Look, we’re all contrarians here at Contrarian Outlook. It’s right in the name, after all. But even we contrarians have to pick our battles. Because sometimes what sounds like a canny contrarian move can turn out to be, well, too cute by half.

A good example is buying counter to the VIX, which you may know as the market’s “fear gauge.” It’s a common contrarian belief that when the VIX is low (as it is today) and the market is relatively calm, it’s a good time to sell. And when the VIX is high, and mainstream investors are in a panic, it’s a good time to buy.… Read more

The Wall Street Journal Reports:

Gee, thanks. I have something to add, WSJ friends.

IT’S A BANKING CRISIS. DON’T BUY DIVIDEND ETFs AT ALL!

In a rising market, fine. I can hold my nose. Though, you know, even a popular ticker like Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD) is a lazy option that’ll cost you.

SCHD owns 104 dividend stocks and PepsiCo (PEP) is its top holding. PEP pays a piddly 2.6% but its yearly dividend growth is decent—not great but not AT&T (T) awful, either.… Read more

Let’s dive into two simple indicators that can tell us when a dividend stock is set to lurch higher. Once we’re through, I’m certain you’ll wonder why you never thought of them before.

Last time we tried them, in my Contrarian Income Report advisory, they delivered a quick 90% return (more on that below). And we’ve got another nice setup to put them to work again.

Short Selling Is Back in the News—But We Take a Different Approach

First up, short selling—a phrase that strikes fear into most dividend investors’ hearts, for a couple of (good!) reasons. The main one being that selling short (or selling a stock you’ve borrowed in hopes of buying it back later at a lower price) can expose you to infinite losses, for a simple reason: share prices can theoretically rise without limit.… Read more

Let’s say we want to quit working and attain financial freedom—not in decades, but in just a few years. Or heck, maybe less. How do we do it?

One “must-have” is the need to clock out on dividends alone. It’s the only way to retire without being forced to sell stocks into a downturn, shriveling our wealth and income at the same time.

To hit our “dividends-only” retirement goal, then, we’d need a minimum yield of 8% on our $500K. That way we’re assured of banking at least $40,000 in dividends a year. But with inflation still “sticky,” we’d ideally like to do better—pulling in around $50,000 or more.… Read more

The best thing about a multi-year bear market? The bargains.

Today we’ll talk dividend deals. Big payers. Stocks yielding up to 10.3% and trading for as little as three-times free cash flow (FCF).

That’s right—3X FCF!

Profits are Fake, Cash Flow is Real

Wall Street accountants can “adjust” just about every number in a 10-Q. “Adjusted earnings.” “Adjusted EBITDA.” Heck, I’ve even seen “adjusted revenues.” But it’s next to impossible to “adjust” cash. Cash flow is, well, cash flow.

Also, cash is ultimately what pays us. Dividends aren’t paid out of sales, or even paper earnings, but out of real cash.… Read more

We’ve written before about the big disconnect between the rising stock market and (ridiculously!) negative media coverage we’ve seen over the last 16 months. Well, the media is at it again, this time with the whole First Republic Bank (FRC) fiasco.

And we contrarians are going to keep using overtorqued coverage as our guide to grabbing big discounts and steady dividends in closed-end funds (CEFs) and other assets.

Before we go too far, there are a couple things we need to keep in mind with this FRC mess: first, as was the case with other troubled banks, including SVB and Credit Suisse, a buyer (or the government) swooped in and managed the problem.… Read more

Hey kid, want some candy?

Don’t worry about the wrapper. It, um, came like that.

No? No candy for you? You’re sure?

OK fine. Maybe you’re not hungry, but how about this 31% dividend?

Don’t worry. The stock made its last dividend payment of $0.27 just fine.

No? No 31% yield for you? You’re sure?

OK fine. And, honestly, smart move. I would imagine that January dividend payment is the last one we ever see from First Republic Bank (FRC).

Fundamentally, FRC (and other banks, for this matter) are flawed, perhaps fatally so. They are not paying competitive rates.… Read more

We’ve got a once-in-5-year buy window open to us in one of the highest-yielding investments out there.

And (for once) we can thank the Fed for these cheap 8%+ payouts!

I’m talking about closed-end funds (CEFs), a corner of the market where rich 8%+ yields (and monthly payouts) are the norm.

These (too) often-ignored funds are set to spike because the last time Powell & Co. acted like they are now, CEFs’ prices soared—and they handed their lucky investors big price gains to go along with their huge dividends.

If 2023 Is 2019 Redux, CEFs Will Explode Higher

To see what I’m getting at here, think back to late 2018.… Read more

With the recent pullback from the market’s high this year, we’ve got a nice second chance to buy some terrific dividend stocks cheap. But don’t waste your time with lame payers like General Mills (GIS), with its 2.5% yield. Or the miserly 2.1% you get from a so-called “Dividend Aristocrat” like McDonald’s (MCD).

Even though inflation is trending downward, it’s still at 5%. That’s well ahead of these pathetic blue-chip yields—and with the economy still performing well, it could be a while yet before it slows meaningfully from here.

Bottom line: We just can’t afford to own low payers like these any longer.… Read more

Select bank stocks may be cheap, but why settle for 2% to 3% yields?

Let’s really bang on the bargain bin and for dividends between 8.3% and 9.4%. These yields are available thanks to the current banking fears.

Fortunately, these payouts are more secure than vanilla investors appreciate. Hence, the dividend deal.

A Better Way to Play Banks

I wrote a few weeks ago about how mainstream investors are trying to time a bottom in banks.

Fair enough. Banks are extremely cheap right now by a well-known measure of long-term value: CAPE (cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings), which is the price divided not by the past year of earnings, but the past 10 years.… Read more