5 Unloved Investments To Triple Your Income in 2017

Michael Foster, Investment Strategist
Updated: February 17, 2017

Let’s say you want to lock in a passive retirement income of $80,000 per year.

If you go with what most investors mistakenly see as the safest route, long-term US Treasuries, you’re going to need $3.3 million. That’s because 10-year Treasuries are paying a wimpy 2.4% interest rate today.

Investors who buy Treasuries often shrug off numbers like that. “So what?” they say, adding that Treasuries are about as low-risk as you can get.

Too bad they’re wrong.

If you buy into Treasuries and want to resell them before they mature—perhaps to deal with a big expense that comes out of nowhere—you have a pretty good chance of losing money.… Read more

One Click for the 50 Best Dividend Growers

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: February 16, 2017

Eric Ervin was making his rich client so much money that he suggested: “Hey, why don’t you just quit your job?”

The investor saw the opportunity to scale Eric’s “secret strategy” – and he wanted to help invest!

Both guys knew the power of dividend growth investing. But Eric’s second-level insight is what made them both a boatload of cash. He figured out a way to bet purely on the higher payouts – as close to a “sure thing” as you’ll ever see in stocks. Here’s what I mean.

Blue chip stocks tend to raise their dividend every year. Even if it’s a token increase, it keeps shareholders happy.… Read more

5 High-Tech Cash Cows Yielding Up To 6%

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: February 15, 2017

The technology sector has long been the growth investor’s best friend, with tomorrow’s innovations fueling the breakneck gains necessary to generate big price returns. Traditionally there hasn’t been much to interest us dividend investors – until now.

Some tech companies have finally grown up. And while their profit growth has slowed, their shareholder returns have actually accelerated. These companies literally make more money than they know what to do with – so they are increasingly dishing it back as dividends.

Here are five tech titans with big cash flows paying yields up to 6%.

Qualcomm (QCOM)
Dividend Yield: 4%

Qualcomm (QCOM) has wandered its way back into 4% yield territory, but right now, the wireless technology specialist is in extremely choppy waters.… Read more

4 Dividend-Growth Stocks to Own for the Next 10 Years

Michael Foster, Investment Strategist
Updated: February 14, 2017

In my last article, I talked about Apple’s (AAPL) destiny as a Dividend Aristocrat. The company doesn’t have even five years’ worth of payouts under its belt, but there are clear indicators that it will never struggle to pay dividends.

In a moment, I’ll show you how you can combine Tim Cook’s company with 3 other stocks and get a 4.6% yield in 10 years or less—and triple-digit upside in the meantime.

First, back to Apple.

The company’s strong—and rising—free cash flow and its operating margin, which has surged over the last 20 years and stayed at historically high levels, indicate that Apple has turned into a cash-producing machine investors should not ignore.… Read more

3 Monthly Dividend Stocks to Buy Now – and 1 to Avoid

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: February 13, 2017

Plenty of investors ask me about monthly dividend stocks—and with good reason. After all, who doesn’t like their dividends rolling in when their bills do?

It’s a heck of a lot easier than trying to manage the uneven income stream you get from a portfolio of solely quarterly payers. But convenience isn’t the only reason to like stocks that pay dividends monthly.

Another is that monthly payouts signal a confident management team. Shareholders revere dividends, after all, and if management’s fine with getting them hooked on a monthly cash stream, they must be sure they can keep those checks coming—without any nasty surprises.… Read more

This 50% Dividend Grower Is Hiding in Plain Sight

Michael Foster, Investment Strategist
Updated: February 10, 2017

There are two ways to get big dividends: you can buy stocks that boast high current yields, or you can buy stocks that consistently grow their payouts.

A well-balanced portfolio will include both types of companies, with dividend-growth stocks being the cornerstone of a longer-term income strategy.

Still, investors sometimes get frustrated with dividend growers because to get their outsized payout growth, you often have to settle for a low current yield. And why buy a risky asset that yields 1% when you can get a long-term Treasury that pays 2%?

There are two answers to this question. The first is that Treasuries aren’t risk-free.… Read more

The 2 Best, and 2 Worst, Dow Dividend Stocks Today

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: August 4, 2017

The classic “Dogs of the Dow” strategy advises buying the 10 highest-yielding Dow Jones Industrial Average stocks, then holding onto them for a year. The idea is that higher yields are a signal of a beaten-up share price – and that because we’re buying a stable blue-chip with a stable customer base, investors will eventually bid the stock back up when the business cycle turns up again.

But we can further improve on this effective yet somewhat “dumb” strategy with a bit of second-level analysis. After all, some of these companies have business models that are actually aging in dog years!… Read more

5 Stocks for 17% Returns This Year (& Beyond)

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: February 8, 2017

A few weeks ago we discussed how you can make 12% annually, forever, from stocks. Now let’s apply those lessons to 2017, and highlight five that should do even better (17%+ returns) this year (and likely beyond).

Remember, projecting our returns from any given stock is simple. We simply add together the three ways it can pay us:

  1. Its current dividend.
  2. A future dividend hike.
  3. Share repurchases.

It also helps if the stock is inexpensive, as buybacks deliver more bang for management’s buck. So let’s stick with stocks that are dirt-cheap, trading for 10-times free cash flow (FCF) or less for this exercise.… Read more

2 Dividend Stocks to Buy – and 2 to Sell Now

Michael Foster, Investment Strategist
Updated: February 8, 2017

We all know financial stocks have gone through the roof since President Trump’s win. So the question becomes: what do we do with these companies now?

There’s no one answer for every financial stock, of course. Some are still great, undervalued buys—but there are two that have gotten grossly overvalued and should be avoided, or sold if you hold them. (Below, I’ll reveal 2 better high-yield stocks to buy instead.)

These 2 Financials Are Headed for Trouble

Bank of America (BAC) is the first bank on my hit list.

A Breathtaking Rise
BAC-Post-Election-Chart

After spending most of 2016 in the red, BAC has soared more than 37% in three months.… Read more

4 Stocks to Buy for Big February Dividend Hikes

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: February 6, 2017

Today, I want to talk to you about my favorite strategy for beating the market and building long-term wealth.

If you’ve been reading my regular columns on Forbes and ContrarianOutlook.com, you probably already know what it is: buy dividend growth. (I’ll name 4 individual stocks that should be on your list now in just a moment.)

Because as I’ve written before, stocks that regularly hike their payouts outperform any other kind of company over time. You can give yourself a bigger edge if you invest in companies that surprise the market with bigger-than-expected dividend hikes.

Take Cisco Systems (CSCO), which “accelerated” its quarterly payout last February: after three years of $0.02- and $0.03-a-year increases, Cisco “went big,” boosting its dividend by $0.05, or 23.8%.… Read more