This “Barbell” Strategy Pays You 7.8%

Our Archive

Search completed

The Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG) is the largest and most popular dividend ETF on Wall Street. It boasts an amazing $60 billion in assets under management, and holds about 300 of the largest dividend stocks.

And it yields a miserable 2.1%.

That’s because, like many index funds, VIG weights stocks by size. That means companies like $450 billion drugmaker Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and $1.8 trillion Big Tech icon Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) alone represent about 7% of the portfolio – even though they pay relatively light yields of 2.5% and 1.1%, respectively.

The false promise of index funds like the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF is that you can “set it and forget it.”… Read more

Read More

This dividend stock yields 10.4%. But really it boasts an annual “hidden yield” of 18.4% when we consider buybacks.

Eighteen-point four percent per year. Wait, what?!

(Your strategist pauses to point upwards towards the late, great Norm Macdonald.)

A Hidden Yield Formula for 18.4% Yearly Returns

Now what if I told you this stock was also being heavily shorted? Over 11% of this company’s outstanding shares are being sold short. This is fuel for a potential rally because these positions must be bought back later.

Remember, when traders sell a stock short, they book the sale in advance. “I think this stock is so terrible, I want to sell it at today’s price.”… Read more

Read More

If you’re as nervous about the 2022 edition of the stock market as I am, we should take this holiday week to review reliable REIT dividends.

REITs (real estate investment trusts) are stocks that dish 90% of their profits as payouts. This makes them ideal income plays for retirees. Rather than buying shares and “hoping” they’ll go up, we can lock in quarterly (or even monthly!) dividends—real cold cash!—with REITs.

For example, my favorite REIT for 2022 yields 4.9%. This equates to $4,900 per year on a $100K position, a great start to the year. Plus, we have the opportunity for price gains—for a total return of 10% or so.… Read more

Read More

Let’s buy the dip on high-growth dividend payers as we head into 2022. Basic investors are fearful, which means it’s time for us contrarians to get greedy.

Thanks to the year-end pullback in stocks, we have an opportunity to double our dividend money even faster than usual. Usually, these moonshot plays aren’t so cheap. But we have a “mini” bear market in small caps and other areas of the market to thank for these bargains.

In a moment we’ll discuss 22 dividend growth stocks that are poised to double in just a few years. These companies have been growing their payouts so fast that, at this pace, they’ll double their payouts in just a few years.… Read more

Read More

Successful dividend investing is simple, though not necessarily easy. There are nuances which trip up many investors (including most professionals!). These twists and turns create opportunities for contrarian-minded income investors like us.

So, ready to retire on dividends? Follow these five steps and we’ll do it together. Let’s start with an obvious yet underappreciated rule for income investors.

Step 1: Count Your Dividends

Since we focus on high yield, most of our returns come from the “yield” component of stocks. For example, we added this high-paying bond fund to our portfolio 2016 and its price-only returns look quite pedestrian.… Read more

Read More

Let’s chat about making some real money in stocks. I’m talking about 14.6% returns per year, every single year.

I know, my 14.6% annual number sounds pedestrian in a world where peddlers are hawking virtual (pretend?) coins with pups on the cover. But my returns are real—and spectacular for investors who are patient.

With this method we can double our money every four years and ten months (the wonderful Rule of 72 says so!). And we can achieve these gains safely—without gambling or buying and hoping—because these profits are fueled by dividends.

The only twist from the traditional income investing that we both know and love is that we’re playing the dividend growth plus the current yield.… Read more

Read More

Can we income seekers safely get back into REITs (real estate investment trusts) next year?

With the yield on the S&P 500 about to drop to a sad 1.5% (thanks, Tesla (TSLA) addition), renewed REIT-hope sure would be nice! The landlord industry index Vanguard Real Estate ETF (VNQ) pays 3.5%. That’s a dividend oasis in this zero-point-nothing world.

Once upon a time, VNQ performed in-line or better than the blue-chip index. It was a pretty good deal, as you could double your dividend and keep up with the Joneses’ portfolio with less heartburn.

Then, April 2020 came along, tenants stopped paying rents, and REITs-at-large got crushed:

A Good REIT Run While It Lasted

Does the fork-in-the-road above represent a paradigm shift or relative value?… Read more

Read More

Successful dividend investing is simple, though not necessarily easy. There are nuances which trip up many investors (including most professionals!). These twists and turns create “yield alpha” opportunities for contrarian-minded income investors like us.

If everyone else in the market were perfectly grounded and calculated, there would be no chance for us to make above-average returns. Thanks to these inefficiencies, we are able to bank big yields and price gains in Dividend Land. Ready to retire on dividends? Follow these five steps and we’ll do it together. Let’s start with an obvious yet underappreciated rule for income investors.

Step 1: Count Your Dividends

Since we focus on high yield, most of our returns come from the “yield” component of stocks.… Read more

Read More

These 31 dividends are more than just safe. They are likely going up between now and October!

Recently, S&P Dow Jones Indices’ Howard Silverblatt put a hard number on 2020’s tough dividend decay, writing that second-quarter payouts were whittled down by $42.5 billion during the second quarter. The worst might now be over. Here’s a key excerpt from Silverblatt’s latest note about the month of July (emphasis mine):

“There were significantly fewer dividend actions, as 15 issues increased their dividend rates, one issue initiated dividends, two decreased them (including Wells Fargo’s USD 6.8 billion cut, the second-largest in index history), and one suspended them.Read more

Read More

Successful dividend investing is simple, though not necessarily easy. There are nuances which trip up many investors (including most professionals!). These twists and turns create “yield alpha” opportunities for contrarian-minded income investors like us.

If everyone else in the market were perfectly grounded and calculated, there would be no chance for us to make above-average returns. Thanks to these inefficiencies, we are able to bank big yields and price gains in Dividend Land. Ready to retire on dividends? Follow these five steps and we’ll do it together. Let’s start with an obvious yet underappreciated rule for income investors.

Step 1: Count Your Dividends

Since we focus on high yield, most of our returns come from the “yield” component of stocks.… Read more

Read More

Categories