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What if I told you I’d found a way to protect your portfolio from this twitchy market without giving up big gains (and income)?

My guess is you’d be interested—if a little skeptical.

I get that. A skeptic is a good thing to be, in investing and pretty much everything else.

So let me tell you right away that I’m talking about one of the most unsexy investments you can think of—but also one poised for some very nice gains as volatility drives scared investors to look beyond stocks.

I’m talking about municipal bonds, debts issued by state and local governments to fund badly needed infrastructure projects.… Read more

Where’s the market going from here? Well, if you own these seven “never go down” dividend payers, you probably don’t care.

My readers are often asking for safe income ideas. For stocks that pay dividends and never drop in price. It’s a very difficult task, but not quite impossible.

For most long-term investors who want big dividends–I’m talking 6%, 7% and even 8%+ current yields–I recommend a combination of a contrarian and “No Withdrawal” approach. This consists of buying safe dividend-paying bonds and funds when they are out of favor and holding them through any market turbulence.

Big dividends are the rubber duckies of the investing world.… Read more

Think it’s impossible to bag 852% gains and a 6% dividend in one stock?

It’s not only possible—it’s easy! I’m going to give you the three (and only three) simple steps you need to do it yourself today.

Let’s start with the one thing we’re not going to do: follow the “buy and hope” crowd into a fanboy (and girl) favorite like Netflix (NFLX).

In search of big gains, first-level investors crowd into a non-dividend-payer like Netflix, simply because it’s delivered stunning growth in the past. And they almost always dive in when the stock is at the height of its popularity, like last July, when NFLX was scraping all-time highs.… Read more

I want to show you 10 funds that yield up to 9.4%—and that you should sell now (or steer clear of if you don’t own them).

Of course, near-10% yields are attractive, and I often see attractive funds yielding as much as (and more than) the 10 funds I’ll reveal in a second. But sometimes a big yield is too good to be true, and that’s the case here.

The reason I’m saying this now? These funds have been on a tear in the last few months, which is far out of character for both them and their asset class.

I’m talking about utilities funds.… Read more

A three-day holiday may be just what the U.S. stock market needs. Investors turned more defensive in the last week of trading before Summer kicks off on Monday with the Memorial Day holiday.

Traders bought bonds this week, pushing rates lower, while selling stocks. The trade war between China and the U.S. heated up again and investors were spooked by reports of slower growth in Europe. UK Prime Minister Theresa May also said on Friday that she will step down in June, after failing to execute a Brexit strategy in the past three years.

Elsewhere, crude oil posted its worst one-day performance for 2019 on Thursday, though remains 25% higher year-to-date.… Read more

Mortgage payments. Car payments. Cell-phone bills. Power bills. Water bills. Credit card bills.

What do they all have in common?

Nobody likes them, of course. But more importantly, they all arrive relentlessly month after month.

That’s fine when you have a normal job that pays you every couple of weeks or every month. But that regular bill routine becomes considerably more daunting once you hit retirement, when much of your regular income is coming from your portfolio of dividend paying stocks … which pay out every quarter, not every month.

Investors in turn often build complicated dividend calendars that get knocked out of whack whenever they ever have to cut back on certain stocks.… Read more

Right now, there are two closed-end funds (CEFs) you need to sell immediately—or steer clear of if you don’t already own them.

Before I reveal them, I want to explain the unmistakable sell signal both are showing as I write this. You can easily use it to “crash-test” the CEFs in your own portfolio, or spot CEF bargains.

A Built-in CEF “Sell Alert”

I’m talking about the difference between the fund’s market price and per-share net asset value, or NAV (which is just another way of saying the value of the CEF’s holdings).

CEFs usually trade at a discount to NAV, and if you’re a subscriber to my CEF Insider service, you know we’ve banked some impressive returns by waiting for those discounts to get ridiculously wide, buying, then holding on as the discount reverts to normal, pushing the share price higher as it does.… Read more

“I’m 11 years older now. Brett, I just can’t have a repeat of 2008,” my new subscribers often share.

“Now tell me which of these dividends will survive a bear market like that. I want to buy only the safest yields,” they continue.

Fortunately I’m no stranger to dividends that thrive in bear markets. We fittingly launched the Contrarian Income Report months before the market’s tantrum in 2016. The S&P 500 promptly dropped 10% as a welcome present!

It was no problem for our strong dividends, however. In fact, subscribers who focused on their own holdings rather than the financial news likely have missed the broader carnage altogether.… Read more

Let’s ride this “tariff tiff” to a cash stream that’s double (and maybe even triple) the 2% and 3% payouts your friends are likely “grinding it out” with today.

I’m talking about a stout 5% yield here. And that’s just the start, because that payout has surged 64% in the last 10 years, and is set to repeat that feat in the next 10.

While we’re at it, we’ll “2008-proof” your portfolio, too, carefully cushioning your nest egg from the next market collapse.

And we’ll do all of this with the three unusual “pullback-proof” stocks I’ll show you shortly. Each is set to hold its own in the next crash, then soar when the dust settles.… Read more

You’re no doubt wondering if there’s anywhere you can invest and still get a decent return—without wincing every time you open your brokerage account.

Good news: there is just such a place. And today I’m going to show it to you—along with three specific “crash-resistant” funds yielding up to 7.1%.

The magical place I’m talking about is an often-ignored corner of the market called closed-end funds (CEFs).

Steady Dividends for Rocky Markets

There’s a weird twist that lets CEFs pay us dividends of 7.1% (and a lot higher) without exposing us to the risk of a surprise payout cut.

It comes down to the fact that several CEFs’ prices (on the open market) trade at a discount to the per-share net asset value (or the liquidation value of their portfolios).… Read more