Even with the S&P 500 back on the rise, we still have a shot at serious upside. And we’ll double up our dividends in short order, too. We’ll do it by snagging some of the fastest-growing payouts on the planet.

That’s not all—we’ll also buffer our payouts against the next crash by stocking up on companies with “fortress” balance sheets, specifically firms whose cash holdings dwarf their debt. Dividend-payers like these—I’ve got four examples for you below—will (eventually) dole out their cash to us in three ways:

• Investing in the business,through R&D spending and capital expenditures, fueling their earnings per share (EPS) and, by extension, their share prices.

You may not know it, but big pension funds are pulling billions of dollars out of one sector, leaving behind a group of stocks these big players will never buy again.

That’s a clear signal that we need to avoid these stocks, too.

I’m talking about oil companies. In New Jersey, for example, legislators are trying to ban the state pension fund from fossil fuels. The state’s Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill has bipartisan support, mainly because oil has been a clear loser for investors. We can clearly see this when we look at the chart of the biggest oil major of them all:

Exxon’s Long Decline

Exxon-Mobil (XOM) peaked at a $500-billion market cap in 2007 and has been in a downward spiral since, pushed lower by the 2014 and 2020 drops in oil prices.… Read more

The mortgage. The car payment. The power bill. The cell phone bill. Your regular dividend check.

One of these things, I’m sorry to say, is not like the others.

While almost every one of your obligations comes once a month across all 12 months of the year, most stocks or funds you can invest in will pay you just four times a year.

If you’re still working, you’re probably thinking “no big deal.” That’s true—your job pays you once or twice a month, so who cares when you collect dividends? You’re not touching your 401(k) or IRA now anyway.

But retirees know the struggle.… Read more

The market’s fall pullback is starting to reverse itself, but don’t worry: there are still bargain dividend payers yielding 7.4%+ dividends to be had out there.

But investing (along with everything in our lives!) has changed. You simply won’t get safe, high payouts by clutching to old habits and buying big-name, high-yielding S&P 500 stocks. The real dividend bargains are in closed-end funds (CEFs), which give you higher payouts, greater safety and often better returns over the long haul.

To show you what I mean, let’s line up three S&P 500 “dividend darlings” against the CEF competition and see how they compare.… Read more

It was a simpler time years ago in America when my grandfather shared some nutritional advice with me:

“So, you’ve got the tomato sauce. Tomatoes. They’re good for ya,” as he put out his thumb to indicate the count was now one.

“And the cheese,” he continued. “Dairy. That’s good, too.”

Two fingers on grandpa’s right hand reflected the updated count.

“Plus the bread. That’s another group.”

Three points for pizza being good for you. My 12-year-old self was thrilled! I informed my parents about the good news on our car ride home from grandma and grandpa’s.

“You are not having pizza for every meal,” they quickly dismissed my nutritional news.… Read more

Election chaos—especially after Friday’s bombshell—could be a knockout blow for this market bounce. I’m worried. And going by our Contrarian Outlook mailbag, plenty of readers are, too.

A typical question goes like this: “Brett, what should I buy/hold/sell if X/Y/Z happens after November 3?”

Now we have to add the president’s positive coronavirus test into the mix!

Rest easy—I’ve got you covered. Today we’re going to talk about two stocks you could hold through 2021, 2022, 2023, and beyond. These companies’ current dividends are much higher than the S&P 500 average. But the real story is their dividend growth, which will triple up your income stream in short order.… Read more

There are four funds sitting right under investors’ noses throwing off rich 10.6% dividends today. What’s more, these high-yield closed-end funds (CEFs) deliver these rich payouts monthly.

We can thank the recent selloff for this opportunity. It’s weighed on these CEFs’ prices, tweaking their yields higher.

With a 10.6% payout, you can get a yearly dividend stream of $40,000 on just a $378,000 investment. If you went with an index fund like the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) or Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO), which both yield 1.7% as I write this, you’d have to invest $2.4 million to get the same payout!… Read more

Dividend safety matters more than ever today. And we can’t take the continued presence of a payout for granted, either. There are still shoes waiting to drop on dividends that are widely thought to be “secure.”

But how do we verify dividend safety?

The answer is simple: We look for stocks that are throwing cash at shareholders like it’s no big deal. By “following the money” we’ll also find shares that are:

• On pace to double their dividends every few years, with
• The safest dividends to boot.

The conventional wisdom says you can trust companies with entrenched, long-growing dividends because they have a reputation to uphold.… Read more

There is a proven way to grab sturdy double-digit dividends in this income-starved market.

Today we’re going to follow it. The secret? Take a contrarian approach to a group of stocks most folks have (wrongly) soured on. Those stocks would be real estate investment trusts (REITs), which yield just over 4%, on average, putting the 1.7% paid by the typical S&P 500 stock to shame.

And if you make the simple move I’ll show you shortly, you could easily triple that 4% payout! You’ll give yourself a solid chance of beating the typical REIT investor’s returns, too.

I’ll give you names and tickers in a minute, but let’s talk first about an obvious trap most investors are falling into with REITs these days.… Read more

Is it time to buy the dip?

Almost. And when we do, let’s not just “buy” an index fund (or worse, a lame ETF!) and “hope” that we timed it right. No, no, we contrarian income seekers can do better.

Let’s instead choose investments that cash flow. In a moment we’ll talk about one that yields 7.4%.

And let’s not buy them at mere “face value” either. Only the unsophisticated first-level types, as our man Howard Marks calls these marks, pay full price! We can, and should, demand discounts in addition to the pullback.

The major indices have officially “corrected” from their September highs (which is typically defined as a 10% decline).… Read more