One down, two to go.

The Federal Reserve launched yet another interest-rate hike after its mid-March policy meeting – the sixth such increase since December 2016, and what the Fed anticipates will be the first of three this year. Predictably, a certain subset of the market shuddered in response: lazy, low-growth dividend stocks. But at the same time, shareholders of a few other stocks quietly celebrated what should be a win for the years ahead.

Today, I want to highlight both types: The Fed-proof, and the Fed-frightened.

2018 isn’t shaping up to be a bad year for dividend growth, but it’s not a particularly good one.… Read more

If you’re planning to retire (or are currently retired), I urge you to become intimately familiar with monthly dividend stocks. They offer the ultimate consideration: income payments that actually line up with your monthly bills.

Today, I’m going to help get you started by introducing you to four monthly dividend payers that yield up to 12%. But first: What’s so great about this type of stock?

When you pay your bills – be it the mortgage, the electricity, the TV – you don’t sit down at the kitchen table to do that every quarter. You do it every single month.… Read more

Inflation fever is back! And today I’m going to show you a “one-click” way to cash in with a quick gain and a 7.7% cash dividend too.

First, you may have been under the impression that inflation was off the list of worries for now, since February’s fretting over rising prices sent the market into full swan dive mode:

Inflation Terror Sideswipes Stocks

But March brought us a nice surprise: inflation is not as bad as previously thought. When it comes to one measure of inflation known as “personal consumption expenditure,” or PCE, we are still seeing price gains far below 2%:

Prices Rising, But Still Below Critical Level

But now the herd is an uproar again—and it has everything to do with the “inverted yield curve.”… Read more

Last month, I handpicked a four-pack of dividend growers for a select group of subscribers. On the surface, our February mini-portfolio had an impressive pedigree. It yielded 2.2% annually and boasted 21% dividend growth.

But I was challenged with a task taller than simply buying and hoping for gains. These readers not only wanted their dividends – they wanted them paid monthly!

And they weren’t going to settle for 0.2% per month. No, they demanded meaningful monthly income on a modest portfolio. (I’ll use $500,000 for our real-life example – but you don’t need this much to employ this strategy. A $50,000 stake will work just as well.)… Read more

Worried that President Trump’s tariff threats will ignite a disastrous trade war?

I have great news for you, because the best way to protect your portfolio—and profit—in times like these is simple: buy dividend-growth stocks.

I’ll name three with exploding payouts in a second. All three are also proven winners when tariff threats start flying, making them smart buys now.

Taken together, this “Trump trade trio” boasts an average current dividend yield far higher than what your typical S&P 500 stock pays. Plus all three have double- (and in some cases triple-) digit dividend hikes powering them, too!

Payout growth like that is proven to throw an updraft under share prices when the markets get skittish due to any kind of worry: trade spats, terrorist attacks, wars—you name it.… Read more

One of the greatest things about closed-end funds (CEFs) is that they often cost less than they’re really worth.

And no, I’m not basing that on some obscure metric—I’m literally talking about the difference between the market price of the assets the fund owns and the market price of the fund itself.

It works like this: a CEF can trade for, say, $9.90, even though all the assets the fund holds (known as the net asset value, or NAV) are worth $10. Believe it or not, this happens a lot—it’s exactly how billionaire investors make big money in CEFs.

Take, for instance, Boaz Weinstein of Saba Capital Management.… Read more

If the virtues and importance of dividend growth weren’t etched into your brain already, let’s consider February’s example. (Then we’ll outline ten imminent hikes coming in April.)

About a month ago, shortly before the market reached full correction mode, I outlined the problem low-growth dividend stocks would have against rapidly rising Treasury rates – and why it’s vital that we monitor the dividend growth of current and prospective holdings.

Within a week, yields quickly leapt to nearly 3%, and currently sit close by at about 2.9%. On cue stocks crashed:

The lesson here is twofold.

For one, if interest rates continue to climb, life becomes more difficult for corporations across the board.… Read more

The Dividend Aristocrats, as you may well know, are companies that have increased their annual dividends without interruption for at least 25 years. That speaks to a high level of dependability and stability that even many other blue chips can’t claim.

But boy, can they be stingy.

Aristocrats, Or American Debt? It’s Not Even Close

The ProShares S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats ETF (NOBL), which faithfully tracks those payout champions that call the S&P 500 index home, collectively yields 1.7% at the moment, which is an almost laughable amount of current yield. The 10-year Treasury isn’t just beating that – at a roughly 2.9% yield, it’s simply clobbering it.… Read more

With earnings season in the rear-view and the end of the first quarter looming, you’re probably asking yourself one thing right now…

… just how good is the stock market?

I’ll give you the answer (which I think you’ll like) in a moment.

Then I’ll show you 2 funds whose portfolios are packed with familiar stocks, including Apple (AAPL). Both funds are poised for strong gains in 2018 while handing you fat cash payouts up to 8.8%!

Finding Bargains in a Surprising Place

First, if you’re like most folks, you might feel queasy about any stocks—including “reliable” blue chips—after the stomach-churning drops we suffered in February.… Read more

Municipal bonds are off to a slow start in 2018 – which is usually a bullish sign for these tax-free payers.

We last “pounded the table” on munis in December 2016. They were coming off their worst month since the Great Recession, and we discussed their tendency to rally when they are hated:

“It’s impossible to call a top in yields (or bottom in munis) without the benefit of hindsight. But we contrarians make our money buying when nobody else wants to – and the last time munis were this hated, they returned 30-38% over the next 12 months.”

Turns out that was the bottom in munis.… Read more