5 “Safe” 6.3% Dividends That Could Crumble in 2020

Michael Foster, Investment Strategist
Updated: January 9, 2020

What’s does 2020 hold for your utility stocks (and closed-end funds)? Will these steady income plays hand us another round of big gains and dividends? Or is there trouble ahead?

These are reasonable questions to ask after these “boring” stocks poured on a huge—and rather “un-utility-like”—26% total return last year:

Utilities or Exploding Small Caps? Tough to Tell.

Let’s dive into three critical factors that will tell the tale for utilities in 2020. And because it’s the season for forecasts, I’ll throw in my verdict on the sector for the coming year, too, and name five utility closed-end funds (CEFs) paying huge dividends of 6.3% to 9.4%.… Read more

7 Simple Steps to 11.8% Yearly Returns with Safe Dividends

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: January 22, 2020

Successful dividend investing is simple, though not necessarily easy. There are nuances which trip up many investors (including most professionals!). These twists and turns create “yield alpha” opportunities for contrarian-minded income investors like us.

If everyone else in the market were perfectly grounded and calculated, there would be no chance for us to make above-average returns. After all, the 11.8% and 18.8% annualized returns that my Contrarian Income Report and Hidden Yields readers are earning would be snapped up in a perfectly efficient market.

Thanks to these inefficiencies, we are able to bank big yields and price gains in Dividend Land.… Read more

This “Boring” Dividend Drove a Huge 91.6% Gain (You Won’t Believe How)

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: January 7, 2020

Let’s cut through the thousands of market predictions out there and dive into what’s really ahead for your dividends in 2020. We’ll also discuss two things that should be high on your “must have” list for any dividend stock you buy this year.

In fact, these two easy-to-spot indicators handed one group of investors a 91.6% return, with less volatility than your typical investor saw. I’ll show you how they did it shortly. First, let’s talk about my outlook for the year ahead.

My 2020 Outlook 

Here’s why most market predictions miss the mark: the pundits simply look at what happened in the past year and spit out a forecast based on that.… Read more

My No. 1 Prediction for 2020 (and a 6.6% Dividend You Can Buy Now)

Michael Foster, Investment Strategist
Updated: January 6, 2020

Think we’re stuck with pathetic dividends and sluggish growth in 2020?

I get it. Many folks I talk to see the coming year this way. Some are even selling stocks, in a doomed effort to “lock in” gains. The problem? What the heck do you do next?

Sitting in cash means watching helplessly as inflation erodes your nest egg. And dividends? Forget it! You’ll kiss those goodbye the moment you hit the “sell” button.

Here’s the good news: you’re not stuck between the pathetic sub-2% payout on regular stocks and the 0% you’ll get in cash. There’s a better way—one that pays you huge 6%+ dividends and regularly crushes stocks!… Read more

Dogs of the Dow for 2020: Dividend Bargains, or Yield Traps?

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: January 3, 2020

The New Year is here, which means it’s once again time to revisit a contrarian (and income) investing tradition: The “Dogs of the Dow.”

This simple yet famous dividend strategy involves buying the 10 highest yielders in the 30-component Dow Jones Industrial Average at the beginning of each year.

It’s an income play, sure, but this strategy also has to do with value. The idea: Truly strong blue-chip stocks rarely become “obsolete,” so high yields—often driven by lower prices in the prior year—are just a signal that the stocks are oversold and due to bounce back.

It’s a win-win, in theory.… Read more

This CEF Soared 51.9% in 2019. Time to Sell?

Michael Foster, Investment Strategist
Updated: January 2, 2020

If you’ve been holding the Cohen & Steers Quality Income Realty Fund (RQI)—a fund I wrote about a lot in 2019—you’ve done very well indeed. RQI has dominated, with its market-price return surging 51.9%, including gains and dividends, since the start of 2019.

So today we’re going to take a closer look at this superstar fund to see what lies ahead, and whether it’s still worthy of your cash, even with its big 2019 gains.

If you’re not familiar with RQI, it owns real estate investment trusts (REITs), such as cell-tower owners Crown Castle International (CCI) and American Tower (AMT), warehouse landlord Prologis (PLD) and data-center REIT Equinix (EQIX).Read more

Perfect Dividends for the Roaring (or Recessionary?) 2020s

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: January 1, 2020

Are we kicking off another episode of the “Roaring 20s” today?

Who knows. Nobody really predicted the 2010s would be an end-to-end bull market. Yet the most hated rally of all-time resulted in stocks nearly quadrupling:

The Epic Rally Few Investors Believed In

A million bucks that sat in a boring S&P 500 fund a decade ago would have grown to $3.5 million. Unfortunately, many experienced investors did not participate in this full rally, still being shell-shocked after 2008.

(Which illustrates why it is important to always be fully invested. Investors who slept through the ’08 carnage quickly made their money back in the years to follow.… Read more

A 17.6% Dividend, 36% Upside and a 2020 Investing Strategy You Won’t Believe

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: December 31, 2019

Right now, with 2020 just hours out, is the perfect time to show you my two-step dividend strategy for the year ahead.

We’ll also dive into four specific stocks and funds to buy. They’ll hand you 6%+ dividends now and set you on the path to unreal payouts of 17.6%+ down the road.

How Powell Crushed Savers

First, if you’re disappointed in the dividend options out there today, you can blame one man: Jay Powell. (Actually, you’ll have to get in line to dump your frustrations on the poor fellow’s head!)

We all know that Powell’s clumsy “pivot” from rate hikes to rate cuts at the start of 2019 sent stocks soaring (and dividend yields plunging—as you calculate yield by dividing a company’s annual dividend payout into is current share price).… Read more

Here are 3,594 Funds that Crush the Market, and the One to Buy Now

Michael Foster, Investment Strategist
Updated: December 30, 2019

If you’ve been told it’s impossible to outperform low-cost index funds because the market’s too efficient, you’ve been misled.

The truth is, there are many funds that have been beating the stock market for years. And here’s something really surprising: there are more funds pulling off this feat now than there have been in a long time!

In fact, across ETFs, mutual funds and closed-end funds (CEFs), there are 3,594 funds that have beaten the S&P 500’s 24.3% return since the start of 2019.

So much for not beating the market!

That leads me straight into the two things I want to discuss with you today:

  1. Why now is still a great time to buy, even with stocks near all-time highs, and …
  2. Why you’ll give yourself better odds of beating the market, and grab far higher dividends, if you go with actively managed funds, particularly CEFs like the technology-focused fund yielding an outsized 6% now that I’ll tell you about shortly.
Read more

Can You Spot the Next 830% Dividend Grower?

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: December 27, 2019

I don’t blame you if you think stock picking boils down to a choice between income or growth. That’s how the financial media has framed it for years.

But it’s not. Not by a long shot. In fact, for years, my Hidden Yields service has shown investors that rapidly growing dividends are something of an “early alert system” for red-hot price appreciation. That’s why I always keep an eye out on regular dividend growers, like the list of 56 stocks whose names and tickers I’ll share with you momentarily.

In fact, if patient investors sniff out the right dividend stocks, they’ll hit the trifecta: income growth, higher prices and big, fat yields.… Read more