If there’s ever been a perfect time to show you one of my best strategies for getting rich in the market, it’s now.

What can you expect? A simple way to grab an income stream that doubles in short order—and hands you double-digit share price growth, too!

When I say “simple,” I mean it. You’ll barely have to lift a finger. And it works best in selloffs like we’re seeing now.

Along the way, we’ll uncover 3 stocks (including one of the world’s leading semiconductor names) that when combined with this strategy hand us “hidden” dividend yields all the way up to 8.9%!… Read more

You know the old saying, “There are lies, damned lies and statistics”? Here’s another one for you: “There are lies, damned lies and charts.”

That certainly applies to the 8.6%-paying fund I’ll reveal toward the end of this article. If you looked at its price chart alone—which almost everyone does—you’d totally miss it!

And this dividend passes my 3-point “dividend safety check,” which I’ll also give you a little further on.

The Trouble With Stock Charts

The truth is, too many pundits have a point they want to prove, and they choose charts that prove that point. In some cases, they use charts that only tell half the story.… Read more

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) are one of the market’s best sources of high yield. But they can also be one of its searing sources of heartburn.

For your sanity’s sake, and for the good of your retirement savings, avoid the five high-yielding REITs I’m going to warn you about today. Then reinvest that money into the sure-fire 8% yielders I’ll highlight after that.

REITs are set up, by design, to be income powerhouses. That’s the deal. They get to evade Uncle Sam, and in return, they have to funnel the lion’s share of their profits to shareholders. But a mandate only goes so far – if a REIT has less cash to redistribute, simple math says you and I suffer.… Read more

The Federal Reserve’s increased aggression over the past couple of years has finally come home to roost. The yield on the 10-year Treasury recently rocketed above 2.8% – a four-year high – while the 30-year cleared the 3% mark.

That’s bad news for investors in many traditional dividend-paying blue chips.

The 10-year T-note might as well have been a “high-yield” savings account the past few years, offering almost laughable income of less than 1.4% as recently as 2016. That kind of environment gives investors “yield goggles,” making even no-growth stocks look attractive as long as they’re paying out near 3%.

Just look at the performance of the Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR (XLP) – a collection of companies such as Procter & Gamble (PG) and Coca-Cola (KO) – against the 10-year Treasury rate.… Read more

So stocks have had their steepest nosedive in seven years, and with the whipsawing market we’ve seen since, you might—might—be entertaining the knee-jerk urge to sell.

I have one word for you: don’t.

I’ll tell you why in a moment.

First, let’s look at why this panic happened, and where things go from here.

“It Means Nothing”

I’ve already fielded calls from worried family members and friends asking about their 401ks. When my mother emailed to ask if the Dow losing 1,100 points in a day was a big problem, I responded with three words:

“It means nothing.”

Of course, for everyday folks counting on stocks and bonds to fund their retirement, seeing a 4.6% drop in a day is horrifying—especially if you remember 2008, when such drops were the beginning of a horrific bear market that ended with a 50% decline in stocks.… Read more

Market gyrations don’t matter when you can generate $69,137 over the next 12 months on a capital base of just $350,000. The secret? Monthly cash flow that adds up to 20% average annual returns regardless of what stocks do.

It’s an income investors’ dream – banking regular payments without having to worry about a pullback for the pricey (and increasingly wobbly) stock market.

“Buy and hope” investors are, understandably, terrified today. They’ve bought their shares – and now all they can do is hope the market regains its footing.

We income investors prefer to calculate rather than gamble. It’s why we demand dividends.… Read more

Interest rates are soaring, the market is panicking … and dividend stocks are yesterday’s news. Right?

Yes and no.

While some double-digit paying dogs should be sold immediately—market meltdown or no—there are other stocks (here I’m talking about top-notch dividend growers) that are ripe to be bought for 25%+ upside in the next 12 months.

There’s no doubt the 10-year Treasury yield’s recent run to 2.8%, an 18% rise since January 1, has slammed the brakes on the stock-market rally and hit high-yield plays like REITs particularly hard.

10-Year Rises, High-Yielders Wobble

If you hold high-yielders in your portfolio, you know what I’m talking about.… Read more

In my years in the markets, I’ve seen some dangerous financial products come on the scene, but the two I’m going to show you in a moment might be the most dangerous.

No, I’m not talking about Bitcoin—although cryptocurrencies are pretty risky, since, as I wrote on January 1, most people don’t understand just how big a failure Bitcoin really is.

I’m talking about two new funds that have recently been released by BMO Capital Markets in conjunction with REX Exchange-Traded Funds.

Before I go into just how terrible these two funds are, let’s do a bit of digging into who BMO and REX are.… Read more

Dividend growth is the key to retirement because it fends off the effects of inflation. Even amid low inflation of 2% to 3% a year, a stagnant dividend will actually lose 2% to 3% of purchasing power a year. The only way to actually grow your income over time, then, is to invest in companies whose management makes rising dividends a priority.

That’s one reason you should buy stocks before their dividend increases. And we’ll review nine upcoming payout raises in a moment.

But there’s a second reason that’s coming to the fore of late: interest rates.

While the Federal Reserve has tried to put the spurs to interest rates with five bumps to the Fed funds rate since December 2015, bond yields haven’t cooperated much.… Read more

Preferred stocks are in the doghouse, and you just might be wondering whether this is the start of a buying opportunity.

Let me put that question to rest: it is.

Today we’re going to look at what’s behind this superb chance to buy, as well as 3 preferred-stock funds to consider: the Flaherty & Crumrine Dynamic Preferred & Income Fund (DFP), Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Securities Income Fund (FFC) and John Hancock Premium Dividend Fund (PDT).

As you can see, all 3 of these funds are in the dumps.

A Steep Slide Down

But these are great funds, not only because of their sustainable 7% dividend yields and diversified portfolios, but also because this preferred-stock selloff is misguided.… Read more