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I hope you are taking care of yourself, and your family. This is a good time to hunker down, both in life and in our investing strategy. Brighter days are ahead—let’s make sure we get there with ourselves and our portfolios relatively intact.

On the other side of this pandemic and shutdown, we may eventually be presented with a “March 2009” type of buying opportunity. Big yields for dimes on the dollar. When the time is right, we’ll load up our income portfolios with these bargains and resume our usual light banter in this weekly missive.

Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re on the other side of this just yet.… Read more

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A financial friend of mine, an income-focused money manager, called me to brag about one of his clients. He’s used his CIR subscription to smartly help her turn a modest $387,000 nest egg into monthly dividend income that’s on track to last, well, just about forever.

Three years ago, he explained how he was using my “retire on monthly dividends” strategy to help this nice grandmother.

“She brought me $387,000,” he told me originally. “And wants to take out $3,000 per month for ten years.”

Well, so far, so good for grandma. She’s now 38 months into her $3,000 per month dividend gravy train.… Read more

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Should we income investors buy any bonds right now? Bond prices have rallied, but the rear view mirror doesn’t help any new money we’re putting to work right now. Meanwhile interest rates are tanking, which tends to defeat the point of purchasing fixed income in the first place.

But, stocks are on a roller coaster ride. If you’re getting a bit nauseous with the violent day-to-day swings, you may appreciate a little stability to balance out your portfolio.

Whether you’re looking for dividends, sanity, or both, you’ve come to the right column. Let’s take a spin around Bondland and rank ‘em worst to first.… Read more

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Today, the 10-year Treasury pays just 2.4%. Put a million bucks in T-Bills and you’re banking $24,000 per year. Barely above poverty levels!

Hence the appeal of closed-end funds (CEFs), which often pay 8% or better. That’s the difference between a paltry minimum-wage income of $24,000 on a million saved or a respectable $80,000 annually.

And if you’re smart about your CEF purchases, you can even buy these funds at discounts and snare some price upside to boot!

The market’s fast run-up since January 1 has made cheap CEFs just a bit harder to find. And some CEFs have become so pricey that, if you hold them, you should consider selling before their premiums fall to earth.… Read more

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Thanks to the December selloff, it’s relatively easy to find 9% yields. The stock market was a relentlessly receding tide in the fourth quarter, which is bad for “buy and hope” investors but quite helpful for income specialists like us.

Let’s look first at real estate investment trusts (REITs). Many now pay 9% – some good, some bad. The main index Vanguard Real Estate ETF (VNQ) has only paid this much (4.9%) twice before in the past ten years:

VNQ Is Rarely This Generous

By cherry picking the lot we can find 49 stocks paying 9% or more. But we should avoid names like Government Properties Income Trust (GOV), which frequently pops up on cute recession-proof dividend lists.… Read more

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Today, the 10-year Treasury pays just 2.3%. Put a million bucks in T-Bills, and you’re banking $23,000 per year. Barely above poverty levels!

Hence the appeal of closed-end funds (CEFs), which often pay 8% or better. That’s the difference between a paltry minimum-wage income of $23,000 on a million saved, or a respectable $80,000 annually.

And if you’re smart about your CEF purchases, you can even buy them at discounts and snare some price upside to boot!

Unfortunately this rising rate environment has income seekers scared of CEFs. Many of my readers have asked me if they should bail on our high paying vehicles.…
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Something strange happened recently, and it’s set up a terrific—and almost totally overlooked—profit opportunity for you.

What is it?

The European Union is going to ensure that people who held bonds in two recently failed banks (Veneto Banca and Popolare di Vicenza) will get a 100% bailout.

Now unless you’re holding these specific bonds, you’re probably wondering what this could possibly have to do with you.

Stick with me—I’ll get to that in a second. First, back to the bailout.

The EU’s move isn’t actually all that surprising. We’ve seen governments bail out bondholders many times since 2007 (and the EU has been doing even more bond bailouts in the last couple years).…
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