“Double Discount” Alert: How to Buy Microsoft Cheap (With a 7% Dividend)

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“Double Discount” Alert: How to Buy Microsoft Cheap (With a 7% Dividend)

I recently had dinner with a friend who’s a small business owner, and he swears by ChatGPT. The tool is saving him time, effort and (to be blunt) future employee hiring.

A lot of people think AI is imploding—hence the selloff in tech stocks we saw following last week’s softer-than-expected jobs report.

But the truth is, AI is simply moving past the initial excitement we see with every new technology. As AI embeds itself in the apps and devices we use every day, it’ll boost productivity, just like it’s doing for my friend.

As that happens, we’ll want to make sure you have some AI exposure in our portfolios, especially as ChatGPT replaces more expensive humans, a trend that’s already in motion, as we can see from last week’s jobs report.… Read more

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You Can’t Spell Mania without AI: 4-Stock Play Yields 7.4%

I don’t always buy into stock bubbles. But when I do, I prefer dividend plays.

We can’t spell “mania” without AI, of course. Artificial intelligence has been the flavor of 2023. But what if—what if—the excitement around AI accelerates into 2024?

It could happen. Last week I spent half of a recent post-holiday-light-viewing dinner discussing AI with a friend. My buddy is increasingly looking to AI tools like ChatGPT and Bard to help run his services business. After all, why not—they are improving by the week and cheaper than humans. There is some steak behind the AI sizzle.

(What did we spend the other half of dinner doing?… Read more

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Why These 8%+ Yielding Funds Crush Low-Fee Index Funds (Every Time)

If you always wanted a free lunch but thought they don’t exist, well, they kind of do, in the form of the Fidelity group of ZERO index funds, like the Fidelity ZERO Total Market Index Fund (FZROX).

After all, its 0% fees mean it should easily beat a closed-end fund (CEF) with a high expense ratio, right? Well, not so fast.

0% Fees Do Not Equal Outperformance

FZROX—in purple above—may levy no management fee, but it’s underperformed many equity CEFs over a long period. Since inception, it’s trailed the Adams Diversified Equity Fund (ADX), in blue, and the General American Investors Co.… Read more

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Did You Miss the Rally? 5 Still-Cheap Dividends Up to 12.3%

Mr. and Ms. Market are manic. Always have been, always will be. My fellow contrarian, they reminded us of this fact yet again.

Fortunately we were zigging while the broader crowd was zagging.

The herd’s “FOMO panic” last week pushed many of our stocks higher. Vanilla investors covered their ill-timed short positions and scrambled to buy bargains. Like the dividend deals we bought in October!

Did you miss out? Have cash suddenly burning a hole in your pocket? If so, no worries, a few select dividend deals remain.

I’m talking about yields up to 12.3% and discounts up to—get this—46%.… Read more

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These Dividends Grew 50% to 100% Last Year. How About 2023?

Do you also believe that a recession is on the way?

Note that we’re not saying when. Maybe later 2023. Or 2024. For sure 2025.

We are good economists. Casting out predictions without set timelines!

At some point, of course, all of the rate hikes add up. The housing market slows because mortgages become more expensive. Commercial landlords feel the pinch because, well, nobody rents office space anymore!

One by one, industries slow down. Eventually, the much-anticipated recession arrives.

As contrarian investors, we don’t actually care about economic data. GDP. CPI. PPI. PMI.

Whatever. It’s all TMI.

We’re after dividends and growth, in this order.… Read more

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Make This Easy Mistake and You’ll Miss the Best 7%+ Dividends

When it comes to closed-end funds (or any investment, for that matter), it pays to look for things most people misunderstand. Because these (seemingly) tiny investor oversights and errors can give us keen-eyed contrarians our best buying opportunities.

And when it comes to CEFs, there’s one all-too-common mistake I see folks make time and time again, particularly those who are new to these high-yielding funds. To see what I’m getting at, let’s zero in on a CEF called the Columbia Seligman Premium Technology Growth Fund (STK).

STK Romps to a Triple-Digit Return

STK’s portfolio mainly consists of large-cap tech stocks: Apple (AAPL), chipmaker Broadcom (AVGO) and Microsoft (MSFT) are among its top holdings.… Read more

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This “Hack” Lets Us Tap ChatGPT for 6% Dividends

Let’s go ahead and grab a slice of AI’s furious growth and get ourselves a nice 6% dividend (paid monthly), too.

Better still, we’re going to get in at an unheard-of 13% discount! Plus we’re going to do it safely—not tying up our cash in profitless tech or miserly blue chips dribbling out paltry 1% to 3% dividends.

Like Buying Microsoft, But With a 6% Dividend (Paid Monthly)

When someone mentions AI, the first stock that that likely pops to mind is Microsoft (MSFT) and its flashy move to integrate the ChatGPT AI into its Bing search engine.

That came straight from the company’s $10-billion investment in OpenAI, ChatGPT’s developer—a move that paid off: Microsoft has its search-engine game back after Bing spent the last decade in the dumpster with ’90s throwbacks like AskJeeves and Yahoo.… Read more

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3 Bargain Funds Yielding 7.5%+ (Perfect for 2023)

We’ve got plenty of high-quality dividends on the table as we roll into 2023. Some of the best? Closed-end funds (CEFs) yielding north of 7.5%. Three specific names and tickers are coming up for you below.

I mention quality because if 2022 has showed us anything, it’s that quality matters: crypto and profitless tech got clobbered this year, and that was no one-off. With interest rates rising, these gambles—I say “gambles” because buying these was always more like a trip to the slot machines than investing—are likely down for the count.

You can see this in the performance of the NASDAQ 100, which is down some 28% year to date, as well-run, high-cash-flow companies like Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) were dragged down by basket cases like Meta Platforms (META) and its money-bleeding investments in the metaverse.… Read more

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My Top CEF Investing Strategy Delivers 11% Payouts, 83% Gains

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

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Everyone’s Wrong About This 4.6% Dividend (It Will Double)

Don’t listen to the naysayers—tech stocks are set to thrive in the coming months, and the sector is still a great place for us to go hunting for big, and growing, dividends.

Here’s one reason why: despite worries about rising interest rates, the Federal Reserve is likely to keep its key lending rate near zero. That, in turn, means businesses, and especially innovative tech players, will continue to have access to cheap money to invest in new products. 

This low-rate world also means investors starved for income will crowd into any higher-paying investments they can spot (including high-paying tech funds like the one we’ll discuss below).… Read more

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