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One of the best things about closed-end funds (CEFs) is that, even though there are only about 500 or so of these 7%+ yielders out there, you can find CEFs that win in every kind of market.

So with a few clicks, you can build a diverse CEF portfolio yielding well north of 7%. (The 20 holdings in our CEF Insider service’s portfolio, for example, yield 7.7% on average and hold everything from tech stocks to municipal bonds and real estate investment trusts, or REITs.)

Below I’ve got an 8% monthly dividend payer that’s primed for “snap-back” upside as one group of stocks—those that sell discretionary products, from electronics to clothing—spring back to life.… Read more

I have no idea why “income” investors mess around with dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs). Most don’t yield enough to matter.

If the goal is to retire on dividends, why not “automatically” bag a 10%+ income stream and 100%+ upside?

Better yet, this outsized cash flow drops into your account—and grows—every single month!

It takes almost no work. (Just one small, but potent step, which I’ll show you shortly.)

Before we get to that, let’s look at just how easy it is to use this proven strategy to double—and even triple—the cash stream your portfolio is throwing off today.… Read more

Let’s set ourselves up for some quick 61%+ returns—and accelerate our dividend growth—by “front-running” stocks that are about to split their shares.

I call this my “Dividend Triple Play” strategy because, as you’ll see in a moment, it uses three critical indicators: a looming share split, dividend growth and share buybacks, to propel us to serious gains and payout hikes.

Members of my Hidden Yields dividend-growth service recently benefited from this setup—and it helped them walk away with a sweet 61% return!  It’s easy to repeat, and I’ll even give you the ticker of another stock that could be our next high-flying “dividend splitter” below.… Read more

We’re seeing signs every day that this pouting market is way oversold—and contrarians that we are, we’re going to work this sentiment to grab stout closed-end funds (CEF) paying dividends yielding north of 7% that have been unfairly beaten down.

Here’s my take on how far off-base today’s investor mood is. In a moment, we’ll dive into 2 CEFs yielding up to 8.5% we can buy to cash in.

1. Inflation is not hurting corporate profits. If anything, profits are going up across the board. Many companies have seen their profits—and profit margins—rise in the earnings season that’s currently underway.
2. Supply chains have challenged businesses, but they haven’t caused the economy to grind to a halt.

As contrarians, you and I make our profits from stocks that are under-loved and under-covered. And today, we’re going to discuss five “under the radar” names with the potential to return up to 34% per year, every year, no matter what happens with the broader markets.

These stock prices have the potential to increase by 10% to 34% annually because that is how fast these dividends are growing. This type of growth may sound remarkable, and that is because the best dividend-growth opportunities are found in Wall Street’s blind spot: “mid caps.”

Mid-cap stocks don’t get the love that blue chips enjoy, which is perfect for us, because these are dividends that literally double every few years.… Read more

As dividend investors—and closed-end fund (CEF) investors, specifically—we know to stay the course when market corrections hit: we don’t want to sell and cut off our precious payouts!

That’s the opposite of the fanboys and girls who dabble in crypto, profitless tech stocks, NFTs and God knows what else. When recessions arrive, they’re free to bail—though they always do so way too late. Then they’re forced to sit and watch what’s left of their cash get devoured by inflation!

By staying the course, we don’t have to worry about those risks: with our CEFs’ high yields, we can sit tight during rocky times, happily collecting our payouts until things calm down.… Read more

As the stock market returns to Planet Earth, we contrarians will have an opportunity to cherry pick some bargains. This is a good thing for us income seekers. We’ve been thin on dividend deals since the Federal Reserve cranked the printing presses in the spring of 2020.

Last year was slim pickings for income plays. When the Fed’s easy money drives prices of everything higher and higher, our dividend yields go down.

This makes it challenging for us to identify meaningful yields with a bit of upside. After all, we’re in the business of buying low and selling high (not buying high and hoping to ride a price even higher).… Read more

We’ve been saying the 2022 edition of the stock market will be a mess for a while now—and we were right. But there are still dividend-paying gems out there: we just need to know where to look. (I’ve got three “safety-first” bargain buys for you below.)

The “mess,” of course, was inflation caused by Jay Powell’s tidal wave of cheap money! Now he needs to ditch his Wall Street friends to clean it up:

Why the Fed’s Tune Flipped so Fast

With consumer prices soaring, the so-called “Fed put”: the central bank’s tendency to change tack to rescue a plunging stock market, is dead.… Read more

There’s a group of 7%+ dividends out there that are perfect for today’s market. They’re far less volatile than “regular” stocks, their payouts are tax-free, and (for now) you can get them for a steal—as cheap as 93 cents on the dollar!

That puts them high on the list of “refuges” from the speculative stocks the mainstream crowd is fleeing these days—and we want to make sure we get in first! (And we’ll do that with two muni-bond funds we’ll name below. Their tax-free yields could be worth up to 8.9% to you, depending on your tax bracket.)

I’m talking about municipal bonds—specifically municipal bonds we can buy through my favorite high-yield investment: closed-end funds (CEFs).… Read more

“America’s retirement fund” is looking awfully shaky. Income investors should consider replacing the over-owned S&P 500 index fund with these underappreciated yields up to 7.5%.

The S&P 500 has face-planted right out of 2022’s starting gate, flirting with a correction (that’s a decline of 10% or more) less than a month into the year.

If you’re retired, or thinking about retirement, these drawbacks are costly. They can erase years of hard work in a few bad trading sessions.

This is why we contrarians, who focus on cash flow, lean on “preferred” stocks, instead. These are special classes of shares issued by the same blue-chip firms in the S&P 500.… Read more