Articles

I want to let you in on a shocking secret about Vanguard: they’re great active investors.

That’s right. The people almost everyone looks to for low-fee index funds are, in fact, top-flight stock pickers.

Take the actively managed Vanguard Windsor Fund Investor Shares (VWNDX): since inception way back in 1958, it’s returned an annualized 11.4%, despite being long only large cap value stocks (and avoiding more volatile small caps entirely).

Compare that to the passive Vanguard Total Stock Market Fund (VTSAX). Despite the index fund’s lower fees (which first-level investors love and Vanguard touts as a key to superior returns), VWNDX has crushed VTSAX since the latter’s launch in the early 2000s:

Index Investors Get What They Pay For

The Vanguard Windsor Fund has been so successful that it spawned a second fund in 1985, the Vanguard Windsor II Fund Investor Shares (VWNFX), which went on to post a 10.7% average annual return.… Read more

I wouldn’t buy any old dividend payer right now, with most stock prices on the high side. But, believe it or not, there are a few quality dividend growers that are still pretty cheap.

This time last year, we discussed four fast dividend growers selling below book value. It’s almost hard to believe now that the four-pack of banks we highlighted then were selling for as cheap as 70 cents on the dollar.

But that’s how you make money with stocks – by buying good names when nobody else wants them. And since my column last April, this group gained an average of 53%:

Easy Contrarian Gains Averaging 53%!… Read more

A few days ago, I showed you exactly why now is the time to be greedy—not fearful—when it comes to stocks.

And now, buried deep in the latest gross domestic product (GDP) report is a tiny data point that proves I’m right. It’s the clearest signal in years that now is the time to buy.

I’ll show you 7 funds perfectly positioned to take advantage while handing you safe dividend yields up to 9.3% in just a moment. First, let’s talk about that under-the-radar signal I mentioned.

The report’s headline number showed that fourth-quarter GDP rose 2.1%, slightly above economists’ expectations of 2% growth.… Read more

We hear it every single time the Federal Reserve raises rates, or even merely hints at it!

“Higher interest rates will crush dividend stocks – especially high yielders.”

Sounds scary – but it’s simply not true. And we’ll highlight five picks paying up to 9.2% that will prove just that.

Many high-yield dividend payers don’t care about the interest-rate boogeyman – and some actually outperform the market when the Fed lifts rates. Consider this research from index provider MSCI (MSCI) studying 88 years of market history up through July 2015 (emphasis mine):

“We found that, when rates were low to begin with, high-dividend stocks outperformed the market by an annualized 2.4 percentage points when rates started to go up.… Read more

Many investors think they need to choose between current income and price upside. They don’t.

In a moment, I’ll highlight five stocks paying between 8% and 10% with 40% upside to boot.

Let’s face it – growth matters. It’s the best way to retire on a nest egg of just $500,000:

How to Stretch Your Investment on $500,000

The table above assumes a nest egg of half a million dollars that yields 8% a year, and absolutely no dividend reinvestment – here, you’re putting every cent of income into your pocket. Look how much that $500,000 expands over just a few years as you’re able to achieve more capital gains out of it.… Read more

The past year has been good for the S&P 500: it’s up about 15.7%, including dividends.

So if you’re simply tracking the index through an exchange traded fund, congrats. That’s a decent gain.

But I’ve got one simple trick—and a far superior fund buy—that can help you do even better … and grab a big chunk of your gain in cash, too.

That trick? Covered calls.

Covered what?

Covered calls are a strategy in which investors buy stocks and sell call options against those stocks.

Think of call options as a kind of insurance; investors buy them if they are short the market and want to protect themselves from blowing up in case the market rallies.… Read more

A $1 trillion infrastructure proposal is officially on the way later this year. Should we income investors buy any stocks now?

The answer’s yes – provided we avoid the popular names. After all, would you want to place your retirement hopes on the next spin of this roulette wheel?

Spin the Wheel on Retirement?

Caterpillar (CAT) is an industrial name you’ll hear mentioned often by stock pundits in the coming months. It’s a “cyclical” company that may indeed benefit from Trump’s trillion. But CAT buyers are taking on a lot of price heartburn for a modest 3.3% dividend.

And some popular picks pay even less.… Read more

Have you ever read something in the financial media and thought: is this even news?

I know. Every day, right?

I had that feeling on March 21, when I read a Bloomberg story saying that one type of stock—dividend growers—outperforms all others as interest rates rise.

To back it up, Bloomberg and Goldman Sachs (GS) looked at the performance of 50 stocks the bank sees as likely to hike their payouts by an average of 12% this year. (I’ll reveal—and rank—the 4 strongest names from this list in just a moment.)

The verdict? The “Goldman 50” beat the market between the end of June 2016 and March 21 of this year—a period that saw the Fed drop two quarter-point rate hikes on us.… Read more

The S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats are a group of stocks beloved as “widows-and-orphans” investments – can’t-miss companies whose stability and rock-solid dividends will keep you into old age and will exist long after you’ve passed. It’s a reassuring thought, but ultimately, it’s an illusion. Like the broader S&P 500 and the stock market as a whole, some of its members are good investments, and some – including five losers I plan on highlighting today – are not.

I love the term “dividend aristocrat” … but only because it’s more honest than most people realize. The word “aristocrat” can refer to people who are many things, including superior, better able, smarter and wiser.… Read more