Vanilla investors fixate on price. We contrarians know better.

It’s all about the NAV. Net asset value, baby.

Price is what people pay at a given moment. But people panic. Many like to buy high—and sell low!

NAV, on the other hand, is what something is worth at that same moment. Price and NAV can become disconnected, especially during emotional market moments. When this happens, it is often a buying opportunity for careful contrarians like us.

Let’s take a pop quiz. Think about the funds you hold in your portfolio. What was your top performing NAV for the month of April?… Read more

It’s no secret this economy is slowing—at least in the near term. That’s given us contrarians a (time-limited!) buy window on the “dividend twofer” we’re going to dive into today.

One of the tickers we’ll talk about below pays a sturdy 7% now. The other yields 4.9% and sports a source of upside no one has noticed (except us, of course!).

Both are utility plays, which tend to rise as the economy slows, lowering interest rates as it does. Let’s get into this opportunity, starting with last week’s GDP report, which said, yes, the US economy did shrink to start the year.… Read more

We just saw the first real signs that the “vibecession” is becoming something more—and this is our cue to pluck from our portfolios (or avoid adding!) three funds that are way into bubble territory. (Names and tickers below.)

Let’s start with that slowdown signal.

In this chart, from Apollo Global Management, we see that the total number of Americans who are only making the minimum payments on their credit cards is at its highest level in over a decade. This tells us that inflation and a slowdown in the job market are putting direct (and increasing) pressure on household budgets.

There are other signs, too.… Read more

Dividends over drama, please. Like these five steady stocks that yield 7.2%, on average.

Back in school they taught us that to increase returns, investors had to take on additional risk. This was a financial engineering class at Cornell University, by the way. The prof should have known better, but he didn’t, because he was a researcher and not an actual investor.

It’s a common mistake in academia, and those who try to invest “buy the book.” The book says more beta means more returns. Well, this text is often wrong!

Big dividends and low volatility are a beautiful combination.

Volatility can be measured several ways.… Read more

Are US stocks set to lose out to the rest of the world forever? That’s what the press would have us believe. But we contrarian dividend investors are looking at this from a different angle.

Our strategy? Buy America when the rest of the world is selling.

It’s worked before, and we have every reason to believe it will work now, too. So let’s talk about it—and the best way to position ourselves for US stocks’ next leg up, with a healthy dividend payout on the side.

Press Panics, US Stocks Bounce

It’s funny, but not surprising, that the moment “sell America” became a headline earlier this year, US stocks started to recover.… Read more

If the April lows hold, the S&P 500 will clock a 19% peak to trough drop on the tariff news. The drawdown could have been worse—if the bond market had not broken!

President Trump was initially resolute in the face of a declining stock market. Wall Street was desperately, unsuccessfully searching for a “Trump Put”—a save from the decline by the White House. Trump, however, likened the levies to a necessary remedy:

“Sometimes you have to take medicine.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, meanwhile, must have silenced his phone for a few weeks while his old Wall Street contacts texted and texted (and called) and texted.… Read more

So far in this trade war, there is one “winner” left on the board: gold. The barbarous relic has glittered amidst the financial carnage.

And while everyone is climbing aboard now, we contrarians see a better buy window ahead. Below, we’ll “dig into” 4 tickers to get ready, ranked from worst to first (hint: our top play has a dividend that soars with gold prices).

Before we get to that, though, let’s look at what’s really going on here—starting with Treasuries. Yields on the 10-year spiked from sub-4% to 4.5% in a matter of days at the height of the trade war tantrum.… Read more

At my CEF Insider service, we focus on the long term, picking up closed-end funds that give us the capital we need to grow our wealth, plus the high income (I’m talking 8%+ yields here) we need to gain—and keep!—our financial freedom.

That said, there’s no denying that one particular investment (that’s known for neither income nor long-term wealth building!) is getting a lot of attention these days: gold.

So let’s talk about the yellow metal and why we’ve avoided it at CEF Insider, despite its recent rise. We’ll also look at a closed-end fund (CEF) that looks like a good play on gold but is, in fact, far from it.… Read more

Let’s talk about consumer staples dividends today. If we’re heading for a slowdown then we need to be picky about our payouts. When the economy slows, discretionary spending is often punted but staples continue to be bought.

Today we’ll discuss five dividends between 4.2% and 10.7%. These “must have” products can provide our portfolios with important recession-resistant qualities.

Year-to-date staples have been flat and, in this market, that is great. Their sideways action has lapped the over-owned S&P 500 this year:

Consumer Staples: Doing Exactly What We Expect Them to Do

Consumer staples stocks tend to have more stable operations that result in more stable share performance in turbulent markets.… Read more

Sometimes there’s a dividend play out there that we love—but it’s just the wrong time to buy it.

That’s the story with an 11.6%-paying closed-end fund (CEF) that’s pretty well-known (for a CEF, that is!). It’s the Gabelli Equity Trust (GAB), run by Mario Gabelli, whom you may have seen on the cable news channels over the years.

To get at why we’re dodging this well-run fund now, we need to first talk about a phrase you may have heard a lot more from said business channels lately: “soft data.”

Ring a bell? Basically it refers to numbers that are more about feelings (or “vibes” as the kids call them these days) that people have about the economy: surveys of consumers and companies, expectations of economic conditions in the future, that sort of thing.… Read more