We’re halfway through 2023, and many closed-end funds (CEFs) have ridden this year’s market updraft while delivering huge dividends to members of my CEF Insider service.

Yet we contrarian income seekers are still in a strong position, as traditionally slow-moving CEF buyers tiptoe back into the market, giving us extra time to pick up our favorite CEFs at deep discounts to net asset value (NAV).

In the June issue of CEF Insider, which will be released tomorrow, we’re going to discuss specific portfolio picks that are best positioned to profit from the trends I see unfolding over the rest of the year.… Read more

Let’s talk about legitimate financial engineering today. An easy, real and (honestly) no-brainer move to boost a timid 2.5% yield into an 8.4% dividend.

Just type this ticker, not that ticker, and we’ve got it. An 8.4% dividend. Pay up, Wall Street—and give us a 5% discount to boot!

The Wolf of Wall Street would term this type of move fugayzi. Slang for BS. The suits ripping off the little guy.

This reverse fugayzi is our revenge. The wolves are scavenging for this 2.5% yield. We’ll buy the same stock, at a discount, and boost our dividend to an elite 8.4%.… Read more

Too many folks are letting so-called “safe” yields on Treasuries distract them from the real action these days: 10 “stealth” bond plays yielding way more—I’m talking 9%+ payouts here—that Jay Powell just put on sale.

These deals won’t last: As the Fed pauses rate hikes, bond yields will roll over, driving up prices—and our chance will be gone.

These 10 Bond Deals (Yielding 9%+) Crush Treasuries

These 10 picks, which we’ll get into below, are bond-focused closed-end funds (CEFs), and they’re miles ahead of 2-year Treasuries on every count.

Dividends? These funds yield twice (and more) the 4.7% that 2-year Treasuries pay.… Read more

Forget the latest blather from the Fed: folks just trying to get a decent income stream are still getting a raw deal these days. Treasuries pay 3.7%. Stocks? Just 1.6%.

Too bad inflation is at 4%, so our real returns are negative on both!

Sure, stocks do give us price upside, but we have to sell to get a decent income stream, shriveling our portfolio and our dividends as we do.

We can do better with high-yielding closed-end funds (CEFs). These days, plenty of CEFs yield 10%+. The three we’ll cover below do even better, yielding 11.1% on average. That means these CEFs are beating the S&P 500’s historical return in dividends alone.… Read more

We contrarians like to follow the insiders. Those “in the know” who buy and sell their own stocks based on value.

These “smart money” types fade sentiment. Insiders tend to buy low and sell high.

And, to be honest, we really don’t care when they sell. Maybe they were short of cash for a new yacht! Or a vacation home. Or a private jet. You get the idea.

More importantly, these insiders only buy for one reason, and one reason alone:

They believe their stocks are going to go up.

On that note, let’s discuss a few dividends yielding up to 11.9%—because the people who know the companies best are putting their money where their mouths are.… Read more

Bill Gross is one of the great characters in the investment world: flamboyant, bold—and generally disliked by those who worked for him.

But his PIMCO Total Return Fund saw over 9% annualized returns in its first decade, despite being a supposedly “boring” bond fund.

Those gains made Gross one of the most powerful people on Wall Street—so much so that during the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007 to 2009, the government called on PIMCO to help take care of the toxic assets that had sparked the worst recession in a century.

PIMCO’s Contrarian Subprime Play Paid Off Big

Gross, for his part, did help, thereby helping investors earn even more money.… Read more

I hear that robots are standing by to run the world.

Fine—just have them send us a nice, neat report on our dividends. Preferably daily. Thanks.

Seriously, my fellow contrarian, enough with the hype. I tried, albeit briefly, to use ChatGPT as a research assistant for this column. Really it was a softball that I knew the answer to:

Hello ChatGPT, how much did iShares 20+ Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) drop in 2022?

The answer, of course, was 31%, but the robot hadn’t been fed the info so didn’t know. I lost interest and carried on as usual, “manually” verifying my numbers.… Read more

All the “basic” investors out there are busy chasing this AI-driven rally. It’s like the crypto and meme-stock messes of 2021 all over again!

We’re not following them. Instead, we’re zeroing in on three dividend growers (including one that’s grown payouts 300% in a decade and another that’s yielding 15% for long-term holders) that have been unfairly left behind.

Before we talk tickers, let me say that it’s hard to overstate just how much of this rally is tied to AI. Check out the gains in AI darlings Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL) and especially NVIDIA (NVDA) in less than six months.… Read more

Few folks know it, but there’s a way to tap the surging AI trend for a growing 10% dividend. Better still, this monster “AI-powered payout” comes our way monthly.

That’s a far sight better than what most folks are doing these days: focusing on a handful of dividend paying blue chip tech stocks like Microsoft (MSFT).

There’s nothing wrong with Microsoft, of course. But it does yield just 0.8%, or about half what the typical S&P 500 stock pays. It makes up for some of that with a dividend that’s growing like a weed—up just shy of 200% in the last decade—but what if you want a decent yield now?… Read more

We contrarians profit on analyst dislike.

Note that I did not say like. Dislike is where the dividend money is at!

Analyst ratings are a wonderful buy signal. Vanilla investors purchase payers that are widely liked—and wonder why every downgrade dents their pocketbook.

We don’t care about popularity. Heck, we prefer stocks that are far from being in analyst good graces.

Give us the disgraces. And we’ll collect our dividends while we sit back and wait for the analyst upgrades to follow.

It’s not easy to find the “uncool kids” on Wall Street. The school of S&P 500 is a joke.… Read more