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Today we’re going to delve into a powerful strategy that can “convert” the bounce we’re seeing in the bond markets into a cool $100K income stream in retirement.

Best of all, this simple approach can help you do this without touching a penny of your nest egg.

Obviously, doing this with a savings account is impossible; as per the chart below, you’d need $10 million to produce that yearly $100K if your account earns 1%. And we all know that most savings accounts offer far less these days.

Source: CEF Insider

The key, then, is to push our yield higher while managing risk.… Read more

A dividend hike is the ultimate sign of dividend safety. It’s also the surest, safest way to “get rich soon-ish” in stocks.

Find me stocks that are raising their dividends quickly and regularly, and I’ll show you some stocks that are doubling every few years.

What drives the dividend? Well, the likelihood that a company is going to raise its dividend (or cut it) is directly related to its payout ratio, or the percentage of its profits that it is dishing out to shareholders as dividends.

As a rule of thumb, a payout ratio below 50% is a sign of dividend safety.… Read more

When it comes to low-risk, dividend investing, many investors prefer dominant megacaps like Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Apple (AAPL) or Microsoft (MSFT). That’s mostly because they subscribe to the notion that these stable corporations will be here many years from now.

That may be true. However, stability alone doesn’t count for much. A good dividend stock has to have… well, good dividends.

And the sad reality is this trio of big-name stocks offers a meager dividend that averages less than 1.5%.

That’s just table scraps. Just consider that recent survey results show that Americans on average think they need $1.25 million to retire comfortably… But even with that substantial nest egg, you would generate just $18,750 if you invested in these three stocks.… Read more

Good news: this dreadful year has created the conditions for a nice market bounce in 2023. And we CEF investors are in a nice position to capitalize with 9.8% dividends and potential 38%+ total returns next year.

I’ll name three closed-end funds (CEFs) with discounts big enough to deliver that potential 38%+ gain below. All they need to do is return to their “normal” valuations, and chip in just a touch of upside from their portfolios, too.

For starters, though, I’ll tell you that 9.8% is the average yield on the portfolio of my CEF Insider service. And that’s just the average.… Read more

Shall we turn 2023 into a bounce back year for our retirement portfolios?

How about we shoot for, say, 23% total returns?

The surest way to do it is by employing a technique I call the dividend magnet. It’s safe. Reliable. And works beautifully on the back side of a bear market.

A few weeks back I gave a guest lecture for a finance class at California State University, Sacramento. One of the students, to put it lightly, was excited to make money in stocks.

His hand went up from the back of the classroom. (Nobody sits in the front rows.… Read more

Everywhere you look, there’s a subscription service begging for your attention: from Netflix (NFLX) to cable TV … and even a Hot Sauce of the Month Club.

Pretty well everyone has at least one, and many folks have several. One study showed that 7% of American households have six or more services for video alone!

There’s a reason why companies charge recurring revenues, of course. It’s a great business model to hit up our credit cards monthly.

But great businesses don’t always translate to rewarding stocks. We contrarian dividend seekers tend to steer clear of the streamers because:

1. They pay no dividends!

We’ve got plenty of high-quality dividends on the table as we roll into 2023. Some of the best? Closed-end funds (CEFs) yielding north of 7.5%. Three specific names and tickers are coming up for you below.

I mention quality because if 2022 has showed us anything, it’s that quality matters: crypto and profitless tech got clobbered this year, and that was no one-off. With interest rates rising, these gambles—I say “gambles” because buying these was always more like a trip to the slot machines than investing—are likely down for the count.

You can see this in the performance of the NASDAQ 100, which is down some 28% year to date, as well-run, high-cash-flow companies like Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) were dragged down by basket cases like Meta Platforms (META) and its money-bleeding investments in the metaverse.… Read more

We are heading into the most telegraphed recession in American history. Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell said it himself last month:

“As rates go higher, it’s hard to see a soft landing.”

Gee Jay, no kidding. Your Fed is squeezing us directly into a slowdown with these short-term rate hikes and balance sheet drawdowns.

Now I’m not saying it’s the wrong move, Jay. You printed a lot of money in 2020—so much that we fell way behind the inflation curve in 2021. Economic indicators and price numbers are still running hot.

So I’m not surprised to see your feet on the breaks for most of the year.… Read more

One of the messiest stories on Wall Street this year is the Walt Disney Co. (DIS). And considering the problems elsewhere on Wall Street, that’s saying something!

Disney suspended its dividend a little more than a year ago. Then, more recently, it ousted its CEO Bob Chapek in November. The surprise move came just months after the beleaguered CEO had hired outside consulting firm McKinsey to try and slash spending and restructure operations, a sure sign that company was adrift. The stock has been in a tailspin all year as a result, and is currently down almost 40% since January 1.… Read more

There’s almost certainly a recession on the way, and we closed-end fund (CEF) investors have a big edge over mainstream investors.

That edge is our high, reliable (and often monthly) CEF dividends. Thanks to those mighty payouts (the average yield on our CEF Insider service’s portfolio is 9.9% today), we can bide our time, collect our dividends and buy bargain-priced CEFs on the dips.

In fact, we don’t have to wait long: I’ll give you a conservative CEF pick to consider below that yields 9%, holds oversold large cap tech stocks, like Microsoft (MSFT) and Apple (AAPL), and is a bargain, to boot.… Read more