3 Big Dividends to Buy (Up to 9.4%) as Trump 2.0 Reshapes Markets

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3 Big Dividends to Buy (Up to 9.4%) as Trump 2.0 Reshapes Markets

In our Thursday article, we talked about a “quiet shift” in the markets, from growth stocks to value—and we named 2 CEFs yielding 9%+ that are primed to profit from it.

Yes, the recent jump in volatility is a big reason for that. So today, we’re going to look at another side of the rotation we’re seeing—a shift from passive investing to active.

Index Funds Are so 2023

As we move further into 2025, it’s getting clearer to me that we’re into a stock-picker’s market. Sitting in an index fund just won’t cut it.

That said, at my CEF Insider service, we’re still bullish on stocks (and stock-focused closed-end funds, many of which hand us 8%+ yields), and we’ll get into two stock-focused funds, along with another that holds preferred stocks—kind of a stock/bond hybrid—below.… Read more

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You Ask, I Answer: Are These 8% Dividends Too Pricey?

I recently got some reader feedback that made me realize something: When it comes to our favorite income investments—8%+ yielding closed-end funds (CEFs)—there are still a lot of misconceptions out there.

It’s key that we put those right, because they’re causing some investors to miss out on CEFs, and the big (and often monthly) dividends they provide. And I know I don’t have to tell you that in turbulent times like these, high payouts like those are a lifesaver.

This reader wrote in response to a recent piece I wrote about how CEFs can be better than ETFs, pointing out two things:

  1. The three CEFs I mentioned in the piece have higher expense ratios than passive funds.

… Read more

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An 8.7% Dividend I’d Buy for My Retirement Portfolio

Here’s an idea that might sound just a little bit odd at first: You can actually get retirement-investing advice that’s too conservative.

That may not sound like a bad thing, right? After all, who doesn’t want to be extra sure they have enough to clock out?

The problem with this, however, is that being overly conservative has the very real consequence of keeping us in the workforce much longer than we need to be.

I bring this up because I was thinking of the “4% rule”—which points to 4% as the amount of your portfolio you can safely withdraw in retirement—the other day.… Read more

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The Surprising “Signal” These 8% Dividends Give Before They Soar

Closed-end funds (CEFs) are my No. 1 income plays for a reason that goes beyond their huge dividends: We can tap these off-the-radar (for now!) funds for big price gains, too.

We do this in my CEF Insider service using a time-tested CEF tactic: Buy CEFs trading at discounts to net asset value (NAV, or the value of their portfolios), then sell them at par or, better yet, a premium.

This isn’t rocket science: We’re following the oldest investor play there is: Buy low and sell high! To do it, we’re letting the discount to NAV, a critical CEF metric, be our guide.… Read more

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The Surprising “Signal” These 8% Dividends Give Before They Soar

Closed-end funds (CEFs) are my No. 1 income plays for a reason that goes beyond their huge dividends: We can tap these off-the-radar (for now!) funds for big price gains, too.

We do this in my CEF Insider service using a time-tested CEF tactic: Buy CEFs trading at discounts to net asset value (NAV, or the value of their portfolios), then sell them at par or, better yet, a premium.

This isn’t rocket science: We’re following the oldest investor play there is: Buy low and sell high! To do it, we’re letting the discount to NAV, a critical CEF metric, be our guide.… Read more

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Forget Wall Street’s “401 (k) Products.” Buy This Simple 9.2% Payer Instead

One of the biggest retirement-investment mistakes you can make is to make things more complicated than they need to be.

Funny thing is, Wall Street actually makes it easy to fall into this trap! Case in point: A new “financial product” from a group of companies, including BlackRock, that combines target-date funds and annuities.

We’ll get into why this isn’t a strong retirement option for those still working in a second. Then we’ll stack it up against a “straight down the middle” 9.2%-paying closed-end fund (CEF) that gives you the dividends, liquidity and growth necessary to fund a more comfortable retirement—maybe a lot sooner than you think.… Read more

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Tech Investors: This 9.3% Payout Is Cheap (and Growing Fast)

An unusual trend has hit Silicon Valley that’s running far below the radar: a big shift toward paying dividends.

We’re going to take full advantage by grabbing something unheard-of, even for die-hard tech investors: A 9.3% dividend that grows. 

That’s a real eye-opener for tech, to be sure. Because while more tech stocks are paying dividends these days—even long-time holdouts Meta Platforms (META) and Alphabet (GOOGL) now offer payouts—most of these are still tiny. (Meta and Alphabet both yield just 0.5%).

Of course, there are tech-dividend stalwarts that pay at least a bit more and offer long histories of payout growth, too, like Microsoft (MSFT) and Cisco Systems (CSCO), which yield 0.7% and 3.3%, respectively.… Read more

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This Media-Driven Panic Has Put Our Favorite 7%+ Yielders on Sale

Don’t believe the media’s latest line that stocks—and by extension 7%+ yielding closed-end funds (CEFs)—are oversold.

Far from it!

Truth is, stocks—and bonds and real estate, for that matter—are still oversold as a result of the 2022 market crash.

You can see that in action in the chart below, with the benchmark ETF for the S&P 500 (in purple) up 11.1% since the start of 2022, while corporate bonds (in orange) are basically flat. And real estate investment trusts (REITs)—in blue—are still in the tank, down about 16%.

Don’t Believe the Hype: All Our Favorite Assets Are Still Cheap

Fact is, those are all low numbers, even for stocks: the S&P 500 is up an annualized 5.4% over the last two years and change since the start of 2022, which marked the beginning of the market’s swan dive.… Read more

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3 Funds That Profit From “Economic Grumpiness” (Yields Up to 9.8%)

Here’s something you might be surprised to hear: according to the numbers, the US economy is actually doing well—and yet (almost) nobody wants to admit it!

It’s a misconception we income investors can exploit with the three high-yielding picks we’ll cover below.

It’s a weird turn of events, but it makes sense. Since the pandemic, itself an event of shocking turmoil, it seems that the chaos around the world is getting worse, and our fundamental hope for humanity makes us think that this just can’t be good for growth.

Except that’s not how things typically play out.

Global Turmoil = Faster Growth?… Read more

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These 3 Funds Could Pay You $4,000 a Month

Let’s go ahead and build ourselves an “instant” income portfolio throwing off a rich 8.8% yield. A yield like that, after all, could put a dividends-only retirement within our reach. Or at the very least help you scale back your day job and make up the difference with dividend payouts.

This, of course, is the essence of financial freedom, and my favorite high-yield assets, closed-end funds (CEFs), are our best play here. When we build our retirement with CEFs, we get to hold the top stocks, bonds and other assets, like publicly traded real estate investment trusts (REITs), out there.… Read more

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