What a time to be alive! The stock market is booming, and many of our favorite income investments are ticking higher every day.  Surely, they are reflecting the broader optimism that investors have about the US and the rest of the world.

Hold on a sec—my publisher is reminding me that the curfew in my town just lifted on Monday. Seven days of being home by 8pm, following two months of being told to shelter-in-place. As a friend of mine pointed out, we haven’t been double grounded like this since high school.

The news is usually a downer, but these days it’s tough to make it through the headlines without a handful of Xanax.… Read more

If you’re shopping for high-yield closed-end funds (CEFs), two numbers are critical:

• The dividend: There are about 500 CEFs out there, and they boast huge payouts of 7% on average. Many also pay monthly.

• The discount: Due to a quirk in the CEF structure, these funds often trade at discounts to the per-share value of their portfolios. Called the discount to net asset value (NAV), this indicator is the clearest indicator of imminent price gains I’ve ever seen in an investment.

A Proven Gain Predictor

Thanks to the discount to NAV—which is available on any fund screener—you literally have a CEF’s market price on a string!… Read more

These days, I’m hearing from a lot of investors interested in monthly dividend stocks.

It’s easy to see why: monthly dividends line up nicely with our bills, something that’s very helpful in a crisis like this one. And if you’re reinvesting your payouts, monthly payers give your returns an extra lift in the long run because you can put your dividend cash to work faster.

There’s only one problem with these stocks: they’re few and far between.

Monthly Payers a Fraction of the Market

Source: CEF Insider

As you can see above, if we limit ourselves to monthly payers, we’re literally shutting out almost all of the market.… Read more

Imagine investing a million dollars and getting back … a pathetic $19,000 in income every year.

You don’t have to imagine—because that’s exactly what you’d get if you bought the typical S&P 500 stock today, which yields a sad 1.9%. That’s not much and these days, you can lose that in one afternoon!

No wonder dividends get no respect!

But I’ve got good news: that 1.9% doesn’t matter a bit to us. In fact, it’s a distraction from the real opportunity I want to show you: a dead-simple, 3-step shot at a much bigger payout.

I’m talking about 6%+ in cash here.… Read more

If you invest in closed-end funds (CEFs) or are thinking about it (and you should be!), I’ve got great news: there’s one simple indicator that tells you exactly when to buy (or sell) these high-yield income plays.

(If you’re a member of my CEF Insider service, you probably know what I’m going to say next.)

I’m talking about the discount to net asset value (NAV), which you can find on pretty well any fund screener. Today we’re going to see how one group of investors rode this simple metric to an amazing 662% in gains and dividends.

Your 1-Click CEF “Buy Alarm”

The discount to NAV is unique to CEFs.… Read more

“How fast should I deploy my cash into your dividend stocks?”

It’s a common question from the new income investors that are always finding their way to us (welcome!) We publish a plethora of dividend analysis on our website ContrarianOutlook.com. And, for premium subscribers, we also issue specific buy, hold and sell recommendations for select stocks and funds.

So, where should a new reader (or, better yet, premium subscriber!) start? Let’s walk through some steps you can take to make the best use of our information as you build your dividend-powered retirement portfolio.

First, Pick Your Stocks

Stock picking is step one, and as discussed, we have no shortage of dividend coverage around here.… Read more

I’m no mind reader, but I’m guessing you’d leap at an investment with the stability of a bond and the upside of a stock right now.

Sounds like something tailor-made for a crisis, right?

The good news is that it’s no pipe dream. These handy “crash-resistant” plays are out there and ripe for buying. We’re going to take a close look at how we can tap them for huge dividends now—yearly cash payouts all the way up to 9.7%!

It’s a retirement strategy every investor should take a look at. Unfortunately, too few even know these “shapeshifter” investments exist.

Lender Today, Shareholder Tomorrow

I’m talking about convertible bonds.… Read more

Today we’re going to dive into the three best closed end funds of all time. These retirement-changing dividend plays—yielding all the way up to 8.6%!—have not only been crushing all other CEFs, but they’ve been demolishing the S&P 500, as well.

That’s just not supposed to happen!

After all, the pundits are constantly telling us that actively managed funds should not beat the S&P 500, and you’d be better off with a low-cost index fund like the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO).

But these three CEFs have been crushing VOO for years—and they’re on track to keep doing so.

That’s not all they offer—these funds also pay dividends more than three times higher than the S&P 500 average, boosting your nest egg while giving you a much bigger cash stream than you could ever get from index funds.… Read more

Have utility stocks been stripped of their safe-haven status?

I’ve fielded that question from a few readers who have rightly pointed out the utility sector’s unimpressive performance during 2020’s market rout and partial recovery.

The short answer? No, it hasn’t. At least not for those of us who look through short-term price jitters to lock-in long-term payouts.

Back in the “good old days,” utility stocks delivered enough income to actually retire on. And thanks to this once-in-a-decade panic, that’s the case once again. Even though utility stocks are well off their bottom, investors still can grab perfectly safe yields of up to 7% in the space.… Read more

If you’re like most people, you’re wondering how in the world the market can be doing this when the country has been on lockdown for the better part of two months:

Stocks Soaring

As you can see above, stocks spiked 22% since late March, going by the performance of the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI). Meantime, the economy is a shadow of its former self: the Federal Reserve expects it to shrink 40% in the second quarter—worse than the 23% drop seen at the depths of the Great Depression.

Before you ask, no, this disconnect isn’t a recipe for another crash.… Read more