course!

Since the days of the Wild West, railroads have been the backbone of the US economy, so when economic growth gets out of sync with railroad stocks’ prices—as is happening right now—we need to take notice.

As I write this, the US economy is still in growth mode and shoppers are still spending.… Read more

Hedge funds have a big problem: They can’t beat the market anymore.

If you read the press, you’ll see a lot of concern over this. If hedge funds aren’t cutting staff, they’re struggling to find talent to try to boost their returns. Moreover, the industry mostly keeps shuffling people within its ranks, undercutting the stability needed to make outperformance last.

So it’s kind of strange that hedge funds are managing more money than ever. The industry was managing $1 trillion in the mid-2000s, a milestone at the time. But now hedge funds are managing more than $4 trillion globally. And they’re still growing.… Read more

Five growth companies are about to hike their dividends. Let’s front run these payout moves.

Many vanilla income investors miss these stocks because their current yields are modest. These armchair analysts are missing a critical point. These stock prices climb with each and every hike thanks to a phenomenon known as the “dividend magnet.”

Consider tech giant Microsoft (MSFT). Sure, Microsoft’s 18-year-old payout isn’t exactly old compared to fellow Dow components like Coca-Cola (KO) and Procter & Gamble (PG), which have been writing dividend checks since the 1800s, but it’s awfully long in the tooth for a member of the technology sector.… Read more