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We buy real estate investment trusts (REITs) for their yields first and foremost. Show us the money!

Dividend growth is good, too. A 4% yield looks twice as nice if we believe our income will double in just a few years.

After all, a 4% payer that boosts its dividend by 10% won’t yield 4.4% for very long. Investors will buy its price up and in doing so bid its payout per share back down. And that’s OK. This dividend-powered appreciation is actually the easiest way for us to double our money with safe REITs!

But dividend safety really is the key here.… Read more

There’s an intriguing trend showing up in second-quarter earnings. And today I’ll show you how you can jump on it with a cheap closed-end fund (CEF)—I’m talking a 16% discount here.

Then there’s the dividend: a “hidden” 9.7% yield. I’ll say more about that shortly.

This trend might sound boring at first, but it’s crucial, because it proves that most folks have the wrong idea about the markets: they should be buying instead of fretting over interest rates, the next recession or other headline-driven fears.

But now more than ever, it’s where you buy that’s important. And the overlooked trend I’ve discovered proves that you need look no further than our own backyard: in the USA.… Read more

“Brett, give me some bond funds with big yields. And it’d be great if their prices never went down!”

My money manager friend was chasing the holy grail of retirement income. He wanted safe payouts from bonds to balance his clients’ stock exposure.

“How about the Artisan High Income Investor Fund (ARTFX)?” I replied. “It pays a steady 6% or so. And it never goes down.”

Same S&P Yearly Return, Less Heartburn

“The only problem is that it never goes up, either. And that’s prevented me from recommending it to my Contrarian Income Report subscribers.”

Our CIR portfolio holds eight bond funds today (versus ten stocks and stock funds).… Read more

Will interest rates really get the chop everyone thinks they will as 2019 rolls into the home stretch?

The smart money certainly thinks it knows. Beyond the July 31 rate cut (which the pros see as all but in the can), futures traders predict two more chops—in September and December:

But here’s something no one will tell you: not a single person outside of Jerome Powell has any clue what the Fed will do next.

Not futures traders. Not your adviser. Certainly not the talking heads on CNBC.

That’s why we’re going to dive into three “forever” stocks that beat the market no matter what rates do.… Read more

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) sound boring, but the truth is they’re the hottest investments out there. And today I’m going to give you two great ways to buy in: both are REIT-focused funds with big yields—I’m talking 6.8% and up!

You’ve no doubt noticed that REITs get little attention in the financial press. That’s because the media is obsessed with stories of big growth or big failures, and REITs are rarely one or the other. Instead, they help you quietly build wealth by providing big income and gains year in and year out.

Today I’m going to give you three reasons why REITs are a great buy now.… Read more

You and I know why people buy real estate investment trusts (REITs). They’re income machines that are literally mandated to take the lion’s share of their profits and put them back into shareholders’ hands as cash dividends.

It’s no secret. Just about anyone who buys into REITs know that they produce far bigger dividends than your typical stock.

But put most people in front of a Yahoo! Finance or Google Finance stock chart, and they’re suddenly struck by selective amnesia. Because they forget that these charts only consider price gains and don’t include REITs’ outsized dividends.

Let’s look at some of the optical delusions investors find when they stumble across the charts–then look at what happens once you split out price and total returns (with dividends).… Read more

There’s a scary-sounding catchphrase making the rounds these days—and it’s tricking folks into missing out on big dividends (I’m talking yields of 8.6%+) and upside.

The catchphrase: “earnings recession.”

You might have heard these two words. If you take them at face value, you could easily take them to mean that it’s time to hold off on stocks, particularly with the market hitting all-time highs on the regular.

That would be a mistake, because now is the time for us contrarians to buy—particularly high-yield closed-end funds (CEFs) like the 8.6% yielder I’ll show you below. It holds many of the top S&P 500 names you know well, like Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL) and Amazon.com… Read more

Last time we had a July like this, REITs (real estate investment trusts) ran wild. The top plays delivered dividends plus price gains between 40% and 114%!

REIT Rhyme for 114% Returns?

Tell me if this sounds familiar:

• It was July,
• The stock market was hitting all-time highs,
• And the Fed was about to cut rates for the first time in a while.

We shall see if July 2019 continues to “rhyme” with July 1995. Back then, we had Fed Chair Alan Greenspan introduce the concept of the “Greenspan Put,” the inside joke that the Maestro would save any decline in stocks with rate cuts.… Read more

I have no idea why you’d mess around with dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs) when you can “automatically” bag a 7%+ income stream and 82%+ upside with the strategy I’ll show you now.

Better yet, this outsized cash flow drops into your account—and grows—every single month!

It takes almost no work. (Just one small, but potent, step, which I’ll show you shortly.)

Before we get to that, let’s look at just how easy it is to use this proven strategy to double up—and even triple up—the cash stream your portfolio is throwing off today.

This simple system looks like a garden-variety DRIP, but it has one simple “hack” that amps up our dividend and sets us up for fast 82%+ upside, too.… Read more

Something unusual has happened in closed-end funds (CEFs) lately—a lot of new names are showing up in the leaderboard of the top long-term performers.

According to my CEF Insider service, there are now 36 funds that have delivered over 15% annualized total returns over the last decade, and three have delivered over 20% annualized returns, including their hefty dividend payouts.

And today we’re going to dive into five that have returned 17% and up (annualized) over the last decade. They’re powerful income generators for any market, with monster dividend yields all the way up to 10.5%!

Let’s get started.

Winning CEF #1: Cohen & Steers Quality Income Realty Fund (RQI)

RQI uses investors’ money to build a diverse portfolio of real estate investment trusts (REITs).… Read more