You and I know why people buy real estate investment trusts (REITs). They’re income machines that are literally mandated to take the lion’s share of their profits and put them back into shareholders’ hands as cash dividends.

It’s no secret. Just about anyone who buys into REITs know that they produce far bigger dividends than your typical stock.

But put most people in front of a Yahoo! Finance or Google Finance stock chart, and they’re suddenly struck by selective amnesia. Because they forget that these charts only consider price gains and don’t include REITs’ outsized dividends.

Let’s look at some of the optical delusions investors find when they stumble across the charts–then look at what happens once you split out price and total returns (with dividends).… Read more

There’s a scary-sounding catchphrase making the rounds these days—and it’s tricking folks into missing out on big dividends (I’m talking yields of 8.6%+) and upside.

The catchphrase: “earnings recession.”

You might have heard these two words. If you take them at face value, you could easily take them to mean that it’s time to hold off on stocks, particularly with the market hitting all-time highs on the regular.

That would be a mistake, because now is the time for us contrarians to buy—particularly high-yield closed-end funds (CEFs) like the 8.6% yielder I’ll show you below. It holds many of the top S&P 500 names you know well, like Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL) and Amazon.com… Read more

Last time we had a July like this, REITs (real estate investment trusts) ran wild. The top plays delivered dividends plus price gains between 40% and 114%!

REIT Rhyme for 114% Returns?

Tell me if this sounds familiar:

• It was July,
• The stock market was hitting all-time highs,
• And the Fed was about to cut rates for the first time in a while.

We shall see if July 2019 continues to “rhyme” with July 1995. Back then, we had Fed Chair Alan Greenspan introduce the concept of the “Greenspan Put,” the inside joke that the Maestro would save any decline in stocks with rate cuts.… Read more

I have no idea why you’d mess around with dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs) when you can “automatically” bag a 7%+ income stream and 82%+ upside with the strategy I’ll show you now.

Better yet, this outsized cash flow drops into your account—and grows—every single month!

It takes almost no work. (Just one small, but potent, step, which I’ll show you shortly.)

Before we get to that, let’s look at just how easy it is to use this proven strategy to double up—and even triple up—the cash stream your portfolio is throwing off today.

This simple system looks like a garden-variety DRIP, but it has one simple “hack” that amps up our dividend and sets us up for fast 82%+ upside, too.… Read more

Something unusual has happened in closed-end funds (CEFs) lately—a lot of new names are showing up in the leaderboard of the top long-term performers.

According to my CEF Insider service, there are now 36 funds that have delivered over 15% annualized total returns over the last decade, and three have delivered over 20% annualized returns, including their hefty dividend payouts.

And today we’re going to dive into five that have returned 17% and up (annualized) over the last decade. They’re powerful income generators for any market, with monster dividend yields all the way up to 10.5%!

Let’s get started.

Winning CEF #1: Cohen & Steers Quality Income Realty Fund (RQI)

RQI uses investors’ money to build a diverse portfolio of real estate investment trusts (REITs).… Read more

Not yet as rich as you always wanted to be? Don’t worry, because today we’re going to dial you in for some “rich guy” dividend favorites that’ll pay you up to 9.9% every year.

Private equity is a lucrative and secretive world. It’s often limited to accredited investors, which means these funds require you to have $200,000 or more in annual income to qualify.

If you’re living on dividends alone, this might be challenging. Fortunately, there are some private equity plays that you can buy just like individual stocks. They trade for as cheap as $12 per share and they’ll pay you dividends from 8.8% to 9.9% along the way:

Private equity (PE)—funds that can invest in the equity and debt of privately held companies, which we typically can’t get our hands on—is generally touted as outperforming the stock market.… Read more

Today we’re going to dive into a question subscribers to our CEF Insider service often ask: what happens to a closed-end fund’s dividend when stocks take a tumble?

The answer is coming up shortly (and if you’re at all worried about this levitating market suddenly snapping back, you’re going to like what I have to show you).

Then I’m going to reveal one 6.6%-paying fund whose management is dialed in to market swings and know how to protect their investors’ income when things get rough.

How do I know? Because they did just that in the 2008-09 crisis.

More on that shortly.… Read more

If this were any “normal” time, we’d be able to buy safe bonds and collect enough income on our nest egg to fund our retirements. Unfortunately, this is the “new normal” where the Fed is not the friend of us current and hopeful retirees!

Jay Powell is afraid for his job, which means he’s going to cut rates and keep them low for a long time. This means we must look beyond traditional bonds for meaningful income.

What about blue chip dividend-paying stocks? Well, an 11-year stock market rally has ruined that idea. Anyone putting new money in a pricey dividend aristocrat is “buying and hoping” that the stock continues to levitate while the firm dishes its dividend.… Read more

Make no mistake: Jerome Powell’s pain is our chance to set ourselves up for 7%+ dividends, along with serious upside—I’m talking total returns well into the triple digits!

The key? The two stealth dividend-growth picks I have for you today. More on those shortly.

First off, you have to feel sorry for the Fed chief. Not only is he taking a whipping from the president’s Twitter feed for not cutting rates sooner, now he’s being second-guessed for considering a cut at all, given June’s blowout jobs report.

It’s a wonder the poor man doesn’t lock his office door, barricade it with his chair and refuse to come out!… Read more

Members of our CEF Insider service often ask me when they should sell a closed-end fund.

The truth is, when it comes to CEFs, it’s easier to know when to buy than when to sell.

If the fund is well managed, has a strong track record, is deeply discounted in relation to net asset value, or NAV (another way of saying the underlying value of the fund’s portfolio) and has a relatively safe dividend, that CEF has already gone a significant distance toward being a buy.

Sell signs aren’t always as clear, but they’re still there. You just need to know what to look for.… Read more