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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is arguably the biggest stock-market cheerleader in American political history. And that fact is throwing a floor under stocks in a way few people realize.

It’s another reason to buy stocks now—or better still, stock-focused closed-end funds (CEFs). Because when things get rough, we can count on Scott to temper policies that might otherwise ruffle the markets.

This sounds like a minor thing, but it’s key in a market like this, which I see as still having room to run, even though, yes, valuations are getting stretched.

The Stock Market Indicator

To get at the moderating effect of Bessent’s presence, we need to start with President Trump, who has a long history of caring about the stock market, even though his career was in private real estate.… Read more

The Fed is cutting, and that’s bullish for preferred stocks and their big payouts. Let’s look at a trio yielding up to 9.8% that will benefit from every ease from Mr. “Dead Man Walking” Jay Powell.

Most vanilla investors know common shares—and stop there. They buy banks like Bank of America (BAC) or Wells Fargo (WFC) by typing “BAC” or “WFC” into their brokerage account.

Financial firms also offer preferred shares with much bigger payouts. All we need to do is keep typing.

Preferreds are part stock, part bond. These hybrids trade on regular exchanges under normal tickers. They pay dividends and represent ownership, but their income stems from “bond” DNA.… Read more

Are we in a stock market bubble or not? Let’s tackle that question head-on, because it’s all we seem to be hearing about these days.

I’ll put my cards on the table: We’re not in a bubble. I’m going to show you why I’m still bullish on stocks at these levels. Then we’re going to play overwrought bubble fears with a “cornerstone” fund that’s beaten stocks over just about every timeline but is still cheap (and yields a rich 8%, too).

When it comes to stocks, the truth is, there’s a good reason why they keep rising: We’re in a booming economy.… Read more

“I don’t have to make and update my goofy spreadsheets anymore!” my man Peter B. from New Hampshire writes.

Tell ‘em, Peter!

We are devoted to retiring on dividends here at Contrarian Outlook. But a little bit of work in retirement is OK. As income investors, we should be able to forecast our income.

Note that I said a little bit of work. Not a lot! I am not interested in fiddling with spreadsheets until the end of time, and neither is my man Peter.

If you’re with us, why not hop aboard the Income Calendar train with Peter and me?… Read more

The 10-year Treasury rate has sunk to around 4%. And we’re going to cash in.

No, we’re not purchasing Uncle Sam’s sorry paper. Instead we’re picking up a basket of ridiculously cheap bonds paying more than 2X the beaten-down payout on the 10-year.

And the lower Sam’s rate falls, the more we profit, since bond prices rise as the 10-year yield, pacesetter for rates on loans of all types, drops. Our play here is through closed-end funds (CEFs) like the two we’ll discuss below, yielding up to 10.3%.

Why Treasury Yields Are On the Mat 

There are lots of reasons floating around in the media about why Treasuries are falling, a “slowing” economy chief among them.… Read more

I hate to see investors (particularly retirees) starving for dividends, especially with inflation stuck around 3% (and you and I both know that the real number is higher—just head down to your local grocery store!).

A big myth around dividends is that you have to invest a lot upfront to get anything meaningful in return. It’s easy to see why people feel that way, with the average S&P 500 stock paying a meager 1.1% as I write this.

This is where my favorite investments, closed-end funds (CEFs), come in. Using the three we’ll delve into below, you could get a little over $1,000 a month in income, thanks to their double-digit yields.… Read more

Wall Street still treats utilities like income relics. Big mistake.

The same wires and substations that power your home now feed NVIDIA’s data centers—and our portfolios. These “boring” utilities are morphing into AI toll collectors, handing us up to 10.4% dividends while vanilla investors chase momentum stocks.

Take Texas, for example. The grid is strained. The population is popping. New residents, factories and AI campuses are all plugging into the state’s aging grid at once. The math is no longer “mathing” and it’s about to get worse. ERCOT projects power demand will jump 62% by 2030—yikes!

And Oncor, the state’s largest utility, believes that is way too conservative.… Read more

If I can give you one piece of advice now, it’s this: Don’t fear this talk of an AI bubble.

In fact, we should love it, because it’s set to hand us a shot at big dividends and gains—especially in closed-end funds (CEFs), which yield around 8% today and regularly hand us “dividend deals” that simply shouldn’t exist.

Our job: Buy, then ride along as CEF investors, who tend to be slowpokes compared to stock buyers, finally come around and bid our funds’ prices up. And we collect those rich dividends—often paid monthly—while we wait.

One CEF is giving us just such a nonsensical discount today: a 7.7%-payer called the Virtus Artificial Intelligence & Technology Opportunities Fund (AIO).… Read more

$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 $40,794.30 per year in dividend income on that nest egg, thanks to 8%+ average yields.

These are passive payouts that show up every quarter or, in many cases, 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

Today we’re going to look at a stock you probably own now (or have in the past)—Visa (V).

Truth is, this “go-to” S&P 500 name has a BIG secret:

Its “measly” 0.68% dividend yield is nonsense. In fact, I’d go as far as to say it’s a complete misdirection. 

Buy—or worse, avoid—Visa based on that low yield and you’ll completely miss out on a terrific stock I see completely crushing the market in the years ahead.

Because here’s the real truth about “Big V”: It actually yields 5X what the free stock screeners say it does—and no one realizes it.… Read more