Lately, I’ve heard more real estate bulls touting rental property as the perfect retirement investment.

Truth be told, it can be.

You probably know people who’ve built a nice income stream in their golden years from a well-chosen set of rentals.

Trouble is, there’s a big—and too-often glossed over—problem with being a property baron: it’s not the easy ride housing fans make it out to be! That is, unless you like being on duty 24/7 to fix clogged toilets, chase down deadbeat tenants and deal with noise complaints.

I don’t know about you, but that’s not how I plan to spend my golden years.… Read more

What if I told you that you could reap huge dividends (I’m talking life-changing 15% payouts) and quick upside from … the weather?

I’m talking about the bone-chilling polar vortex, which, especially if you live on the US east coast, probably already has you feeling winter weary—and we’re only in mid-January.

I’ll show you 3 beaten-down funds at the center of our “polar-vortex profit plan” in a moment. But first, here are the raw numbers behind this opportunity for income and gains.

A Heat Map for Frigid Times

Since it’s freezing outside, it makes sense to warm our hearts with a heat map—and there’s no better heat map than the one for the S&P 500.… Read more

Business development companies (BDCs) are one of the market’s top sources of yield. Unfortunately for income hunters, in 2017, this industry also was one of Wall Street’s greatest sources of disappointment.

I don’t say that to condemn the BDC space. I say that as a warning: While these financiers of small and midsize businesses can occasionally be excellent long-term holdings, there are plenty of landmines to avoid. That’s why today, I want to highlight three such funds that have mouthwatering yields of up to 12% – each of which might look attractive at first glance, but only one of which looks like a safe buy right now.… Read more

It’s essential for core dividend holdings to consistently raise their payouts over time. Without a steady uptick in the regular dole, inflation starts gnawing into investors’ returns. That dollar becomes 98 cents, becomes 96 cents, and – you get the picture.

And it’s especially important to keep tabs on the dividend growth of your real estate investment trusts (REITs). I want to buy REITs that are constantly raising their rent. Larger and larger rent checks create growing dividend checks for us!

Over the long run, REIT share prices move higher as their dividends move higher. These payouts also provide downside for lean years like last year, when the dividend was about all we got:

2017 wasn’t a fun year for REIT investors, with the Vanguard REIT ETF (VNQ) coming in essentially flat for the year without including dividends.… Read more

In investing, it’s just as important to know what to buy as what to avoid.

And if there’s one thing you need to keep away from at all costs, it’s a dividend cut like the huge 16.8% slash the PIMCO Global StocksPLUS & Income Fund (PGP) announced on January 2.

It caught first-level investors completely off guard (though it shouldn’t have, as I’ll explain in a moment).

Here’s how they responded:

And Down She Goes

If you’re a regular reader of my articles on ContrarianOutlook.com, you’ll recognize PGP, a PIMCO fund that mixes stocks and bonds to give investors the biggest dividend possible.… Read more

No safe bond pays 10% itself, of course. But it is possible to generate double-digit yields from a portfolio of secure bonds.

The secret is similar to successful dividend investing. Why buy a stock and be content pocketing “only its dividend” when you can have the payout with price upside to boot?

Most income investors are even less thoughtful when they purchase bonds. They fixate on the coupon rate (which these days they are inevitably disappointed with.) They watch their bonds weigh down their entire portfolio, muttering to themselves “at least they are safe.”

Well, sure. But they can be both safe and profitable.… Read more

The REIT bears have gone too far this time.

In the past few days, I’ve seen a lot of panicky commentary warning that incoming Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell will raise rates too fast after he takes over in February—and that would be a disaster for real estate investment trusts (REITs).

Don’t take the bait.

Because it all adds up more fear-fanning headlines from a business press desperate to make something out of nothing.

I’ll show you why in a moment. Then we’ll move on to 3 corners of the REIT space (and 5 stocks in particular) that underperformed in 2017—and are poised to spring back big time in 2018.… Read more

With 2017 in the books, it’s time to turn our attention to 2018.

And if you invest in closed-end funds (CEFs)—and you should—there’s a lot to look forward to.

In a moment, I’ll show you the one type of fund not to buy in 2018—and give you a simple 2-step plan that lets you zero in on the funds set to outperform the market and deliver you outsized dividends, too.

First, I want to give you my prediction for the market as a whole in 2018. You’ll be pleased to hear that a lot of the things that made 2017 fantastic for investors are still in play as we roll into the new year.… Read more

Tax reform has been signed into law, giving the market a booster shot as we kick off 2018. Republicans took a hatchet to the corporate tax rate, which should translate into more profits, which in turn should trickle down to investors in the form of earnings-driven gains, buybacks and dividends.

Generally speaking, that’s fantastic news for anyone holding blue-chip dividend stocks. But that’s not the same thing as saying every last well-known income play is worth carrying right now.

They’re not.

Eventually, some blue-chip stocks get caught in a rut where the growth that made them a household name in the first place starts to disappear.… Read more

2017 was an amazing year for closed-end funds (CEFs)—and 2018 is setting up to be just as strong, if not stronger.

So if you’re on the hunt for big dividends and upside this year (and who isn’t?), this is a perfect time to take a closer look at high-yielding CEFs.

That goes double for the 10 unloved CEFs I’ll show you in a moment.

In fact, I’ll go as far as to say this: I predict these 10 funds will be this year’s biggest comeback story, after investors mostly threw them over the side in 2017.

More on those in a moment.… Read more