Don’t be cheap when you buy bonds this holiday season (or ever, for that matter). Bargain shoppers, sadly, tend to be the most at-risk of outliving their fixed income portfolios!

But it’s easy for you and me to double up “regular” bond returns simply by swapping out popularity for quality.

Let’s walk through some of the most popular fixed-income plays today – and replace each with something that yields more (with superior price upside to boot).

The obsession with fees is understandable. Most investors are conditioned by their experience with stock-based mutual funds and ETFs to search out the lowest fees, almost to a fault.… Read more

If you’re a contrarian investor, you know that the market loves to overreact—and that mass hysteria can hand you some nice profits.

That’s because panicked first-level investors toss great investments over the side along with the bad. We’re happy to step in when they do, buy at a discount, then sit back and watch the price snap back.

This is exactly what Warren Buffett refers to when he says to “buy when there’s blood in the streets.”

And it’s even better if there are high dividend payouts on offer.

Funny thing is, these deals are often hiding in plain sight. In fact, one of the most popular stocks in the world was ridiculously underpriced just under two years ago: Apple (AAPL).… Read more

Today I’m going to reveal my personal strategy for outperforming the market over the long haul.

It’s simple. All you have to do is buy dividend stocks—but not in the way most people think.

I’ll also name 4 terrific dividend growers you can buy now and safely tuck away in your retirement portfolio forever. More on those in a moment. First, we need to talk about…

The Wrong Way to Buy Dividend Stocks

When picking stocks for the long haul, many folks put too much emphasis on the current dividend yield.

Trouble is, the high yielders that could really make a difference to your retirement—I’m talking payouts of 6%, 8% and up—are getting scarce as the S&P 500 grinds upward:

Few Trophies for Dividend Hunters

Worse, a high yield can easily lead you onto the rocks, something many people learned the hard way with telecom operator Frontier Communications (FTR).… Read more

Everybody likes a sale, but there’s a significant difference between something that’s a value, and something that’s merely cheap – a good value can last you years and even decades, where something cheap can leave you in the lurch within a few months.

The same can be said for several enticing double-digit yields right now. I’m about to introduce you to five 10%-yielding dividend stocks, all of which boast low prices in the single digits. But that doesn’t make them all good deals.

Far from it.

We all know that nominal share price typically doesn’t mean much – what makes a stock “cheap” is its price compared to metrics such as earnings, sales, free cash flow and other operational measures.… Read more

Right now, there are plenty of safe 9%+ dividend yields sitting right under investors’ noses—literally hiding in plain sight!

Where? In the utility sector.

That’s right. As I write this, you can easily grab payouts 5 times the market average from some of the stodgiest companies out there—so conservative they used to be called “widow-and-orphan” stocks due to their ultra-safe payouts and low risks.

The key to the “hidden” 9% income streams available in utilities today is a special kind of high-yield fund called a closed-end fund (CEF). I’ll explain more and show you 9 buy candidates—including my top utility CEF pick—in a moment.… Read more

Who’s cooking Thanksgiving dinner for you tomorrow?

Specifically, I want to know if your family is doing the cooking – or if you’re outsourcing the meal prep to a robot.

If it sounds like a silly question, well, let’s frame it with respect to our usual beat – generating safe 7% and 8% yields in your retirement portfolio. Would you blindly buy and sell dividend payers based on the “insights” of a computer?

I often hear from readers who catch a “robo rating” on one of our holdings and worry. Even when the analysis is mere inches deep, like this one:

(Your stock) appears to be not be meeting its earnings expectations for past 6 quarters, the profitability of the company is poor which affects its valuation, and its ability to maintain its dividend.… Read more

The Federal Reserve’s rate hikes getting you down? You’re not alone.

A lot of readers have written in, worried that the Fed’s plans to increase interest rates in 2018 are going to hurt their portfolios. Investors starved for income have been piling into high-yielding assets that could get hit by a selloff if interest rates rise.

Those assets would go down because when the Fed increases interest rates, it causes rates all around to go up. So if you hold a bond that pays an interest rate from before that rate hike, its resale value will decline because there are now new bonds that pay higher interest rates, which makes the older, lower-yielding bond less desirable.… Read more

Let’s dive into the General Electric (GE) dividend massacre that sent the market reeling last week. When the dust settled, the payout took a 50% haircut, and the stock had plunged about 11%.

Before I go on, I should tell you that GE isn’t the only household name I’m worried about. Further on, I’ll show you another investor “sacred cow” that’s showing some eerily similar signs. Then we’ll look at an unloved pharma play that’s more than worth your attention now.

First, let’s pick through the GE wreckage and see what we can learn, and where the stock could go from here.… Read more

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 9.3%. 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

There’s been a mini-wave of insider buying in the BDC (business development company) sector. This is worthy of our attention for two reasons:

1. These firms pay fat yields (we’ll discuss 3 paying up to 13%),
2. Their stocks are trading below book value.

This means we can buy these firms for as low as 71 on the dollar and get their dividend streams (and future cash flows) for free. (Remember when I told you to buy four big bank stocks when they were trading below book? If you followed my advice 18 months ago, you made a lot of money).

We’ll analyze each of these “pennies on the dollar” BDCs in a minute.… Read more