January is a busy time of year for companies looking to amplify their regular payouts. I’ve already shown you a mess of master limited partnerships (MLPs) that should hike their distributions next month. But for those of you who don’t subscribe to those tax headaches, I have a list of traditional companies and real estate investment trusts (REITs) that should up the ante, if history is any indication.

I encourage investors to seek out high yields and high rates of dividend growth – study after study shows the benefits of both. This isn’t just a localized market trait, either. Studies of global equities show exactly what we see here at home: That yield and growth truly matter over the long haul.… Read more

December might be the traditional season of generosity for most, but not for energy master limited partnerships (MLPs). This high-income area of the market tends to wait until January rolls around to get into the giving spirit, with many of the industry’s names doling out distribution hikes a couple weeks after the New Year.

Investors looking to jump into MLPs, then, may want to get into the seven stocks I’m about to highlight – all of which yield between 5% and 8% – before they up the ante on their regular payouts.

A host of MLPs tend to wait until after the champagne has been uncorked and the bowl games have been played to announce distribution hikes.… Read more

I usually don’t recommend shorting a closed-end fund (CEF), but if I were to do so, the 3 I’m about to show you would top my list.

I don’t like shorting CEFs for two simple reasons: first, you’re responsible for paying out the dividends on a shorted stock. So if a CEF pays a 10% yield, you have to pay out 10% while shorting it. No thanks!

Second, the CEF market is extremely irrational. For this reason, CEFs can remain overvalued for a long time, meaning you’ll need to short for far too long before you get your payouts.

Still, there are some CEFs that are so absurdly overbought that shorting becomes really tempting.… Read more

Have you always wanted to buy a safe stock like Coca-Cola (KO) and get rich from it like Warren Buffett?

It’s doable – and I’ll show you how in a minute.

Unfortunately most investors misapply Buffett’s lessons. They “live in the past” and fixate on dividend track records rather than a payout’s forward prospects. And looking ahead is the key to yearly gains of 10%, 15% or even 20% or more with dividend aristocrats.

Let’s consider Coke, which achieved its dividend royalty status in 1987 (its 25th straight year with a dividend hike). The firm hit its coronation with a head of steam, rewarding investors with a 362% payout hike in just five years (from 1986 to 1991).… Read more

Today we’re going to talk about the single biggest risk you face in your golden years.

But don’t worry—I’ll also show you how to clobber that risk and set yourself up for an easy $40,000 in cash for every year of your retirement. More on that below.

Let’s address the nasty risk first—the very real chance you’ll outlive your nest egg. A sweeping study says you could be very wrong about the length of your retirement.

A Hidden Danger

Here’s what the numbers say: in 1992, the University of Michigan asked 26,000 Americans 50 years of age and older how long they thought they’d live.… Read more

Today I’m going to give you my full investment forecast for 2018—and name 2 high-yielding closed-end funds (CEFs) poised to soar after the new year rolls in.

But before we get to that, we need to cast a quick eye back over 2017, because 2 things that happened this year are setting us up for big gains next year.

And 2017 was a terrific year for stocks—something that came as a surprise to many folks (but not me).

When we started the year, a slew of fears were encouraging bears to warn of an impending stock-market crash. Then the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) did this:

A Great Year

I’ve been beating the drum for stocks throughout 2017.… Read more

Many investors think they must choose between income and growth.

Why not have both?

Many stocks offer varying degrees of growth and income, and in a few rare cases – such as the three stocks yielding between 7% and 9% that I’m going to share with you today – they offer high levels of both.

When we talk about “growth,” we can mean any number of metrics. It can be as simple as sales, but that’s far from the only metric that matters.

The growth I want to look at today is on the bottom line. A company can grow sales all day by spending inordinate amounts of money on marketing and R&D.… Read more

The biggest complaints about the Dividend Aristocrats tend to come from new money. That’s because many of them, while generously raising their payouts year after year, offer skinflint yields that average 2.35% – almost right on par with the 10-year T-note.

You can find a little more relief from a similar club: The High Yield Dividend Aristocrats. This is a group of roughly 110 S&P Composite 1500 stocks that has paid and increased dividends for at least 20 consecutive years. It’s slightly less exclusive than the S&P 500 Aristocrats, and doesn’t actually yield much differently on average, but the larger selection includes several higher-yield growers that I want to highlight today.… Read more

It’s one of the biggest worries I hear from investors who hold bonds: what’s going to happen to my portfolio when the Federal Reserve raises interest rates?

My short answer is always the same: don’t worry—it’s not as big of a deal as you think.

That’s true for many bond funds out there—but there are some that are still ticking time bombs because they’re poorly managed. The worst offenders are the ones that aren’t managed at all—the “dumb” funds that blindly track the index and keep a ton of bonds from near-bankrupt companies alongside much better issues.

Funds like the iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (JNK) and the SPDR Bloomberg Barclays High Yield Bond ETF (HYG) are the worst offenders here.… Read more

In late 2007, Citigroup (C) insiders – who should have known better – comforted themselves with a security blanket that, in hindsight, was better fit for a Goodwill donation.

“The dividend’s as safe as the next board meeting,” they told themselves as the yield on their shares climbed well above 10%. On a trailing basis, that is.

Next board meeting, their payout was chopped – and their shares dropped more than 90%.

Stock yields of 10%, 11%, 12% or more are usually too good to be true. Citigroup reminded us why ten years ago, and telecom disaster Frontier Communications (FTR) reinforces the point today.… Read more