Articles

The 10-Year Treasury yield is holding at 2.85%, but another run to 3% is coming soon. Let’s use this breather to sell our weakest dividends and replace them with stocks that should actually head higher as rates rise.

You know the playbook by now. When the 10-Year yield rallies, it crushes stocks with pathetic yields or meager dividend growth. These “bond proxies” get dumped for the real thing as first-level investors scamper to the 3% yields on “safe” US government debt.

If your portfolio relies on laggards like these—I’m talking about penny-a-year hikers like AT&T (T) and Walmart (WMT), or stocks that haven’t hiked their payouts in years, like Wynn Resorts (WYNN)—I have two words for you:

Sell now!… Read more

Today I want to show you one of the most ridiculously oversold funds. Not only is it absurdly cheap right now, but it also pays a 7.5% sustainable dividend.

Before I get into those big cash payouts and how they’re possible, let me first explain why this fund is such an incredible bargain today.

Imagine that you could get shares in Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOG), Apple (AAPL) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) for 5.4% less than the market price of all of these companies.

Wouldn’t you buy as much as you could?

Well, now you can, thanks to the Eaton Vance Enhanced Equity Income Fund (EOI).… Read more

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) are as cheap as they’ve been since the financial crisis right now. The sector as a whole has been battered for more than half a year, driving yields on the Vanguard REIT ETF (VNQ) to their highest point since 2009:

The REIT ETF VNQ Pays Nearly 5% Today…

If you bought REITs then, you doubled your money in less than four years:

… A Bullish Sign for Those Who Like 100%+ Gains!

And while this may be a fine time to buy VNQ, there are even better deals to be had amongst the “niche” landlords – both in, and outside, of the benchmark REIT index.… Read more

Today I’m going to show you 3 funds that give you an income stream the taxman cannot touch.

These 5% dividends get even more exciting when you see their “real” yields, thanks to that tax-free status.

A Low-Key Cash Machine

It’s all thanks to unsung municipal bonds, a kind of debt that cities, counties and states issue to raise funds for building roads, bridges, schools, hospitals—all kinds of things that make life easier for their residents.

To encourage investors to get into this market, the US government allows the income from these bonds to be distributed to investors without any tax payable at the federal level.… Read more

The Fed funds rate is 0.25% higher now than it was this time last week. What does this mean for our income investments – especially our monthly dividend payers?

We’ll explore in a minute. First, let’s allow ourselves a moment to appreciate the attractiveness of meaningful monthly distributions.

Our bills arrive every 30 days. But most stocks only pay their dividends every 90. So why don’t we bridge the gap and line up our income with our expenses?

Electricity bill? No problem – got an emerging market bond distribution to cover that.

Cable? No hurry to cut the cord (and risk live sports) when we have a REIT stock that covers this month’s bill.… Read more

A few weeks back, I revealed my proven 3-step process for a “do-it-yourself” 10% dividend yield.

I’ll sum it up for you in 5 words: buy stocks with “accelerating” dividends. That is, payouts that grow faster and faster every year.

It’s a double win!

Take Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (RCL), a stock I focused on in a March 6 article (and still like today). Plenty of dividend investors look at RCL’s current dividend yield—a meager 2.0%—shrug and walk away.

Terrible move!

I’ll show you why in 2 charts … well, make that one chart with 2 different layers.

Let’s start with this one:

“Accelerating” Payout Drives a 500% Income Boost!… Read more

Today I’m going to show you 4 funds that, when put together, give you a juicy 7.2% dividend yield.

And that’s just the start. In addition to giving you $595 per month in income for every $100,000 invested, this “instant” 4-fund portfolio gives you diversification that limits your risk of losing cash in a market downturn.

Oh, and there is capital gains upside here for you, too.

The reason for that upside is that all of these funds are trading at a pretty big discount to their net asset value (NAV).

Let me explain.

Each of these picks is a “closed-end fund,” a unique type of fund that has a few key advantages over more familiar mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.… Read more

One down, two to go.

The Federal Reserve launched yet another interest-rate hike after its mid-March policy meeting – the sixth such increase since December 2016, and what the Fed anticipates will be the first of three this year. Predictably, a certain subset of the market shuddered in response: lazy, low-growth dividend stocks. But at the same time, shareholders of a few other stocks quietly celebrated what should be a win for the years ahead.

Today, I want to highlight both types: The Fed-proof, and the Fed-frightened.

2018 isn’t shaping up to be a bad year for dividend growth, but it’s not a particularly good one.… Read more

If you’re planning to retire (or are currently retired), I urge you to become intimately familiar with monthly dividend stocks. They offer the ultimate consideration: income payments that actually line up with your monthly bills.

Today, I’m going to help get you started by introducing you to four monthly dividend payers that yield up to 12%. But first: What’s so great about this type of stock?

When you pay your bills – be it the mortgage, the electricity, the TV – you don’t sit down at the kitchen table to do that every quarter. You do it every single month.… Read more

Inflation fever is back! And today I’m going to show you a “one-click” way to cash in with a quick gain and a 7.7% cash dividend too.

First, you may have been under the impression that inflation was off the list of worries for now, since February’s fretting over rising prices sent the market into full swan dive mode:

Inflation Terror Sideswipes Stocks

But March brought us a nice surprise: inflation is not as bad as previously thought. When it comes to one measure of inflation known as “personal consumption expenditure,” or PCE, we are still seeing price gains far below 2%:

Prices Rising, But Still Below Critical Level

But now the herd is an uproar again—and it has everything to do with the “inverted yield curve.”… Read more