These 9%+ Dividends Could Set You “Financially Free” Tomorrow

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When I was a kid, I thought everyone on TV was rich. I know better now, of course, but it still strikes me when I hear stories of celebrities going broke, struggling to earn a living or taking on projects just because they desperately need to pay off some kind of debt.

It just goes to show that being famous isn’t enough to have true financial freedom.

That’s why I was intrigued by a recent interview with That ’70s Show star Ashton Kutcher, who has built a name for himself in the VC world by investing in tech startups. Kutcher’s string of successes is impressive: he was an early investor in Uber, Airbnb and Spotify, for example.… Read more

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Friday morning, I mentioned to my wife that it was time for us to log into her 401(k) and move it back into stocks.

“Funny,” she said. “On NPR they just mentioned that money managers are moving into cash.”

If that isn’t a contrarian confirmation that a short-term low may be in, I don’t know what is!

Aside from the scaredy cats running money, there is also a misinformation campaign floating around about closed-end funds (CEFs). Since these vehicles are a favorite source of 7%+ dividends for us, we’re going to bust apart these lame claims today.

Then we’re going to roll into two CEFs that are savvy buys now, as Jay Powell starts cleaning up the inflationary mess he made by leaving the switch on his money printer stuck in “high.”… Read more

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Think about it for a moment: when was the last time you read anything about closed-end funds (CEFs), a way too often overlooked asset class that throws off 7%+ average dividends?

Never? Maybe once?

It’s a shame that CEFs are rarely discussed outside Wall Street circles, because they’re perfect for anyone who needs income these days. (And who doesn’t!?)

Smaller CEFs Give You Big Payouts And “Baked in” Upside

We’re going to bust through that barrier and look at how we can use CEFs to boost our income streams and our net worth, too.

We can dial ourselves in for even bigger gains when we focus on smaller CEFs, like the ones I emphasize in my CEF Insider service.… Read more

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Let’s be honest: we dividend investors will be glad to see the back of 2021. While it’s been a great year for us at my CEF Insider service (our portfolio yields 7.2%, on average, and we’ve seen some nice double-digit winners, too), it seems like every day begins with a market-crushing (and anxiety-inducing!) news story.

To be honest, 2022 will likely bring much of the same, but if you do what I strongly recommend—stay away from the business news as much as possible—you’ll do your portfolio (and your mental health!) a big favor.

You and I both know the pundits rarely get it right anyway (who remembers the hand-wringing worries about deflation 12 months ago?… Read more

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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.

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Let me start with a special shout out to our dedicated readers at Barron’s. Here at Contrarian Outlook, we’ve been drawing up the playbook to retire on dividends for years (Two years ago, we literally wrote the book on the retirement strategy.)

So it was a hoot to see Barron’s run a cover story about retiring on dividends. But I have a bit of constructive criticism about the piece: the dividend stocks highlighted in the feature article had yields too low to actually retire on.

The magazine’s 10 buys included Coca-Cola (KO), International Business Machines (IBM) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and had an average current yield of 4.1% between them (as of the time the piece was written).… Read more

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Let me start with a special shout out to our dedicated readers at Barron’s. Here at Contrarian Outlook, we’ve been drawing up the playbook to retire on dividends for years (Two years ago, we literally wrote the book on the retirement strategy.)

So it was a hoot to see Barron’s run a cover story about retiring on dividends. But I have a bit of constructive criticism about the piece: the dividend stocks highlighted in the feature article had yields too low to actually retire on.

The magazine’s 10 buys included Coca-Cola (KO), International Business Machines (IBM) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and had an average current yield of 4.1% between them (as of the time the piece was written).… Read more

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I’m going to show you a dividend portfolio that gets you an incredible 9.5% payout—and you won’t have to take on stomach-churning risk (which, let’s face it, no one’s keen on doing now) to get it.

Imagine what a 9.5% dividend could mean. Take a $300,000 portfolio and you’ve suddenly got $2,375 in passive monthly income. A million bucks? You’re talking about almost $8,000 a month—miles ahead of the $1,500 a month you’d get if you just put it in an S&P 500 index fund.

Here’s the kicker: the investments in this five-fund portfolio, all closed-end funds (CEFs), invest in the same companies that make up the S&P 500.… Read more

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Let’s be honest: our lives would be much easier if we could just buy the typical S&P 500 stock, get the 7%+ dividends we need for retirement, and call it a day. Trouble is, the popular kids only pay high yields when the market’s in flames!

Like Pfizer (PFE), which yields a ho-hum 3.8% now. But if you’d bought when stocks bottomed during the financial crisis, you’d be sitting on a cash machine: back then (March 2009), Pfizer’s payout shot up to an incredible 11%!

Pfizer’s (Very) Temporary 11% Yield

Of course, you needed quick reflexes and nerves of steel to lock in that yield before it vanished in the rebound.… Read more

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Forget the 2018 market drop—because it’s handed us a golden opportunity to grab some double-digit “bounce-back” gains in as 2019 rolls out.

I’ll tell you why I’m so excited about the year ahead in a moment. Then I’ll give you eight cheap funds set to arc higher as we move through 2019.

The kicker? Not only are these eight funds poised for big gains in the next 12 months, they throw off incredible dividend yields up to 12.6%, too!

Putting 2018 in Context

First, back to last year’s return, which came in at negative 6.1%, including dividends.

The first bit of good news here is that despite their decline, US stocks still led the rest of the world.… Read more

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