Dump These 3 Loser Funds Now (and Buy This 6.7%-Yielder Instead)

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Dump These 3 Loser Funds Now (and Buy This 6.7%-Yielder Instead)

If you’re like most people these days, you’re desperately searching for any kind of meaningful dividend stream.

Finding one is no easy task. The S&P 500, after all, yields 1.5%, on average. Treasuries? With their 0.9% yields, they’re not even worth talking about.

With the old income go-tos off the table, plenty of folks are looking further afield. Some are boosting their holdings of high-yield bonds through exchange-traded funds like the SPDR Bloomberg Barclays High Yield Bond ETF (JNK). Others are going with more esoteric investments, like high-yielding business development companies (BDCs), which you can tap through the UBS Etracs Business Development Company ETN (BDCS).… Read more

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These Fat 9% to 24% ETF Yields are Traps

I told you that the Infracap MLP ETF (AMZA) was a dog. Well, the fund just cut its dividend by 37%.

This is one of the biggest ETF payout cuts in recent memory, and it’s a gut punch to shareholders who rode out massive underperformance for the income tradeoff. That payout mattered. Just look at the difference between price returns and total returns in the chart below:

Just because a yield is wrapped in a fancy ETF wrapping doesn’t mean it’s safe.

This ETF dividend slash could be the first of several. So let’s talk about three ETFs – which pay between about 9% and 24% – whose dividends are far from secure.…
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The 5 Dumbest High-Yield Funds (Ranked Worst to Just “Bad”)

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) shattered growth records in 2017, with inflows topping $464 billion last year. The global ETF market now boasts more than $4.5 trillion in assets, and a large part of the appeal has been driven by dirt-cheap fees.

But many of these fund’s fees are “cheap for a reason.” We’ll talk about five today that lure investors in with appealing current yields – but then proceed to dump their dumb money out the back door.

These five funds may have sweet dividend yields, but they have produced sour total return results thanks to one fundamental flaw or another.

ETRACS Linked to the Wells Fargo Business Development Company Index ETN (BDCS)
Dividend Yield: 8.7%

One of the most basic appeals of the exchange-traded fund is the cheap diversification they provide.…
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