Our 10%-Yielding Contrarian Play on Overdone Inflation Fears

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Look, this worry that inflation will stick around forever is ridiculously overblown. It’s only a matter of time before it settles out.

Heck, it’s already starting to happen: Last week’s personal consumption expenditures (PCE) print for January—a fav of the Federal Reserve—tells the tale. The headline number came in at 2.8%, as expected. That’s still above the Fed’s 2% target.

But the core number of 2.4% (excluding more volatile categories like food and energy) was the lowest since February 2021.

We looked at one way to profit from overwrought fears last week: low-volatility dividend-payers like utilities and food makers. Many folks see these as “bond proxies.”… Read more

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It’s prime time to grab two bond funds tossing out 8%+ dividends now—and we have the Fed (of all things!) to thank for this opportunity.

Last year, as we all know (too well), the Fed raised interest rates at the fastest pace in history, bringing them to their highest point in nearly 20 years. As a result, many corporate bonds (represented by the red line above) are yielding a lot more than they used to.

Take, for instance, two bonds from Apple (AAPL), one issued in August 2020 (when the world looked a lot more precarious than it does today, as we still had an unresolved pandemic worldwide) and one issued in May 2023.… Read more

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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

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Right now we’ve got a terrific setup happening in Treasuries—and we’re going to use it to “flip” the near-4% yield the 10-year pays into a gaudy 7.9%+, paid monthly, to boot.

And there’s more: we’re going to give ourselves a rare “double discount” on our bond buys.

We’ll do it by taking already-discounted bonds (thanks to Jay Powell’s Dirty Harry act on rates) and applying a second discount by purchasing through two closed-end funds (CEFs) we’ll talk about in a bit.

The window to use this strategy is now open. Take a look at this chart to see what I’m getting at here:

The 10-Year Rate Bounces Off Its 4% Ceiling (Again)

Over the past 15 years, the yield on the 10-year has zoomed higher plenty of times, until it smacks into the 4% “ceiling.”… Read more

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Right now, millions of people are plowing cash into this market, gambling that the worst of the dividend cuts is behind us.

I hope you’re not one of them, because this “dividend trap” is likely to spring—and steal away the income (and value) these folks have spent years building!

Just look at the numbers: unemployment is likely over 20%. Consumer spending cratered 7.5% in March, before this mess even really got started. And now Uncle Sam is demanding that any company seeking government aid first send its payout to the scrapyard.

Meantime, even cash-rich companies are pulling in their horns, like the Walt Disney Co.Read more

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Today I’m going to show you nothing less than a “dividend unicorn”: a closed-end fund (CEF) yielding 8.8% that’s raised its payout 24% in just the last six months. (And yes, it’s primed for many more hikes, too.)

Get this: because of the weirdness of the CEF market, this cash machine is still cheap today—trading at 13% off its “retail” price!

Let’s dive in.

I’m talking about the PGIM High Yield Bond Fund (ISD). It’s a smaller CEF (with just $552 million in assets). That small size helps set up our chance to buy cheap—and I’ll say more about why this deal exists in just a moment.… Read more

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The PGIM High Yield Bond Fund (ISD) trades at a huge discount that’s going to disappear soon.

Before I explain why, let me tell you something else about this fund: it boasts a huge 8.4% dividend yield. In other words, you’d get $700 per month—or $8,400 a year—in income on every $100,000 invested. And you should consider getting in now, because ISD is set to soar.

A New Fund

For years, ISD provided a solid and reliable return, thanks to its strategy. The fund would buy corporate bonds that expired in just a couple years (or less), so there was less risk of any company going bankrupt or defaulting.… Read more

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A lot more investors have been emailing me lately, fearful of a market downturn. This tells me one thing: today’s market is a scared market.

But you don’t need to be scared. In fact, thanks to overhyped investor fears, you can easily lock in 7% dividends and prepare yourself for a downturn with less risk than you’d get buying stocks directly.

The key? The 5 unloved (for now) funds I’ll show you in a moment. First, though, you might be wondering why I say these funds are less risky than individual stocks.

For one, each of these 5 hold hundreds of assets, spreading your cash out in a way that a basket of a few stocks can’t.… Read more

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It’s one of the biggest worries I hear from investors who hold bonds: what’s going to happen to my portfolio when the Federal Reserve raises interest rates?

My short answer is always the same: don’t worry—it’s not as big of a deal as you think.

That’s true for many bond funds out there—but there are some that are still ticking time bombs because they’re poorly managed. The worst offenders are the ones that aren’t managed at all—the “dumb” funds that blindly track the index and keep a ton of bonds from near-bankrupt companies alongside much better issues.

Funds like the iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (JNK) and the SPDR Bloomberg Barclays High Yield Bond ETF (HYG) are the worst offenders here.…
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