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Imagine a fund that’s beaten the Oracle of Omaha himself, Warren Buffett, for years and, unlike Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), pays a whopping 9% dividend!

Little-Known CEF Outruns the Best

As you can see in the chart above, the fund in question here is a closed-end fund (CEF) called Central Securities Corporation (CET). It’s got two things in common with Buffett himself: a focus on value and a long history—even longer than Buffett’s! CET traces its roots all the way back to 1929. In fact, the fund was founded on October 1 of that year, just 28 days before the Black Friday crash that triggered the Great Depression!… Read more

Let’s buy the dip on high-growth dividend payers as we head into 2022. Basic investors are fearful, which means it’s time for us contrarians to get greedy.

Thanks to the year-end pullback in stocks, we have an opportunity to double our dividend money even faster than usual. Usually, these moonshot plays aren’t so cheap. But we have a “mini” bear market in small caps and other areas of the market to thank for these bargains.

In a moment we’ll discuss 22 dividend growth stocks that are poised to double in just a few years. These companies have been growing their payouts so fast that, at this pace, they’ll double their payouts in just a few years.… Read more

Once folks get a taste of closed-end funds (CEFs), they typically rave about one thing: the dividends! Yields of 7% and up are common with CEFs, and they often come your way monthly.

We also love the fact that even though CEFs are a small corner of the market (with only about 500 or so out there), we can build a diversified portfolio with them: there are CEFs that hold US and international stocks, bonds, real estate—even private equity. You name it.

This broad range gets us around a problem most income-seekers face: being forced to stake significant sums in one, or a handful of, stocks just to get big payouts.… Read more

“Junk” bonds have never paid so little. Which makes them pointless. We’re here for the yields, not the credit quality!

Fortunately we can improve our dividends and our safety by being smarter. We are going to simply sell the popular 4%+ bonds and replace them with better 8%+ yielding equivalents.

First, the dogs. Anyone who owns either of the two most popular high-yield bond ETFs is a sad income investor today. Their yields are at all-time lows. The SPDR Bloomberg Barclays High Yield Bond ETF (JNK), for example, pays only 4.3%:

JNK’s Current Yield is Junk

And it gets worse, because this trailing yield looks better than the year ahead.… Read more

’Tis the season for us contrarian income investors to “bottom fish” the bargain bin for dividend deals. Let’s grab these discounted generous payouts while we can—these are the best weeks of the year to secure 7%+ payouts in 2022 and beyond.

For the next week or two, unloved 7%+ paying closed-end funds (CEFs) will be sold in the spirit of “tax loss” season. Wealthy investors and money managers are looking for 2021 losers to book against recent gains.

And thanks to the epic sector rotation we’re seeing now, the dogs of ’21 are likely to become the darlings of ’22. Fortunately we can buy them cheap—and we can identify these values using a “one-click” CEF valuation tool.… Read more

Think about it for a moment: when was the last time you read anything about closed-end funds (CEFs), a way too often overlooked asset class that throws off 7%+ average dividends?

Never? Maybe once?

It’s a shame that CEFs are rarely discussed outside Wall Street circles, because they’re perfect for anyone who needs income these days. (And who doesn’t!?)

Smaller CEFs Give You Big Payouts And “Baked in” Upside

We’re going to bust through that barrier and look at how we can use CEFs to boost our income streams and our net worth, too.

We can dial ourselves in for even bigger gains when we focus on smaller CEFs, like the ones I emphasize in my CEF Insider service.… Read more

With 2022 likely to be a wild ride, we income investors are going to lean on two key advantages. In doing so, we’ll secure 7% dividends no matter what the broader markets do.

First, we can secure this “head start” by January 1 by purchasing funds that yield 7%, on average. And these aren’t risky payouts, by the way. I’m talking about secure dividends funded by real cash flows.

And secondly, we can buy them from the bargain bin for just 90 or 95 cents on the dollar! That’s better than most investors, who pay full price (or more!) for their stocks.… Read more

Let’s be honest: we dividend investors will be glad to see the back of 2021. While it’s been a great year for us at my CEF Insider service (our portfolio yields 7.2%, on average, and we’ve seen some nice double-digit winners, too), it seems like every day begins with a market-crushing (and anxiety-inducing!) news story.

To be honest, 2022 will likely bring much of the same, but if you do what I strongly recommend—stay away from the business news as much as possible—you’ll do your portfolio (and your mental health!) a big favor.

You and I both know the pundits rarely get it right anyway (who remembers the hand-wringing worries about deflation 12 months ago?… Read more

The asset price “fuel” that our Federal Reserve has provided since March 2020 is going away soon. This will likely lead to continued volatility and a challenging backdrop for stocks-at-large.

Periodic “flights to safety” could benefit secure dividend stocks. We’ll touch on the outlook for income plays in a moment. First, let’s talk macro.

The stock market has been rallying for 21 months thanks to the Fed. It has gassed asset prices by buying trillions of dollars in bonds.

(Note: “Bond buying” is a polite way of saying “money printing.” The bonds were using cash that Chairman Jay Powell created out of thin air.)… Read more

Let’s take the hint from the past couple of weeks—2022 looks choppy. And why wouldn’t it? Our prolific money printer Jay Powell has (finally) admitted that inflation is real (not transitory).

His easy money had been floating the market. Now, with Jay reappointed and looking to assuage his Congressional colleagues about rising prices, he’s about to reverse the flow of money. This will likely reverse the rising tide of the market and expose select stocks.

But we dividend investors needn’t panic. With 2022 turning into a stock picker’s market, this is our time to shine. A fragmented market is just fine for us.… Read more