Oil prices picked up this week on the promise that Saudi Arabia and Russia would coordinate a cut in production. But surprise, surprise – there’s already speculation that they’re both going to cheat.

That’s going to keep oil prices low – and it’s going to threaten the dividends of many producers, both here and abroad. For some reason, many energy management teams believe that this inventory glut and price devaluation cannot last. Apparently they forgot what prices looked like pre-2005:

As long as money managers are making bullish bets on oil, the price is going to stay low or head lower.… Read more

It’s easy to beat the stock market – just buy stocks in companies that pay dividends, and boost their payouts every year.

While dividends help you “cash out” of your investment over time, the annual raises are what really make you money. Let me explain…

Even after a 15% pullback, the S&P 500 yields just 2.3% today. Which means if you buy an index fund today, and you never saw a dividend increase, it’d take you more than 40 years to get your initial investment back in cash.

Fortunately companies with growing earnings often do pass their higher profits along to shareholders.… Read more

Slowly but surely, investors are once again prioritizing dividends.

After suffering a full-on panic attack over the Fed’s interest rate hike last year—and ditching high-yielding investments like real estate investment trusts (REITs) in the process—they’re having a change of heart.

You can see it in the performance of the Vanguard REIT Index Fund (VNQ), an ETF we’ll examine in more detail below: so far in 2016, VNQ has returned 2% versus just 0.5% for the S&P 500.

Call it a late realization that the rate “liftoff” is mostly a non-event for REITs. Because even if the Fed follows through on its plan to raise rates this year (a big “if” in light of the wavering global economy and cowed US inflation), you’ll still be waiting a very long time for safer vehicles like Treasuries to play in the same league as REITs throwing off yields of 6% or more.… Read more

Business development companies (or BDCs) have been hit hard over the past few quarters. Those with large energy investments have seen their stock prices plunge along with oil.

But this is a love-hate story for investors. Even as these stocks have grown more speculative, these issues have garnered even more attention for their fat dividends. Many BDCs now have yields north of 10%.

Unfortunately, first-level investors tend to flock to the riskiest BDCs, because they have the highest stated yields.

Like many contrarians, I’m an income investor who’s always on the lookout for a good value stock. I love buying stocks of unloved companies at a bargain.… Read more

If you think you’re too late to profit from e-commerce bonanza, think again.

Because even though the first web-based purchase was made more than 20 years ago, online shopping is still growing at a breathtaking pace, with a 15% expansion in 2015 alone.

But despite that fast growth, web-based purchases only made up 7.4% of total US retail sales in the third quarter, according to the Census Bureau, so the trend has plenty of room to run yet.

Of Picks, Shovels and Clicks

When most people think of e-commerce, the first name that leaps to mind is Amazon.com (AMZN). There’s good reason for that: according to Macquarie Research, the retail giant accounted for more than half of all e-commerce growth last year.… Read more

If the market’s winter of discontent has a silver lining, it’s this: dividend yields have lurched skyward, while value measures such as price-to-earnings ratios have sunk.

Translation: now’s the time to snap up top-notch dividend-payers at fire sale prices.

But there’s a common mistake you must avoid at times like this: simply seeking out stocks with high yields and low P/E’s and thinking your job is done. That’s because many of these companies are “yield traps”: their earnings and cash flow can’t back up their hefty payouts.

When the inevitable dividend cut comes—dragging the share price down with it—these investors will be left holding a very empty bag.… Read more

Top-20 hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management just announced heavy losses last year, and a tough start to 2016. The fund is currently down a little over 11 percent YTD in 2016, after losing 20.5 percent in 2015.

The problem, CEO Bill Ackman explains: “We believe that our continued negative outperformance in the first few weeks of the year relates primarily to forced selling of our holdings by investors whose stakes overlap with our own.”

I’m guessing that’s his way of admitting his market timing hasn’t been the best of late. And his short-term focus is hurting the timing of at least one company he’s currently involved with.… Read more