Articles

By now, it’s glaringly obvious: AI is replacing workers. And it’s boosting corporate bottom lines as it does.

I call this the “growth-without-hiring” trend, and it’s accelerating. Today we’re going to grab our share in the form of big dividends (up to 8.1%) and upside, too.

Latest Payroll Report Tells a New (Yet Familiar) Story

The latest evidence that “growth without hiring” is the real deal? The September ADP payrolls report, which showed that companies cut 32,000 positions. The August numbers were also revised to 3,000 losses, not the 54,000 gains originally reported.

With numbers like those, you’d expect the US to be in recession, or close to it.… Read more

An intriguing article came across my desk recently, and it said something we income investors need to talk about.

It was a Q&A with Morningstar’s director of personal finance, Christine Benz—and it reinforced, to me, why now is the time to snap up one of the top (and 8.4%-yielding) picks from the portfolio of my CEF Insider service.

I encourage you to read this article. It’s mostly fine. But it contains one piece of advice I think will be widely misunderstood. At one point, Benz says:

“What we’ve seen from real estate equities is kind of a steady upward march in correlations with the broad US equity market over the past couple of decades, to the point where I really don’t see the diversification benefit.”

Wall Street left these 8.5% to 16.6% yields for dead. But their next dividend raises may show that these patients have a pulse—and send these prices higher before year-end.

Even better, three of these companies are quarterly dividend hikers. These are companies that have a track record of at least a few years of improving their payouts not once a year, but once a quarter.

What are the red flags to look for when these companies make their next announcements?

Hess Midstream LP (HESM)
Distribution Yield: 8.5%
2024 Increase: 10.9% (across four hikes)
Projected Q4 Distribution Announcement: Late October

Hess Midstream LP (HESM) is a master limited partnership (MLP) that owns, operates and develops a number of midstream energy assets, primarily located in the Williston Basin area of North Dakota.… Read more

What if you could squeeze, say, a 70% dividend yield from a fast-growing AI stock like NVIDIA (NVDA) or Palantir (PLTR)?

Sounds great, right?

Instead of relying just on these stocks’ prices for your profits (since dividends are, frankly, the furthest thing from their CFOs’ minds), you get their returns as high-yielding dividends.

That’s something a new breed of ETFs is promising. These funds, which are gaining in popularity, hold just one stock—usually a Palantir, Tesla (TSLA) or NVIDIA—and trade options on that one stock to deliver stated yields often way above 50%.

Does it work?

First, let me say that, as someone who has covered 8%+ yielding closed-end funds (CEFs) for over a decade, I get the sentiment behind these funds.… Read more

In most US industries, banks help businesses finance their buildings. The lenders also provide working lines of capital for the operations to grow.

Cannabis is different. It is tricky for operators to find money due to federal roadblocks.

At the national level, cannabis is still illegal. However, 40 states have legalized the drug in some fashion. Uncle Sam mostly looks the other way and lets states regulate their own markets—except when it comes to banking and taxes.

Banks cannot lend to cannabis operators. So, good luck financing that building.

Also, there is a tax code relic of the 1980s war on drugs (“Just Say No!”)… Read more

We contrarians live for the “one-off” shots at extra income (or gains!) our favorite dividend plays throw our way.

One of these “special situations” just landed in our lap: A shot at buying a megatrend-powered 7.6% dividend that’s rarely cheap. And we’re picking it up for a song.

It’s a long-time holding of our Contrarian Income Report advisory, and it’s sitting right in the tracks of the surging AI buildout. In fact, it may be the last “cheap” AI play on the board! This one’s dropped from trading for more than its portfolio is worth to a lot less.

A 7.6% Dividend Bargain We Haven’t Seen Since 2020 

As you can see, this fund dropped from trading 6% above its net asset value (NAV, or the per-share value of its portfolio) to 7.1% below, as of this writing.… Read more

Small caps are (finally!) back, but most people are in the dark about how to tap them for serious dividends. But there is a proven way to do that—one that puts a rich 7.1% payout squarely on the table for us.

Everyone has missed this one. We’re going to dive into it today.

The main reason I hate to see people ignore small caps—especially now—is that, well, their time has come.

Small Caps Have Lagged for Years—And They’re Due for a Bounce

As you can see, It’s been a solid decade of small-caps delivering, well, small profits to investors. But it’s time for the script to flip.… Read more

The Fed has finally cut rates, and if the “dot plot” is any indication, it won’t be the last. This is fuel for real estate investment trusts (REITs)—they thrive when borrowing costs fall and their fat dividends shine next to shrinking bond yields.

Today we can lock in payouts between 6% and 13% from landlords set to surge as Powell’s long-awaited pivot plays out.

Why do REITs rally as rates fall? These stocks act as “bond proxies” that move alongside bonds and opposite rates. Here is a major REIT ETF plotted against the 10-year Treasury yield. As you can see, when the important rate zigs, the REIT benchmark zags:

REITs Zig When Rates Zag

Rate cuts don’t always hit the 10-year overnight.… Read more

Near the end of 2022, a reader wrote in to tell me that my bullish view of the economy at the time was off the mark. From his vantage point, people were struggling, prices were soaring, and wages weren’t keeping up.

This reader wasn’t alone—it was around that time that Bloomberg wrote that the chances of a recession in the next year were 100%. So there was zero chance of avoiding one, in other words.

We all know what happened next: The economy and stock market took off. That translated into real gains (and high income) for the portfolio of my CEF Insider service.… Read more

When DoubleLine CIO Jeffrey Gundlach speaks, we yield hounds listen.

Right now, the “Bond God” has gold on the brain. We’re dialed in, because his latest utterances are pointing the way to a sweet 7.4%-paying “gold-dividend twofer” for us.

I’m talking about a play for price upside in the near term, followed by big monthly dividends (yes, 7.4%, and maybe more) when the “discount trigger” we’ll talk about in a sec kicks in.

The Bond God Calls ’Em Like He Sees ’Em

The Bond God is a dyed-in-the-wool contrarian who holds a special place in our hearts because, well, he’s often right.… Read more