A Nearly 13% Portfolio Yield, Paid Monthly? Come On.

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Patience is the key to being a successful contrarian investor.

We buy when fear is widespread. Bear markets are our friends. Let’s sit back and let the market’s valuations come down to us.

I wrote very recently that the market is this close to sending out a market-wide buy signal. Let’s get ready to back up the truck.

Today, we’ll discuss targets for retirement income yielding a ludicrous 12.9%—after all, a self-sustaining portfolio that allows you to live off dividends alone can give you enormous peace of mind once you’re past your working years.

And if those dividends land in your mailbox or account every 30 days or so, matching your monthly bills…well, that’s even better.… Read more

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Since traditional banks have backed off on business lending over the years, BDCs (business development companies) have stepped in. They provided much-needed debt, equity, and other financial solutions to small businesses—and much-needed income to dividend investors.

As an asset class, BDCs yield 8%. We’ll discuss three popular payers—with dividends up to 8.3%—in a moment.

Congress whipped up BDCs with a few pen strokes in 1980, creating a structure that’s incentivized to provide smaller companies with financing. BDCs receive special tax privileges, and in exchange, they must return at least 90% of their taxable profits to shareholders as dividends.

If that sounds familiar, that’s because that same tradeoff is enjoyed by real estate investment trusts (REITs), which were formed the same way, 20 years prior.… Read more

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What if I told you that, even in this expensive stock market, that we can still find yields of 9%, 10%… heck, even 20%?

Volatility is back, and with it, some discounted stocks with generous yields that we can snag. We’ll talk big dividends up to 20% today.

An S&P 500 index fund, as usual, won’t pay you enough income to retire. You have to buy the pricey basket and hope it’ll keep levitating higher. A purchase of the popular index today and you’ll barely squeeze out $18,000 in dividends by this time next year. That’s not much but it’s downright lavish compared with the $6,700 you’d eke out of a 10-year T-note.… Read more

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A stock’s yield is only as good as its cash flow because, after all, a dividend is nothing more than a promise from a company.

CenturyLink (CTL) recently reminded us of this. Its promised $0.54 per share dividend exceeded its ability to pay. The firm’s payout ratio of 130% – the percentage of profits that it was paying as dividends – was an absurd overpromise that couldn’t last forever:

CenturyLink’s Payout Promise Was Always on Borrowed Time

CEO Jeffrey Storey insisted his team remained “committed to and confident in our ability to maintain the dividend.” I understood the commitment, but questioned the confidence – taking on debt to pay dividends is a losing game.… Read more

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Most income investors find their way to business development companies (BDCs) by screening or searching for big yields. And there’s no doubt these listed payouts do appear impressive! Here are the five largest BDCs (ranked by assets under management):

A first-level look at this table may have you wondering why anyone would buy MAIN when they could nearly double their dividend by choosing another ticker. Well, there’s a good reason that we’ll get to in a minute. First, let’s talk about what BDCs actually do so that we can understand what is driving these big dividends.

It all started in 1940, when Congress passed the Investment Company Act.… Read more

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Most dividend investors understandably love the idea of an 8% No Withdrawal Portfolio. It’s a simple yet “game changing” idea that you don’t hear much from mainstream pundits and advisors.

Find stocks that pay safe 7%, 8% or more and you can retire comfortably, living off dividend checks while your initial capital stays intact (or even appreciates).

Now this strategy is a bit more complicated than simply finding 8% yields and buying them. Granted the recent stock market pullback has benefited investors like us because we can snag more dividends for our dollar. Yields are higher overall, and that’s a good thing.… Read more

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If pricey stocks and low dividend yields have you frustrated, it’s time to consider publicly traded (and perfectly legal) “tax loopholes” that yield up to 9.8%. They’re as easy to buy as any stock or fund – in fact, they are stocks. They just happen to pay more.

Private equity investing is a proven way to print money. Problem is, it’s typically expensive for individual investors like you and me to get involved. Private equity minimums range anywhere from $10 million at the high end to “just” $250,000 depending on the fund. Frankly, that’s more than most normal retirement investors can or even should put in any one investment.… Read more

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Most investors with $500,000 in their portfolios think they don’t have enough money to retire on.

They do – they just need to do two things with their “buy and hope” portfolios to turn them into $3,333 monthly income streams:

  1. Sell everything – including the 2%, 3% and even 4% payers that simply don’t yield enough to matter. And,
  2. Buy my 8 favorite monthly dividend payers.

The result? $3,333 in monthly income every month (from an average 8% annual yield, paid every 30 days). With upside on your initial $500,000 to boot!

Traditional dividend stocks simply can’t keep up. Let’s take a 4-pack of popular dividend aristocrats to map how much they’ll pay investors through summer.…
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The S&P 500 has already increased in value by over $1 trillion in 2018—and January isn’t even over yet!

What’s behind this incredible bull market isn’t euphoria or hysteria—it’s actually sound investing principles. As I wrote in a January 18 article, the bull market is being driven by the best possible trend: higher earnings and sales for America’s best companies, which is itself the result of improving economic conditions for everyday Americans.

Parties ultimately end, of course. And this one is no different—the bull market is being driven by a solid and reasonable belief that American companies will go up in value.…
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If you’re a dividend fan and you spot an 18% yield, you’re going to sit up and take notice.

But your radar will also probably go up for another reason: you know outsized payouts like that pretty much always come with outsized risk too.

Which brings me to the weird funds I’m going to show you today.

Their 18% average yield masks something shocking: they’re not only dangerous but they’re not even income investments! They’re something else entirely—and if you fail to pick up on that and buy, they could blow a hole in your retirement portfolio.

Let me explain, starting with…

Where We Found These 18% Payouts

The funds I’m talking about are called exchange-traded notes (ETNs), a close cousin of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), another asset class I recommended staying clear of in a September 12 article.…
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