I’m sure you’ve noticed that the media has been fretting about a selloff in the last few weeks. But the S&P 500 is still up a lot on the year.

Even so, there is cause for concern about overvaluation, as the market’s current gain is equal to a whole year’s worth of historical returns, on average. But the softness we’ve seen lately, combined with the deep April selloff, do suggest that while stock valuations are high, we’re not in a bubble—at least not yet.

Which brings me to our beat at my CEF Insider service—closed-end funds (CEFs), many of which yield 8%+.… Read more

We’ve been dividend-hungry lately. Our Wednesday missives have brought ten income ideas since the start of July!

It’s a busy week for our brood! If you bought these payers, you have five ex-dividend dates (the dates when the stock trades at a price minus—“ex”—the dividend per share) on deck this week.

Plus, we have three more next week!

Income Calendar for the Week of  September 1

This neat weekly view comes to us courtesy of Income Calendar, our homegrown dividend tracker. We developed IC for serious income investors like yourself. The tool projects every dividend payment with accuracy that is unmatched in the industry.… Read more

Don’t buy all the “America First” talk coming out of DC. Truth is, Uncle Sam’s recent moves are quietly making foreign bonds—especially the 5 bond funds (yielding up to 9.3%!) below—great again.

What I’m going to show you is having a real impact on the government, everyday borrowers and, not least, our biggest winners: those 5 foreign-bond funds.

Let’s start with Scott Bessent’s Treasury Department. These days, it’s doing something unusual: issuing 80% of federal debt on the short end of the yield curve.

The short end, tied to the Fed’s policy rate, is the rate at which banks lend to each other.… Read more

Look, we all know US companies are raking in big profits—despite worries about a slowing economy.

The thing is, when it comes to sharing those huge profits with us as dividends, these firms are remarkably stingy: The typical S&P 500 stock yields just over 1% today! So we’re going to change that (at least for ourselves) by tapping into these firms’ earnings through high-yield closed-end funds (CEFs).

The two CEFs I’m about to show you yield 9.7% on average between them. So every $10,000 invested turns into $81 per month in income. A million dollars invested in these two funds gets you a whopping $97,000 annual income stream.… Read more

Let’s talk about three dividends averaging 12%. I bring them up because everyone on Wall Street hates them.

This is notable because the suits are paid to be bullish. Sell calls are rare, especially among S&P 500 stocks. In fact, analysts shun just one index component today!

Just 1 “Sell” Call Out of 500!

Source: S&P Global Market Intelligence

Buy calls? They are numerous—405 out of 500. Eighty-one percent!

Are 81% of the companies in the S&P 500 really buys? Normally, no, but now—especially not. AI is disrupting business models and many of these Buy-rated names are doomed companies.… Read more

This market continues to float higher—and that means we dividend investors do need to be more selective. But it doesn’t mean there aren’t high-yield options on the table for us.

With that in mind, today we’re going to look at two closed-end funds (CEFs) that hold many of the same stocks, and have similar dividend payouts. But one is a (time-limited) bargain while the other is overpriced and ripe to be sold (despite its 10.1% yield).

A Full Year of Stock-Market Gains—in 8 Months!?

Before we go further, let’s stop and talk about what the S&P 500 is doing right now.… Read more

Let’s talk about a terrific 12.2% dividend that is paid monthly.

The source of this income? Safe US Treasuries and a methodical scraping of option premiums for additional yield.

We’ll talk about this monthly payer—including fund name and ticker—in a moment. First, let’s get caught up on the Treasury market.

You may have tuned out Treasuries as a potential investment when DOGE austerity efforts gave way to the Big Beautiful Bill. Uncle Sam, already a $36 trillion debtor, dug himself deeper into financial quicksand.

Who wants to lend to that guy? Certainly not bond investors, who demand higher compensation—higher percentage payouts—to offset the credit risk posed by Sam’s ugly balance sheet.… Read more

Could the Fed cut rates—and actually cause interest rates to rise?

Absolutely. In fact, it’s a setup I see as very much in play. Today we’re going to talk about a 15%-yielding (!) stock that’s well-positioned to benefit.

Powell Vs. the 10-Year, Round 2

How would this “rate split” come about? To get at that, we need to bear in mind that the Fed only controls the effective Federal funds rate. That’s the “short” end of the yield curve—or the rate at which financial institutions lend to each other.

Meantime, the “long” end—pacesetter for consumer and business loans (including mortgages—more on those shortly) is tied to the 10-year Treasury yield—and has a mind of its own.… Read more

What if I told you we’ve got a shot at grabbing 2 cheap funds that kick out huge dividends—I’m talking 7.5% and higher—and those payouts are tax-free too?

What I’m talking about might be the last bargain available to us in this (overheated) stock market. Stocks’ roll higher since the Liberation Day tariffs were put on hold has meant fewer income opportunities from S&P 500 names (as yields and share prices move in opposite directions).

That’s added even more appeal to the tax-free dividends (two, in particular) we’re going to talk about below. They deal in municipal bonds, which are issued by state and local governments to fund infrastructure projects.… Read more

The market-at-large is expensive by historical metrics. So let’s look past the pricey, low-yielding ETFs in favor of cheap dividend stocks.

That’s right, good ol’ value investing bargains. With high yields too! We’re talking about divvies of 5%, 8% and even 11% that we’ll discuss in a moment.

The spring market dip sure was brief, wasn’t it? The S&P 500 sank into near-bear territory in roughly a month, then snapped back just as quick.

Now? If We’re Buying the Market, We’re Buying Even Higher

In doing so, Mr. and Ms. Market took valuations to high levels. The S&P 500’s forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 22.1 remains in rarefied air, last reached during the COVID rebound, and before that, the dot-com bubble.… Read more