Think it’s time to sell – or avoid – tax-advantaged municipal bonds ahead of the upcoming tax battle?

Think again. There are several compelling reasons why muni bonds are still buys for most income-focused investors.

First, the top federal tax bracket will still be a hefty 35%. Which means, if you’re a top earner, munis will still boost your yield by more than one-third.

No matter what tax plan is approved, municipal bonds will continue to be tax-free at the federal level. The GOP isn’t touching the federal income tax exemption for municipal bonds, which means win or lose, Uncle Sam won’t touch that income (which means tax-equivalent yields up to 9.6%, which we’ll discuss shortly, will still be in play).… Read more

“First-level” investors – those who buy and sell on headlines – mistakenly believe that real estate investment trust (REIT) profits will suffer if rates rise.

Sure, in the short run, the “rates up, REITs down” theory puts on quite the show. When the 10-Year Treasury’s yield rises, REITs usually fall. And when its yield drops, REITs usually rally. This inverse relationship tends to hold up over multiple days, weeks and even months:

A Short-Run Seesaw Between REITs and T-Bill Yields

The theory backing up this price action says that, because REITs borrow money to grow their property empires, they need cheap cash.… Read more

There’s a terrific buying opportunity taking shape in the municipal-bond market. Almost no one sees it coming, and you can thank a familiar friend for it.

I’m talking about the Fed—specifically Janet Yellen’s irresistible urge to hike interest rates in December, low inflation be damned.

She recently made that intention crystal clear, and futures markets responded by baking it in, with rate-hike odds leaping from a 30% chance to 76.4%:

Final Notice: A Christmas Rate Hike Is Coming

Stocks, for their part, have proven resilient, though there are still bargains to be had despite the market’s climb this year.

But there’s another place where you’ll find even better bargains if you’re patient.… Read more

You’re not the only one worried about high stock prices.

The lurking (and perhaps overdue) bear has other income investors worried, too. So let’s talk about the best buys for those of you worried about a stock market pullback of 10%, or 15%, or more.

We’ll start with some stalwarts from our Contrarian Income Report portfolio that weathered the last storm. Ironically (and probably fittingly) it happened off the bat – we launched our service, and the S&P 500 promptly dropped 10%!

No problem for us, though. In fact, subscribers who focused on their own holdings rather than the financial news may have missed the broader carnage altogether.… Read more

If you’re a dividend fan and you spot an 18% yield, you’re going to sit up and take notice.

But your radar will also probably go up for another reason: you know outsized payouts like that pretty much always come with outsized risk too.

Which brings me to the weird funds I’m going to show you today.

Their 18% average yield masks something shocking: they’re not only dangerous but they’re not even income investments! They’re something else entirely—and if you fail to pick up on that and buy, they could blow a hole in your retirement portfolio.

Let me explain, starting with…

Where We Found These 18% Payouts

The funds I’m talking about are called exchange-traded notes (ETNs), a close cousin of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), another asset class I recommended staying clear of in a September 12 article.… Read more

It’s a question I’m hearing from a lot of investors these days, and it just came up again a few days ago:

How should I prepare for the next market crash?

It’s not hard to see why folks are worried about their nest eggs, with the S&P 500 bubbling along at 24 times earnings and the Fed talking about faster rate hikes.

So today I’m going to dive into 3 simple strategies I use to protect and grow my own money, starting with…

“Crash Insurance” Tip No. 1: The Best Defense …

When I’m looking for stocks that hold their own in a crash or snap back for big gains when the dust settles, I zero in on three things: hefty discounts, share buybacks and quick dividend growth.… Read more

Is retail dead? It depends.

While Amazon.com (AMZN) is indeed making life miserable for many brick-and-mortar outfits, I’d like to show you five dividend stocks in the space that could be a month or two away from getting a big shot in the arm.

So say the holiday crystal balls.

Salesforce.com, which provides annual holiday industry insights, recently issued its 2017 forecast, saying this year’s Black Friday will be the “busiest digital shopping day in U.S. history” – outdoing even Cyber Monday. It’s a tech dream report that includes stats such as 40% of orders coming from mobile phones, and millennials using Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s (AAPL) Siri in droves.… Read more

It’s one of the first questions readers usually ask me:

“Don’t closed-end funds’ high dividend yields make them dangerous?”

It’s a good question, with CEFs offering yields of 8% or more. It’s also a general (but far from certain, as I’ll explain shortly) rule that higher yields bring a higher risk of a dividend cut.

Take Frontier Communications (FTR), a stock my colleague Brett Owens sounded the alarm on in April.

The telecom provider was yielding a whopping 16% before it slashed its dividend in June 2017. The stock plunged when the cut was announced:

Slashed Dividend, Slashed Share Price

FTR is yielding a whopping 20% now, thanks to its collapse in price (because you calculate yield by dividing the annual dividend rate into the current share price).… Read more

The term closed-end fund (CEF) is a bit of a double entendre. An unintended one, I’m sure – and one we can leverage for safe 6%, 7% and even 8% yields with upside to boot.

The “closed” in CEF technically means that the fund’s number of shares are fixed. Which is why these vehicles can have wild price swings above and below the values of their actual assets. (Good for us contrarian income seekers – we can buy below fair value to maximize our yields and upside.)

They are also closed in their actual communications with the financial world. Fund information is often limited (sometimes to one-page fact sheets) and it’s difficult to get management to talk to you.… Read more

You’ve probably heard the “wisdom” on mutual funds a million times.

It goes like this: mutual funds collect high fees and most still fail to beat the market, so why bother when you can buy a low-cost index fund, like the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) or the Vanguard 500 ETF (VOO), and tag along with the market’s performance?

To be fair, it hasn’t been a bad strategy. Look at the total return those funds have posted over the last five years:

Indexing Has Paid Off—But We Can Do Better

Nearly doubling your money in half a decade is nice—but does that really mean mutual funds are ready for the dustbin of history?… Read more