5 Dividends That Will Disappear in 5 Years

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: April 21, 2017

A high dividend yield can be the ultimate retirement holding. Or it can be a trap.

Today, I’m going to show you five stocks with mouth-watering yields of between 6% and 23% that are tomorrow’s dividend disasters. If you own shares in any of these firms, sell them now.

Don’t “ride these stocks down” like RadioShack shareholders did when the nearly century-old former electronics retailing giant that filed for bankruptcy protection in 2015.

RadioShack suspended its dividend in July 2012. The warning signs were there, but no one listened. Revenues had been in constant decline since their peak 16 years earlier, debts were mounting, ratings agencies were downgrading RadioShack’s bonds.… Read more

3 REITs Paying 6.3% to 7.8% That Will Fund Your Retirement

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: April 20, 2017

Real estate investment trusts (REITs), when picked carefully, provide generous dividends that will fund your retirement cash flow needs by themselves.

Today I’m going to show you how REITs are literally the best buy-and-hold asset you can put your money into – and I’ll introduce you to three powerful real estate plays yielding up to 7.8% annually. These three are well positioned for decades of outperformance against the rest of the investment world.

We all know that REITs are income machines. First-quarter 2017 data shows that REITs on average yielded 4.1% — more than double the average S&P 500 stock!

But many self-annointed “REIT gurus” focus too much on income and ignore REITs’ other outstanding virtue: growth potential.… Read more

A “Reborn Dividend Strategy” for Safe 81% to 437% Gains

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: April 19, 2017

Just because you’re a dividend investor doesn’t mean you’re fated to “grind out” income 3% and 4% at a time. With a slight change to your current (dare I say pedestrian?) strategy, you can keep your dividends and enjoy 81% to 437% price upside or more.

These types of life-changing returns are easily achievable within a few years. You just need to employ the ultimate contrarian dividend strategy – and buy select “born again” payouts.

The strategy is two-fold:

  1. Find the stocks with rock-bottom sentiment around them, and
  2. Only buy them when a cheery outlook is guaranteed.

First, Find Firms Burdened With This “Stigma”

Contrarian investing works because it capitalizes on overly-negative sentiment to find value.… Read more

5 Popular REITs to Sell Now

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: April 18, 2017

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) have essentially one job to do for their investors – pay reliable dividends. Many do, but when firms find their payouts in jeopardy things get ugly in a hurry. Which is why you need to avoid, or sell, the five ticking time bombs we’re going to discuss today.

Dividend cuts don’t just “happen.” When a REIT slashes or suspends its dividend, it’s rarely a surprise – and rarely an isolated incident.

Let’s consider Armour Residential REIT (ARR) – here’s five years of dividend cuts and misery:

Sure, the current yield for Armour always looks good at 10% or higher.… Read more

Better Than Real Estate: 2 Buys for 4.6% Yields and Big Payout Growth

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: April 17, 2017

Today I’m going to show you, hands-down, the easiest way to add rental real estate to your portfolio.

Don’t worry—you won’t have to leave your computer! Instead of hitting the streets to buy a four-plex or apartment building to rent out, we’re going to purchase a recession-proof real estate income stream straight from your online brokerage account.

And believe it or not, thanks to a current market anomaly, we can snag better deals online right now than we can in person. I’ll explain the details in a moment—including 2 stocks with yields that double what your average stock pays, and double-digit payout growth, too!… Read more

This 6.8% Payout Is “Hedged” Against a Market Crash

Michael Foster, Investment Strategist
Updated: April 15, 2017

In my last article, I showed you funds that pay 6.4%+ yields and give you “crash insurance” in case of a market meltdown. The great thing about these funds is that they also offer tremendous upside in steady or up markets.

If that sounds like the best of both worlds, it’s because it is.

Instead of just buying the S&P 500 in an index fund, for example, you can choose the Nuveen S&P 500 Dynamic Overwrite Total Return Fund (SPXX). It tracks the index, provides extra downside protection and pays out a much higher dividend than index funds, too.

This isn’t the only fund that does this trick.… Read more

5 “Hidden” Dividend Stocks With Secure Yields up to 7.1%

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: April 14, 2017

Whenever a pundit says they’re going to show you some high-yield dividend picks, we all know what’s coming. Telecoms like Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T). Maybe a utility or two, like Southern Company (SO). Sure, they’re big, they’re safe … but even when they’re down, they’re still wildly crowded trades.

So let’s explore five dividend stocks with bulletproof yields up to 7.1%. Their payouts are high because their stock prices are low – thanks to these firms’ undercover status.

I love “hidden” dividends so much that I’ve dedicated one of my premium services – Hidden Yields – to them.… Read more

The Surprising Truth About Vanguard

Michael Foster, Investment Strategist
Updated: April 13, 2017

I want to let you in on a shocking secret about Vanguard: they’re great active investors.

That’s right. The people almost everyone looks to for low-fee index funds are, in fact, top-flight stock pickers.

Take the actively managed Vanguard Windsor Fund Investor Shares (VWNDX): since inception way back in 1958, it’s returned an annualized 11.4%, despite being long only large cap value stocks (and avoiding more volatile small caps entirely).

Compare that to the passive Vanguard Total Stock Market Fund (VTSAX). Despite the index fund’s lower fees (which first-level investors love and Vanguard touts as a key to superior returns), VWNDX has crushed VTSAX since the latter’s launch in the early 2000s:

Index Investors Get What They Pay For

The Vanguard Windsor Fund has been so successful that it spawned a second fund in 1985, the Vanguard Windsor II Fund Investor Shares (VWNFX), which went on to post a 10.7% average annual return.… Read more

5 Fast-Growing Dividends Selling for “Free Lunch” Prices

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: April 12, 2017

I wouldn’t buy any old dividend payer right now, with most stock prices on the high side. But, believe it or not, there are a few quality dividend growers that are still pretty cheap.

This time last year, we discussed four fast dividend growers selling below book value. It’s almost hard to believe now that the four-pack of banks we highlighted then were selling for as cheap as 70 cents on the dollar.

But that’s how you make money with stocks – by buying good names when nobody else wants them. And since my column last April, this group gained an average of 53%:

Easy Contrarian Gains Averaging 53%!Read more

7 Screaming CEF Buys With 9.3% Yields and 50% Upside

Michael Foster, Investment Strategist
Updated: April 11, 2017

A few days ago, I showed you exactly why now is the time to be greedy—not fearful—when it comes to stocks.

And now, buried deep in the latest gross domestic product (GDP) report is a tiny data point that proves I’m right. It’s the clearest signal in years that now is the time to buy.

I’ll show you 7 funds perfectly positioned to take advantage while handing you safe dividend yields up to 9.3% in just a moment. First, let’s talk about that under-the-radar signal I mentioned.

The report’s headline number showed that fourth-quarter GDP rose 2.1%, slightly above economists’ expectations of 2% growth.… Read more