Over longer time periods, dividend stock prices tend to follow their dividends—for better or for worse.

Sometimes, the stock price gets there first. This can be a race to the sky, in the case of a rising dividend. Or a race to the basement, when a payout is about to be cut.

For example, we had been concerned about Kraft Heinz’s (KHC) dividend for years. Income investors “sniffed out” the inevitable payout cut before the lower quarterly dish became official:

Kraft’s Stock Price Tipped Off Its Dividend Cut

Investors waste no time ditching a troubled dividend when a firm has hacked its payout in the past.… Read more

These are trying times, so let’s talk about how we’re going to protect our retirement (and our families’ futures) as market volatility increases.

The Ukraine crisis is, of course, first and foremost a humanitarian tragedy the world is racing to respond to, as it should. It’s also being felt well beyond the borders of Russia and Ukraine, with rising energy prices fueling inflation fears, which are, in turn, causing panic in global markets.

High, Monthly CEF Dividends Help Stabilize Our Portfolios

At times like these, closed-end funds (CEFs) are a good investment choice because their high dividends help us meet our income needs while volatility increases: as I write this, our CEF Insider portfolio is delivering an 8% yield, on average, and we’re getting a predictable income stream, too, with 16 of our 21 holdings paying us monthly.… Read more

We’ll talk about protecting our retirement portfolios—and finding safe dividend stocks—in a moment. But first, let’s appreciate the Ukrainian woman who offered sunflower seeds to Russian soldiers in her neighborhood.

You’re occupants.
You’re fascists.
Take these seeds and put them in your pocket
So at least sunflowers will grow when you all lie down here.

She gave the soldiers a full minute of nonstop verbal barrage. You can watch it with captions here.

Warning, her language is not safe for work—which makes the interaction all the more special. (Hat tip to Ukraine’s Twitter feed for the post. Their government has put on a master class in social media marketing over the past week.)… Read more

I’m about to reveal my very best strategy for pocketing 20%+ upside (and 7.8%+ dividends) from high-yielding closed-end funds (CEFs).

It’s a “rinse and repeat” move that can help you grab the biggest gains from these potent income investments, lock in those wins, then sidestep the pullbacks. (I’ll also show you two ridiculously cheap CEFs throwing off massive yields up to 11.4%.)

It’s the perfect time to put this strategy in play because the Ukraine mess, and the broader market dumpster fire, have set us up with some sweet deals in CEFs.

The One (and Only) Predictor of CEF Upside

Besides massive dividends, CEFs stand out because it’s easy to tell if they’re truly oversold and ready to gap higher.… Read more

With the swift stock-market decline we’ve seen since the start of 2022, and now, you can be forgiven if your stomach tightens just a bit when you go to check your retirement account.

So today I’m going to give you my three best tips for securing your hard-earned cash—and even better, locking in a dividend stream you can easily live off of in retirement. And no, you won’t need a seven-figure nest egg to pull off what I’m going to show you now.

Step #1: Diversify the Right Way

You no doubt know that diversification is key to protecting your wealth, but if you only go halfway, you’re hurting your gain potential (and exposing yourself to potentially severe losses).… Read more

The S&P 500 is about as pricey as it ever gets. It’s also in freefall as I write.

This is good news for anyone looking for a future bargain. The plunge, however, is really bad news for most retirees who don’t read this column. They tend to own nothing except “America’s ticker” via the SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF (SPY).

At 24-times earnings (P/E ratio), SPY is expensive. After all, who has 24 years to wait to get paid back?

But the actual payback period is even worse for SPY. Most of its firms don’t pay out all of their profits as dividends.… Read more

Far too many investors ignore dividends, even in a bull market. When there’s a correction, like the one we’ve seen over the last few weeks, they flip the script, making safe cash dividends a lot more popular.

Luckily for us, there’s one ignored corner of the market where we can grab payouts that triple what the typical stock dribbles out.

That would be in municipal bonds, or “munis” for short. We hold one fund that owns such bonds, the RiverNorth Managed-Duration Municipal Income Fund (RMM), in our .

Munis are a kind of debt instrument issued by local governments to fund infrastructure.… Read more

We contrarians make our money by buying when things look bleak. We did that, and we’re up 149% on this excellent energy dividend.

But our strategy has suddenly become popular. Heck, I saw a front-page piece on Bloomberg.com outlining our “Crash ‘n Rally” energy strategy!

So, what do we do now?

We’ll talk about next steps for energy dividends in a moment. First, let’s recap how we got here so that we can decide if we want to order another quadruple-shot of Texas tea or step aside of the mainstream herd.

In April 2020, crude oil prices crashed. They actually hit negative territory, which means producers were paying people to take the goo off their hands.… Read more

With the market melting down, dividend stocks have built-in cushions. Unlike profitless tech shares, which rarely pay, our dividend payers’ yields go up when prices go down.

The result? Stronger price action for our favorite yield plays, thanks to attention from NASDAQ refugees.

But we need to be extra vigilant about dividend cuts. They, after all, provide a sickening “double whammy.” We lose our cash flow and some capital as the shares get repriced lower post-cut. And the drop can be even worse in panicked markets like today’s.

AT&T Investors Suffer Over and Over—From 1 Dividend Cut

AT&T (T) is a prime example.… Read more

If you’re relying on income from your portfolio, you know how annoying it is to manage a collection of quarterly dividend payers.

Take five of the most popular dividend stocks on the market today: Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Home Depot (HD), Procter & Gamble (PG) and Bank of America (BAC).

These are staples of every investor’s portfolio, but a route to a steady income stream they are not! Here’s what your monthly payouts would look like with this quintet if you held, say, $100,000 in each one, for a $500,000 total investment:

Source: CEF Insider

That’s a nightmare!… Read more