Articles

Real estate investment trusts, or REITs, have been on a tear. For instance, Lexington Realty Trust (LXP) is up a shocking 32% year-to-date, and it also happens to be a stock we recommended a few weeks ago. Many more REITs are up double-digits over the past year, making income-hungry investors wary of buying at too high of a price.

This is especially true for indexing the sector, as Vanguard’s REIT Index Fund (VNQ) is up 16.9% in the last year versus the S&P 500’s modest 3.6% gain. This is great for people who bought at the bottom, but anyone looking to get into REITs now needs to be wary about blindly buying companies that comprise a broader index.… Read more

If you think dividend stocks are about to soar, wait until you see what happens with the select subset that is actually accelerating its payouts.

Low rates for longer means net present value calculations look great for stocks that pay meaningful yields. And those that are boosting their dividends at an increasing rate are basically breaking Wall Street’s spreadsheets.

Take CoreSite (COR), a developer and landlord for data centers that we first discussed in March. The company had recently increased its payout by 26%, an acceleration over last year’s “mere” 20% boost:

Investors who bought CoreSite the day it declared the latest increase are sitting on 54.9% gains in just over seven months.… Read more

Is the next market brushfire right around the corner? And are investors in denial about it?

If recent moves in the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) are any indication, the answer to both questions could be yes.

The market’s so-called “fear indicator” plunged 40% in the week following the Brexit vote—its largest-ever drop—as options traders bet the worst is behind us. The VIX has moved back up only slightly since.

But don’t break out the bubbly yet. Because if anything, this sudden outbreak of investor contentment—and the disappointment that’s sure to follow—sets the stage for more, not less, volatility to come.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury is the canary in the coal mine.… Read more

Did you miss the Brexit bounce? Sure, much of the easy money has been made – but not all of it.

Stocks headquartered in the U.K continue to languish. Some deservedly so, but there are a few fantastic companies trading at big discounts to their usual market prices.

As we saw last week, fortune favors the bold (and the quick). Here are three stocks in three sectors set to rally strongly from Brexit weakness for the bold investor.

British Banks Are Cheap

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is no stranger to wild swings, even though it happens to be the fourth largest U.K.… Read more

Since the salad days for stocks ended with the 2008 financial crisis, the new normal has been slower than average economic growth coupled with friendly (low) interest rates.

The financial world hasn’t returned to, well, normal due to some setbacks (Brexit most recently) and more headwinds (too much debt and bad demographics in developed economies). Post-Brexit, the “smart money” is now wagering that interest rates are all-but-certain to stay low for longer (til 2018, at least).

In a world where growth and yield remain scarce, assets that provide one or the other will be in hot demand. And how about stocks that provide both?… Read more

Dividend growth investors today are lucky to get 3% from their large cap stocks while tech investors endure painful volatility without any short-term reward. But I know how to get the best of both worlds with a 4-fund tech portfolio that generates 8.5% income. Best of all, you can collect these yields while you wait for these companies’ massive growth to drop through to their bottom line into shareholders’ pockets.

How? Simple: covered calls. Well, not so simple—call options are a complicated strategy that, if used without care and guidance, can turn a portfolio into a big loser. So we must create a portfolio that we can trust while selling options that won’t get assigned.… Read more

We’ve hit the midpoint of 2016, which makes it a great time to review your portfolio and shop for some top-notch dividend-growth stocks as we head into the back half of 2016.

In a moment, I’ll give you three of my favorites to buy now.

The good news? With the market up just 2.4% so far this year, buying now means you probably won’t pay much more than you would have back in January.

As I’m sure you’ll recall, the S&P 500’s nosedive started before we’d even put the New Year’s confetti away. By mid-February, it had shed 11% of its value.… Read more