Everyone wants to be a contrarian investor. But in practice, most people buy more near tops and sell shares low.

Our human nature becomes tricky during times like these. Markets are ticking near all-time highs and many investors fear “missing out” on the next leg higher.

If you’re a premium subscriber of mine, your portfolio should be in good shape. It’s mostly to fully invested and has had a great run over the past twelve months.

But—you may have some spare cash that you’re staring at. Or dividends waiting to be reinvested.

Should we buy now? Or wait (hope) for a pullback?… Read more

Let’s cut the Fed-babble and call things how they really are. Because what happened last week means a lot for our dividends—and whether we’ll be able to count on them in the future.

(In a moment, we’ll hit up three stocks that are perfect buys in today’s “Fed-driven” economy—they pay dividends up to four times bigger than those of the S&P 500.)

Last week we learned that:

• The economy is roaring, with GDP up 6.4% in March from a year ago—that’s the kind of number you expect from a developing country like Vietnam, not the world’s biggest economy, yet …

• The Fed’s money printer will STILL go “Brrrrrrr…” Jay Powell made no bones about it after last Wednesday’s Fed meeting: his massive bond purchases and zero-point-nothing interest rates are here to stay.

There’s a “retirement shortcut” far too many people ignore—and it could let you hang ’em up a lot sooner than you think (and with a lot more income, too).

Retirement Investing: Most People Go Wrong at Step 1

When it comes to retirement investing, most folks lean heavily on dividend-paying S&P 500 stocks, particularly those with above-average dividend yields. And if you don’t want to manage a blue-chip stock portfolio on your own, no problem: Wall Street has you covered with the many ETFs it offers.

But this is the wrong route for a number of reasons—the main one being lame dividends!… Read more

What’s better than a 6% yield paid every quarter?

An 8% annual yield—paid every month—of course.

These hidden gems aren’t easy to find, but they are out there. While 99% of the market’s dividend payers dish out dollars every quarter or longer, it is possible to find dividends that match up with our monthly bills.

Monthly dividends can be a “must have” in retirement. While those in the workforce can cash a check once or twice a month, retirees don’t have active income. (That’s the point of retirement—less required activity!)

Our leisure and financial security is possible. We simply need our money to work harder for us.… Read more

Infrastructure spending is back in vogue, and we’ve got a chance to grab a piece of it tax-free.

That would be through municipal bonds, investments most people see as sleepy (though I have no idea why) but are poised to roll as President Biden’s $2-trillion infrastructure package (or some version of it) becomes law. That’s because the law will usher in an explosion of new “muni” bonds—and there are select actively managed closed-end funds (CEFs) ready to pick up the best ones.

By buying them now, we can nicely front run this muni-bond wave.

Tax Savings Can Boost Your Payout 20% (or More)

The best part of buying muni bonds (which are issued by states, cities and some non-profit entities, like hospitals, to fund infrastructure) is that the income they generate is 100% tax-free.… Read more

Nick Patterson was one smart dude. Math genius, stats wiz and perhaps the top code breaker for the British government for many years.

But even he couldn’t figure out how his new employer was minting so much money.

Patterson joined up with hedge fund manager Jim Simons and his “math dream team” in 1993. Simons was a renowned mathematician who plucked top academic talent from leading universities in setting up one of the world’s first major “quant” funds.

“Quant” is of course slang for “quantitative.” These guys developed math models and built computer programs that profited from clues delivered by price action alone.… Read more

Fact: there are still lots of big, cheap and safe dividends out there—but they’re going fast as this market floats higher.

So today we’re going to get right to it and look at four options for your portfolio now, ranked from worst to first.

“Worst to First” Income Play No. 4: 10-Year Treasuries

The 10-year Treasury offers a “safety feature” mainstream investors love: no matter what happens, you’ll get your principal back after 10 years.

That’s actually a trap, though, because inflation gnaws at your nest egg the whole time, and your yield—1.6% today—won’t help you: it’s 40% below the rate of inflation, which jumped 2.6% year over year in March!… Read more

In investing, it pays to follow the old adage from Warren Buffett: never put your money in anything you don’t understand—especially if no one can explain it.

We’ve seen the consequences of ignoring that advice play out with a mutual fund called the Infinity Q Diversified Alpha Fund (IQDAX). If you’re not familiar with the story, IQDAX investors were sideswiped when an independent analysis of the fund showed it had lost $500 million.

Losses are part of the game in investing, of course, and the fact that the fund was worth $1.7 billion means it won’t go to zero because of this situation.… Read more

Dividend growth is back. And we have a great opportunity to “front run” 26 upcoming dividend increases.

And if you’re wondering what exactly is so exciting about a 9% dividend hike. Well, it’s the secret to 900% total returns—I’ll explain in a moment.

First, let’s appreciate the payout raise trend, which is currently our best friend as dividend investors. This “hike-to-cut” ratio has rallied to its highest level in years:

As I alluded to, payout increases have a habit of making their investors wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. We can think of this as “the dividend magnet.”

Here’s how the magnet produced 900% returns over a decade.… Read more

One of my favorite quotes about closed-end funds (CEFs) comes from Richard Thaler. When writing about why investors bought some CEFs for more than they’re worth, he simply said: “There are idiots,” and that this was “the only satisfactory answer to this … puzzle.”

That, er, very direct, quote comes to mind now because these days, it’s actually pretty easy to pick up CEFs (which yield around 7%, on average) trading at nice discounts to net asset value (NAV, or the value of their underlying holdings). There are literally hundreds of examples, some of them extreme.

The most discounted equity CEF trades at a whopping 26.7% discount as I write this.… Read more