Some major—and almost totally ignored—news from Washington, D.C., is about to upend the biotech world, turning America into “the world’s pharmacy” in short order—and giving us a chance to buy a solid 6.8% dividend for just 91 cents on the dollar.

That might sound hard to believe for woebegone biotechs, which have fallen further than the S&P 500 this year, going by the performance of the benchmark iShares Biotechnology ETF (IBB). That’s despite the sector’s importance during the pandemic—and despite the fact that some 10,000 Americans turn 65 every day, sharply increasing demand for pharmaceuticals as the senior cohort grows.

Biotech Catches a Cold

The problem is that despite these tailwinds, biotech is weighed down by the same problems that are dragging on the rest of the economy: lower R&D funding as interest rates rise, and supply-chain issues that are hurting productivity.… Read more

Why chase the market when we can let 15% per year—every year—come to us?

This is the perfect time to buy what I call “hidden yield” investments. These are stocks that dish out dividends today. But, more notably, they have an important catalyst coming in the year ahead that will help boost their stock prices.

This trigger is so powerful that it sends these stocks sailing by 15% or more per year, every year. Which is truly great when other equities and even bonds are getting buried around us.

We’ll talk about these stocks and their “dividend spark” in a moment.… Read more

“Deglobalization” is the dividend trade of the 2020s. And we’re going to tap it for safe dividend growers with real assets and real cash flow.

I’ll drop two tickers in a second.

Signs that our interconnected world is coming unglued are everywhere. Supply chains are still a mess. Europe is getting set to ban (or slap a price cap on) Russian oil. Speaking of Putin, his immoral invasion of Ukraine is, er, not going well. He’s even going cap in hand to North Korea for spare parts for his ramshackle military!

Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi gazes across the Taiwan Strait, while shuttering his own economy (and vital trading ports) in pursuit of his insane zero-COVID policy.… Read more

Most folks don’t know it, but real estate has clobbered stocks in the long run, and it’s poised to pull off a win again in 2023.

And we dividend investors are nicely lined up to cash in, thanks to a fund throwing off a blockbuster 9.9% yield that’s the perfect play here. I’ll drop the name and ticker in a sec.

First, you read that right: real estate does outperform stocks over the long haul—and by no small amount, either! It’s clear as can be in this comparison between the SPDR Dow Jones REIT ETF (RWR), the index fund for publicly traded real estate investment trusts (REITs), and the S&P 500 over the last 20 years.… Read more

Utility stocks—the “OGs of dividend payers”—have sailed through 2022. We’ll highlight seven of them, yielding 4% or more, in a moment.

By the way, this sector-at-large has returned 4%, including dividends, year-to-date (YTD). While that may not make us rich, it is the best record on the scoreboard this side of energy:

Why utilities? As always, these stocks pay and they don’t drop as much in price as the broader market. A useful quality in a dumpster-fire market.

Utilities are expensive, however, They currently trade at nearly 21 times forward earnings—near their highest forward P/E in decades and well above the S&P 500 forward P/E of 17.7.… Read more

If you did any driving over the holiday weekend, you may have noticed that prices at the pump are much more manageable than they were just a few months ago. In fact, they recently hit their lowest level since mid-February.

That’s great for motorists, but has admittedly created plenty of pain for investors who thought the windfall profits in the oil patch were sustainable. Consider that the popular Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLE) made up of blue chip energy stocks is down almost 15% from its June high, while the S&P 500 on average has managed to post a small gain in the same period.… Read more

By now you’ve likely heard that September is the worst month for stocks. It’s all over the media! But September is also a great time to buy a unique type of dividend fund that cashes in when volatility rears up (these funds will pay you blockbuster yields north of 7%, too!).

I’m talking about a special type of closed-end fund (CEF) called a covered-call fund, which makes more money every time the market panics. They then turn that cash over to us in the form of a dividend that crushes anything you’d get on a blue-chip stock or Treasury.

Don’t let the jargon-y name throw you.… Read more

Peter is an investing legend. Dude collects $400,000 per year in dividend income.

He retired at age 53, by the way. From the finance industry, naturally. Peter wrote a book and cruised around as a public speaker.

The speaking fees and book royalties were gravy, no doubt. With $33,000 in dividend income coming in each month, I’m sure Peter does not sweat his bills.

Now what can we contrarian income investors learn from master dividend investor “Payout” Peter Thornhill?

Not much.

The guy has an $11 million portfolio. Of course his dividend cash flow is going to rock. It may only be 4%, but that’s more than enough when this is the pile he’s deploying:

A simpler investor can do just as well with a similar war chest.… Read more

We aren’t falling for this “head fake” oil plunge. Instead we’re buying what I like to call the “Biden barrel discount”— grabbing beaten-down oil stocks with surging dividends!

I’ll drop two tickers primed to ride oil’s next bounce higher in a second. First, though, here’s what I mean by the “Biden barrel discount”:

Sure, oil has pulled back on recession worries, but the US has also been releasing crude from its “emergency” supply, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). A cool one-hundred million barrels have been released in the past 12 months.

We’ve been buyers of the energy-price dip because:

1. The SPR release—or our “Biden barrel discount”—can’t  go on forever.

Whether you own a Treasury or the typical dividend stock these days, you’re still losing money after inflation.

I know what you’re thinking: tell me something I don’t know!

But there’s a solution hiding in plain sight: closed-end funds (CEFs), a widely overlooked (and publicly traded) asset class that often throws off rich payouts of 8% or more. We’ll do a deep dive into these scandalously overlooked income plays, and how they pay those big (and often monthly) dividends in a moment.

Here’s the top-line takeaway, though: by going with a CEF, you won’t have to sell the blue chips you own now.… Read more