One of my favorite quotes about closed-end funds (CEFs) comes from Richard Thaler. When writing about why investors bought some CEFs for more than they’re worth, he simply said: “There are idiots,” and that this was “the only satisfactory answer to this … puzzle.”

That, er, very direct, quote comes to mind now because these days, it’s actually pretty easy to pick up CEFs (which yield around 7%, on average) trading at nice discounts to net asset value (NAV, or the value of their underlying holdings). There are literally hundreds of examples, some of them extreme.

The most discounted equity CEF trades at a whopping 26.7% discount as I write this.… Read more

Like many wise money quotes, nobody is quite sure who originally said:

     “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

It’s frequently credited to economist John Maynard Keynes. A popular story goes that Keynes changed his mind on a financial issue, was criticized for his “flip flop”—and then delivered the zinger.

QuoteInvestigator.com researched the quip and concluded that Keynes never actually said it. (Keep that bit of market trivia in your back pocket.)

Regardless, the facts have changed on big oil dividends. On September 9, 2015, I warned readers that Big Oil was a “Big Dividend Trap.”… Read more

What the heck would a jump in inflation mean for our dividends? I’m getting that question from readers a lot these days, so today we’re going to take a closer look.

Then we’ll dive into three sectors—and three dividend payers (including one yielding an eye-popping 10%)—you’ll want to put on your radar now.

All three of these stocks boast high yields and/or strong dividend growth, plus big upside potential. Taken together, I expect their total returns to easily outrun any rise in inflation—and interest rates—we’ll likely see.

Money Printer Revs Up

The argument that we’re heading for a jump in inflation is pretty clear—a few days back, we saw the consumer price index (CPI), the go-to measure of inflation, pop 2.6% in March from a year ago, way more than expected.… Read more

This “stocks-up, yields-down” market is clobbering income investors. With stock prices floating higher, yields are crumbling to dust: with the 1.3% payout on the typical S&P 500 stock—a 20-year low—you’d need to invest $2.2 million to get just $2,500 a month in dividends!

(And let’s not forget that the typical S&P 500 stock pays dividends quarterly, not monthly, so your lame income stream would also be pretty lumpy!)

The 10-year Treasury note—long an income go-to—isn’t much better. With a 1.6% yield, you’d still need $1.8 mil to get that same $2,500 a month.

An Oasis in the (Dividend) Desert

Of course, none of this is a surprise to anyone who’s been investing for income over the last decade or so—it’s a slightly worse version of the same old story.… Read more

It’s a no-yield world we dividend investors are living in. But believe it or not, there are some payers with serious yields that get zero mainstream attention. We’ll discuss five in a moment.

I’m talking about dividends between 9.5% and 13.6%! Yes, you read that right—one of these stocks dished 13.6% back to its happy income investors over the past twelve months.

Are these yields safe? That is always the question. The backdrop is certainly better than last year. One year ago, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 triggered a slew of dividend cuts and suspensions as companies scrambled to preserve cash and remain solvent through the uncertain future.… Read more

Many people spot a closed-end fund (CEF) with a high dividend, a double-digit discount and a big recent price gain and automatically hit the buy button, thinking they’ve got a clear winner on their hands.

But you need to go deeper to make sure your pick is a solid one, as one CEF, the Clearbridge MLP and Midstream Fund (CEM), clearly demonstrates.

CEM holds shares of “midstream” master limited partnerships (MLPs)—or companies that operate pipelines and storage facilities for oil and gas. The fund sports a 12% discount to net asset value (NAV, or the value of the MLPs in its portfolio) today, as well as a 7.9% dividend.… Read more

Start rounding up your spare cash, because the best dividend buying opportunity—since last October—is coming soon.

Last week, we chatted about stacking dry powder for a special purchasing moment. For those of you who have been piling up the payouts into a cash mountain, let’s get ready to deploy it.

Why does this matter? Well, buying moments like these can secure us several years’ worth of returns at once. Let’s revisit the October example, which Contrarian Income Report subscribers will remember fondly.

At the time, we had two months of pullback behind us. Scary headlines had driven fear to levels that should be bought, and that is exactly what we contrarians did.… Read more

Stocks are floating higher daily—and I’m hearing from a lot of readers wondering when they should sell a winning income pick, and when they should let it run.

You’re probably sitting on some nice capital gains these days, too, and have been asking yourself the same question.

So today I’m going to give you the three-step indicator I use when making buy/sell decisions for my Hidden Yields dividend-growth advisory. It’s a simple “traffic light” setup, with green being buy, yellow telling us to watch a stock we own closely and finally red, when we sell and take profits.

Green: When the Dividend Outruns the Share Price, We Buy

If you’re a regular reader of my columns on Contrarian Outlook, what I’m about to say won’t surprise you: dividend growth is the No.… Read more

If you’re on the hunt for big dividends (and who isn’t these days?), closed-end funds (CEFs) must be on your shopping list. As I write this, there are more than 500 CEFs in existence, yielding an outsized 7.3%, on average.

Compare that to the yield on the typical S&P 500 stock: a measly 1.4%!

Ten-Year Treasuries? A still-pathetic 1.7%, even after their recent big jump.

But as dividend-rich as CEFs are, some do cut their payouts sometimes, just like any other dividend-paying investment. (Though the good news here is that, even after a cut, a CEF’s yield will almost certainly crush that of a typical stock, because CEFs’ payouts are so large to begin with.)… Read more

The market isn’t doing fixed-income investors any favors right now. But one of my favorite funds—in one of the best cash flow niches in the market—is delivering a gaudy 6.6% yield at today’s prices.

And it does that by holding some of Wall Street’s most boring, stable and dependable securities.

How can we bank this 6.6% “free lunch” when 10-year Treasuries still pay less than 2%? By tapping into an income stream that most individual investors rarely think about: Preferreds.

The Power of Preferreds

If we wanted to own a piece of a company, say JPMorgan Chase (JPM), we’d go out and buy a few shares of JPM.… Read more