If you want high dividends right now (and who doesn’t?), but you don’t want to overpay, there’s one place you need to look: utilities.

There are three ways to tap into this sector, but only one hands you the most upside and fattest dividend yields from these unloved cash-spinning companies:

1. Buy utility stocks individually
2. Buy ETFs specializing in utilities
3. Buy closed-end funds (CEFs) specializing in utilities

The third option is the best one. To understand why, we need to go back a few months.

Back on March 1, I recommended Reaves Utility Income (UTG), a utility CEF that yields 6.9% (spoiler: those big yields are common with CEFs and are a big reason why these funds are an awesome bet for income investors).… Read more

If you’ve held off on bank stocks for the last few months, I have good and bad news for you.

The good? You’ve still got time to get in before the banks take off on their next surge.

The bad? After the big profits this hated sector has posted in the last couple weeks, your window is closing fast!

So today we’re going to look at why 5 of the 6 biggest US banks look strong now … but being the dividend hounds we are, we’re not going to buy “regular” bank stocks, with their pathetic sub-2% dividend yields.

No way.… Read more

One of the best characteristics about dividends is they usually offer a consistent, preferably growing stream of income. However, investors can easily fall into the trap of becoming complacent that future payments will continue to flow in, even when the business isn’t generating enough cash to fund the dividend.

The higher the yield being offered generally means the riskier the dividend is and sometimes losses can outweigh the expected income. For example, Dynagas LNG Partners (DLNG) cut its 16% yield back in April and shares are down 25% since.

With government bonds paying around 2% to 3%, dividends above 10% need to be scrutinized closely and I’ve identified two that are in danger of disappearing.… Read more

I’ve been thinking a lot about recessions lately.

It’s pretty hard not to, because warnings about recessions are coming from financial pundits and big banks with increasing frequency. Most recently, an economist at Citigroup warned in a research note that a recession was likely to come in the next 18 months, because the US Treasury yield curve is flattening.

This person isn’t a lone wolf.

Many economists, including a lot of wonks at the Federal Reserve, are fiercely debating whether our flattening yield curve is a sign that a recession is around the corner. And the fear is intensifying, since the difference between the yield on the two-year and 10-year Treasuries is a meager 25 basis points, the narrowest in over a decade.… Read more

The credit card business naturally lends itself to good investor returns over most time periods.  But we can bank 50% to 100% gains per year by purchasing when dividend growth is high but a stock is cheap due to headline worries.

And today, we have the perfect news story to set us up for 51% profits over the next twelve months. After a decade of runaway gains, there is actually but one cheap credit card stock to buy for income and upside. And it’s not one of these popular horses:

Plastic Always Pays (Investors): 223% to 770% Returns

The “Big 5” enjoyed total returns up to 770% over the last decade thanks to incredible dividend growth in recent years:

Nothing Plastic About These Payout Curves

Investors have caught on to the fact that Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA) – which returned 770% and 758% over the last decade, and increased their dividends more than ten-fold – are excellent businesses.… Read more

It’s a question I get from investors all the time: “Should I take my dividends in cash or reinvest them through a dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP)?”

My answer: unless you want your cash sitting in your account earning zero, your best bet is to reinvest any dividend money you don’t need to pay your bills.

But we don’t want to practice “buy and hope” investing, either, whether we do it through obsolete DRIPs or the old-fashioned way.

When I say “buy and hope,” I mean putting your cash into household names like the so-called Dividend Aristocrats and “hoping” for higher stock prices when you cash out in retirement.… Read more

With the recent market downturn, you might be worried that stocks are headed for trouble. Don’t be.

Because there’s one really good reason to be greedy now that the market has become fearful again, and it can be summed up in two words: earnings season, which “officially” kicks off when Alcoa (AA) reports its results on July 18.

So far, 2018 has been one of the best years for company earnings in history—and that trend is set to continue.

First, let me tell you why. Then I’ll give you 3 funds you can buy today to lock in the gains that this temporarily depressed market is set to hand us.… Read more

Is it possible to double your money – quickly – buying safe dividend stocks? You bet. Let me explain how…

“Basic” income investors are enamored with higher current yields. These are OK for payouts today, but they’re not going to get us 100%+ gains.

For triple-digit profits we must pay attention to the underrated dividend hike. These raises not only increase the yield on your initial investment, but they trigger stock price increases, too.

For example, if a stock pays a 3% current yield and then hikes its payout by 10%, it’s unlikely that its stock price will stagnate for long.… Read more

Bigger isn’t always better when it comes to dividends. Deutsche Bank recently pointed out “the first half of 2018 has seen the sharpest underperformance of dividend stocks since the financial crisis”, as measured by the Dividend Aristocrats.

Most readers are already familiar with this group of 53 names within the S&P 500 index, many paying out billions of dividends each quarter, with the most common trait being they’ve each boosted payouts a minimum of 25 consecutive years.

However, another item several of the Aristocrats share in common, is that the Law of Large Numbers is catching up to them. They may be paying out more to investors each year, but as my colleague Brett Owens has often pointed out, it’s how much the dividend is growing that is the best predictor for building wealth over time.… Read more

Still feeling the taxman’s sting from April? Then you probably need to consider getting some tax-free income.

Having an income stream the IRS can’t touch may sound like pie in the sky, but it’s a reality if you hold municipal bonds. That’s because the tax code provides an exclusion for these bonds, allowing most US investors to collect interest payments from them tax-free. And in many states, income from those bonds is exempt from state taxes, as well.

If you aren’t intrigued yet, then let me show you some numbers—and what they could mean to your portfolio.

If you’re in the highest tax bracket (37%) and you get a 6%-yielding municipal-bond fund, that income is the exact same as a 9.5% dividend from stocks.… Read more