These “Yield Traps” Have Cratered 58% (they’ll never bounce back)

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These “Yield Traps” Have Cratered 58% (they’ll never bounce back)

Right now, thousands of Americans are making a mistake that threatens to lock in the losses they’ve suffered in this downturn.

Worse, these folks will be stuck on the sidelines in the rebound, watching helplessly as other stocks soar and their holdings stagnate, or even drop further.

I’m talking about people who hold master limited partnerships (MLPs) and buy into the myth that these companies—owners of oil and gas pipelines and storage facilities—are simply “toll bridges,” making them a relatively safe play on energy.

Worse, many of these folks think MLPs can benefit from the huge glut of oil and gas building up around the globe.… Read more

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5 Safe Oil Yields Up to 8.5% (With Stocks That May Spike, Too)

Energy stocks are en fuego again after a drone strike on a Saudi oil facility. We’re going to (as usual) skip the geopolitical talk and discuss oil dividends that will benefit from this disruption.

While “buy and hope” investors ponder basic ways to play the spike, you and I know that about half of energy returns come from payouts. Check out the orange line below, the total return of a popular energy index with dividends. It’s nearly double what the stock prices themselves returned:

The Real Key to Oil Riches? Dividends.

No dividend is guaranteed forever. But broadly speaking, income has been a far more reliable source of energy-sector returns than price performance, making up nearly half of energy’s total returns since late 1998.… Read more

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27 “Marked Down” Energy CEFs With Yields Up to 11%

Energy is one sector where the experts just can’t seem to get it right.

That’s a trend my colleague Brett Owens has been watching for a long time. In a March article, he warned that too many investors were bullish on oil, and the hedge fund “experts” betting on an imminent price breakthrough were wrong.

Since then, oil prices, oil stocks and energy funds have fallen sharply, leading energy to post year-to-date losses while every other asset class is up:

Energy Takes a Dive

It doesn’t matter how you played energy; the Alerian MLP ETF (AMLP) was the best performer, but even that was negative, while the more oil-exposed Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLE) …
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