Articles

Generally, recessions are bullish for bonds. Which makes this 3.8% bond yield a “best recession bet.”

Why are we talking bonds in a year where they have all been crushed? Well, that’s the reason. The cure for poor bond performance is the high yields that are now staring us in the face. We look forward, not backward.

If you took our cue and used cash under your mattress as a bond proxy for the year, then you are sitting pretty. Because now, we finally have attractive fixed-income yields!

Granted, safety is the key here. Remember, we are picking an economic slowdown as our catalyst.… Read more

One thing we always demand in a stock is a megatrend-powered dividend that grows. And there aren’t many megatrends bigger than the soaring need for (and tight supply of) food.

I’ll share three tickers from three different parts of the food business—a fertilizer maker, a crop trader and a seller of packaged foods here in the US—in a second.

These “megatrend” plays have grown their payouts fast, driving quick pops in their share prices. (Pick No. 3 could easily 3X its payout tomorrow without breaking a sweat!) The best part is that these payouts have staying power through inflation, recession, geopolitical mayhem, you name it.… Read more

This selloff has set up a very rare opportunity to bag 12%+ yields in closed-end funds (CEFs). I’ll reveal three names and tickers you’ll want to target now in just a second.

This chance to kickstart a steady 12%+ income stream exists because CEF buyers are a conservative bunch, so these funds’ downdrafts have been amplified this year. (This also means that income-hungry CEF buyers tend to buy back in quickly, driving these funds to fast upside after a drop).

The upshot here is that all 500 or so CEFs in existence are sporting an average discount to net asset value (NAV, or the value of their underlying portfolio) of 7.5%—making them cheaper than they’ve been in nearly a decade.… Read more

“Why are they interviewing this guy? He doesn’t know… anything.”

I paused the Netflix pseudo-documentary and searched for a quick, thoughtful response to my wife. As the resident investment strategist of the house, my reputation was on the line.

“The dude made a lot of money on GameStop (GME). I think. Or he lost a lot. They’ll tell us at the end.”

Eat the Rich: The GameStop Saga is a fast, fun watch. You will remember the story:

• Hedge funds were massively short GME (more than 100% of its shares were sold short).
• Internet bros and gals learned this and started buying.

Dividends are one of the most important features of any investment in my portfolio. But it’s crucial to also examine the sustainability of a stock’s dividend before you invest your hard-earned cash.

For instance, a high-yield stock might offer a dividend of 10% … but who cares if its share price falls off a cliff, or it eliminates that once-generous dividend in the months ahead?

There are a ton of data points at our fingertips in a digital age that can help us invest wisely. But the sheer volume of facts and figures can be overwhelming, and obscure what really matters.… Read more

I hate to hear about investors using “rules” like the 60/40 portfolio (where you devote 60% of your holdings to stocks and the rest to bonds) to invest their hard-earned cash.

The problem with “rules” like this one is that they lack the ability to adjust to changing markets, like the mess we’ve been living through this year, which has walloped stocks and bonds in equal measure.

Advisors See the Light on Oversimplified “Rules” Like the 60/40 Portfolio

It seems like advisors and the business media are finally accepting this hard truth. Recently, banks like Goldman Sachs (GS) and JPMorgan Chase & Co.… Read more

I recently joined Market Wrap to chat with Moe Ansari about the market. With most money managers, Joe Sixpack and CNBC now universally bearish, he was keen to hear an original take!

The time to dump stocks, I told Moe, was early in the year. Or late ’21. Before the mainstream media even whispered the words bear market. Now that just about everything is 20% down, we have professional stock cheerleaders like The Wall Street Journal lamenting that buying the dip isn’t working.

A contrarian sign that this dip should be bought? Perhaps…

Moe and I yapped about the Federal Reserve (of course), the doom and gloom mainstream crowd, and my two favorite dividend stocks to buy right now.… Read more

Bear markets are great for calculated contrarian investors like us. We have many dividend growers in the bargain bin.

I mean, it’s rarely this stuffed. We have lots to sort through today. Specifically we’ll talk about 43 dividend payers that are about to announce their next payout hikes.

Most of these stocks are cheaper than they were at the start of the year. Some are quite a bit discounted. Plus, these upcoming dividend raises are the perfect announcements for us to front run.

Why? Because once the news becomes public, the “dividend magnet” will pull these prices higher.

Dividend Growth + The “Dividend Magnet”

The “dividend magnet” is my favorite financial phenomenon.… Read more

For some folks, it’s almost a reflex to buy gold when inflation hits or volatility ramps up. In times like those, they simply flock to the yellow metal—no questions asked.

But buying gold as a safe haven is a terrible idea, for one simple reason: it doesn’t work.

The dumpster fire year we’re living through now provides an excellent example of gold’s ineffectiveness as an inflation hedge: while inflation soared (it sits at 8.3% as of August), gold has gone the other way, plunging 6.4% since January 1.

That lousy performance isn’t just a one-off. Gold has actually fallen 7% in the last decade.… Read more

I’m admittedly a bit of a science geek. I’m glued to my phone for the latest details on the Artemis launch, I know the names of most muscles and bones, and I have memorized way too many strange facts about strange animals.

A scientifically minded approach has served me well in investing. And it’s not just in the obvious ways, through rigorous research and attention to hard numbers. The “softer” sciences of psychology and sociology also have a lot to teach us about investor behavior – and why some people make costly mistakes.

I recently read about a study conducted by Johns Hopkins researchers on the power of ignoring things.… Read more