Articles

Let’s test the common “wisdom” that a double-digit dividend is unsustainable. The closed-end fund (CEF) we’re going to discuss today turns that notion on its head!

I’m talking about the PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund (PDI), which, as it says in the name, is run by boutique CEF house PIMCO.

We all know that investors (and consumers in general) love a brand name, and that holds true with CEFs, too: due to the prestige associated with PIMCO’s moniker, its funds usually trade at huge premiums to net asset value (NAV).

Well, to be fair, it’s not just the company’s name that’s behind these premiums.… Read more

Will China buy Bitcoin? If I were President Xi Jinping, looking across the Taiwan Strait, I would. Why wouldn’t he want to diversify his $1 trillion pile of Treasuries?

But there’s one thing that Xi—or any autocrat, for that matter—needs more than coins: Real assets with cash flow.

We’ll talk dividend trades that will benefit from these global trends in a moment. First, let’s start with crypto, because (indulge me, please) I need to get caught up on these questions. I’ve been saving a note from Joseph B., who asks what recommendations we have on cryptocurrencies.

Fellow reader Ted F. also asks about crypto, but from the Federal Reserve’s perspective.… Read more

I always laugh when I hear investors say you can’t time the market. Truth is, you can—my readers and I have done it many times! I’m going to show you my favorite way to time the market for big upside (and dividends) today.

The best way is to let you see my system in action. So let’s do that.

Think back to October 2020 for a second. With the market mess that is 2022 dominating the headlines now, you may not remember that we faced a big pullback then—just north of 10%.

It set the stage for us to “swing trade” for payouts north of 7%, and quick 49% upside, too.… Read more

If you’ve sat out oil stocks until now, it’s easy to think you missed the boat. After all, oil’s big run has sent shares of producers (and pipeline operators) soaring. That’s meant lower dividend yields—and higher valuations—for folks who decide to tiptoe in now.

But there’s a way we can “turn back the clock” and squeeze 8.1%, 8.7% and even 8.9% dividends out of energy stocks. (These are the actual yields on three overlooked funds I’ll show you in a moment.)

Those are the kinds of yields you could only get back in April 2020, in the teeth of the COVID crisis, when oil stocks were on their backs, their depressed prices sending their yields soaring.… Read more

We contrarians don’t normally buy dividend stocks high. But when we do, we sell them higher.

These 25 dividend stocks we’re about to discuss are hitting new 52-week highs. This is notable because the market-at-large is falling apart. Which means they are on the “right side” of one or more current trends.

Considering the world is a much different place than it was just two months ago, this is notable. There has been a global trend change.

Our Federal Reserve is sopping up money instead of printing it. Sky-high inflation has backed the Federal Reserve into a corner, with no recourse but to start drastically raising rates and engaging other quantitative tightening measures.… Read more

I was talking with an old college buddy the other day, and he was lamenting his recent investment performance. Up until a few years ago, he could do no wrong chasing the latest hot trade in small-cap biotech stocks.

We’re not talking beer money winnings, either. We’re talking life-changing money. My friend’s best trade to date was buying 5,000 shares of Pacific Biosciences (PACB) in the early days of the pandemic at $3.50 a share …. then selling half of it at around $35 a share last year!

That’s $70,000 in profits in less than two years.

On one trade.

Of course, things have been much harder for him in 2022.… Read more

There’s nothing we closed-end fund investors love more than finding a smartly run fund in an unfairly beaten-down sector. This hands us a nice discount (of course!), plus a much bigger dividend, because yields and prices move in opposite directions.

In fact, with CEFs, we’re actually getting a “double discount”: one from the depressed sector and one from the CEF’s discount to net asset value (NAV, or the value of the stocks in its portfolio). This indicator only exists with CEFs, and we’ll cover 4 with particularly attractive discounts to NAV in a second.

Plus, CEFs already boast yields that triple (or more) those of regular stocks, so deep-discounted CEFs give you an income stream that’s bigger still.… Read more

Relax. You might already have enough money to retire on.

My favorite dividend stocks let people retire comfortably on $500,000 or so.

Got more cash? Great! You’re in elite company.

Fidelity Investments—apparently happy to share its customer’s financial info anonymously—says it has more than 750,000 seven-figure 401(k) and IRA accounts.

That sounds like a lot, but it means less than 1% of Americans have $1 million or more saved for retirement. And that’s OK—select dividend stocks can help us retire comfortably on $500,000 or so.

Sure, a chunk of money is great. Especially when we can leave it untouched and let it grow.… Read more

Beware of Wall Street “wisdom” now more than ever. Especially when it comes to the most commonly quoted maxim for retirement: it’s based on a rule that was never designed for times like these!

I’m talking about the so-called “4% rule,” which says you should sell 4% of your nest egg every year in retirement.

Sounds simple, right?

Trouble is, it slashes your income stream and caps your upside in one go! It’s especially dangerous advice to follow in a downturn like the one that’s hit us in the last few months.

Let’s say, for example, you own $200,000 worth of Cisco Systems (CSCO) shares.… Read more

One thing we love about closed-end funds (beyond the dividends: many CEFs yield 7%+ today) is the big discounts to net asset value, or NAV, that these funds hand us.

These discounts only exist with CEFs. Here’s why: CEFs typically can’t issue new shares to new investors after their IPOs, so their shares get bid up and down on the market, independent of how much their portfolios are actually worth.

These discounts can get quite wide—sometimes 20% and higher. At that kind of a discount, we’re essentially paying 78 cents for every dollar of assets the fund holds!

Our plan, then, is simple: buy when we get an unusual discount like that and then ride along as it vanishes.… Read more