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Worried that the Federal Reserve is driving our economy off a cliff?

I’ve got two words for you:

Drugs ‘n diapers.

Actually, I forgot one. Dividends.

These companies are about as recession-resistant as they come. Let’s start with drugs because, well, it’s always a bull market on prescription spend in America:

Source: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

While some of us are popping pills, others are changing diapers. (Or using them—we don’t judge!)

Without naming names we can see that someone is making consistent deposits. The trajectory of diaper spend is a one-way trade, too:

Data source: Statista Market Insights

Let’s start on the changing table with a 2.5% payer and work our way up.… Read more

When I explain the appeal of closed-end funds (CEFs), I usually start with the big headline and throw a few bullets afterwards, kind of like this:

CEFs yield an average 8%, and many of those dividends are sustainable and growing.

• CEFs invest in a variety of reliable and popular assets, like stocks, bonds and real estate investment trusts (REITs).

• CEFs often trade at discounts to the value of their portfolios. This is known as the discount to net asset value (NAV), and it means we can buy stocks, bonds and real estate through CEFs for less than we’d pay on the open market.

$500K can be enough money to retire on. Even as early as age 50!

The trick is to convert the pile of cash into cash flow that can pay the bills. I’m talking about $41,553.73 per year in dividend income on that nest egg, thanks to 8.3% average yields.

These are passive payouts that show up every quarter or, better yet, every month. Meanwhile, we keep that $500K nest egg intact. Or, better yet, grind that principal higher steadily and safely.

Got more in your retirement account? Cool—more monthly dividend income for you!

We’ll talk specific stocks, funds and yields in a moment.… Read more

Over the last few days, not one but three signals I use to read the tea leaves in REITs—one of our favorite places to hunt for big, and growing, payouts—all flashed “buy.”

That means it’s finally time to start selectively picking up these income plays. I’ll name two with dividends on multi-year growth runs below. Tickers in a sec. First, let’s talk timing. Here’s why REITs are jumping up our dividend priority list now:

• They haven’t followed stocks higher in ’23—so our “landlords,” which own everything from shopping malls to warehouses, apartment buildings and cellphone towers, are cheap in relation to the popular kids of the S&P 500.

All year long, we’ve been waiting for our favorite high-yield investments, 8%+ yielding closed-end funds (CEFs), to jump, along with the rest of the market.

Now, nearly nine months in, we’re still waiting! It’s not surprising: the income-focused investors who buy these funds are typically a cautious bunch.

Not that we mind at my CEF Insider service. We’ve been taking advantage of the extra time to pick up bargain funds and build our income streams. As I write this, our CEF Insider portfolio yields around 9%, with many of our picks paying dividends monthly.

But a fresh report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago is a sign the CEF train could be about to leave the station.… Read more

Utility stocks are the OG dividend payers. They’re delightfully dull. They’re dependable. They’re always worth scouting for income—and I’ve got six 5%-plus dividends on deck to share with you today.

I’m pleasantly surprised that we still have a chance to buy utilities for reasonable prices right now. Despite a year’s worth of worries about a pending recession, utilities have been the market’s worst sector year-to-date.

Perfect. We have value!

Utilities have worked off the froth I pointed out a year ago. Let’s just look at the forward P/Es from this year and last.

Sept. 10, 2022: Utilities Forward P/E: 20.9 S&P 500 Forward P/E: 17.7

Sept.… Read more

Closed-end funds (CEFs) really are the “Swiss army knife” of investments: with one click, they let us grab big income (the average CEF yields 7.9%), diversify (within and beyond asset classes) and buy their holdings for cheap!

But let’s be honest, when it comes to CEFs, it’s all about the dividends.

On that front, there’s a lot to say. For one, many CEFs pay monthly, making managing our income easy: CEFs’ high yields mean we could potentially replace a $6,500 monthly paycheck with less than $1 million invested and live on dividends alone.

And check out these discount and dividend stats from across the CEF space:

• A third of all CEFs yield over 10%.

It’s September, and stocks are shaky. We’re right on schedule.

The weeks ahead on the calendar have provided us calculated contrarians with some of our best dividend buys in recent years. In fact, two out of the last three years, we took advantage of seasonally weak Septembers to buy low.

In October 2020, with the world reportedly about to end, we locked in yields up to 10.8%. A sharp pullback presented us with values, while an accommodative Federal Reserve provided follow-up fuel. Price gains followed.

And last year, in November 2022, we bought bonds. It wasn’t a popular pick—everyone hated them!… Read more

Let’s dive into this Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) spinoff—because it shows exactly how we can tap “splits” like these to grab not one but TWO income streams growing 200%+.

Because if there’s one thing we need to know about spinoffs, it’s this: they’re about the closest thing to a free lunch you’ll find in investing. Just ask Peter Lynch, who guided his Magellan Fund to an astounding 29.2% annualized return from 1977 to 1990. His take on spinoffs, in his 1989 investing masterclass One Up on Wall Street, was simple:

“Spinoffs of divisions or parts of companies into separate, freestanding entities … often result in astoundingly lucrative investments.”… Read more

In my CEF Insider service, we focus exclusively on buying strong, 8%+ yielding closed-end funds (CEFs). It’s our MO! And there are a lot of CEF bargains now, as cautious income investors remain skittish following the 2022 correction.

But today I want to talk about when it’s time to sell a CEF. You might recall the old Warren Buffett quote that his favorite holding period is “forever.” Of course, Buffett was talking about blue-chip stocks, which are his forte.

With CEFs, our play is a bit different. Sure, we want to hold these high yielders (the average CEF tracked by CEF Insider yields 7.9% today) for as long as we can, to make the most of their high—and often monthly—dividends.… Read more