Credit Crisis Concerns? These Are the Worst 1,894 Bonds to Own Now

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Credit Crisis Concerns? These Are the Worst 1,894 Bonds to Own Now

We all love 7% yields here. But how do you feel about Sprint’s 7.88% bonds that mature in September 2023?

Well, the company might make it until then. Shares trade for pocket change at just over $6. Equity investors in Sprint (S), however, have been (wait for it) sprinting to the exits lately:

The Stock Feels the Weight of Sprint’s Debt

For a position this risky, I’d want to watch it closely. I’d also want to be able to sell it at the first sign of distress.

Unfortunately, that isn’t going to be possible. If you own the Sprint 2023’s, you’ve got company–$320 million to be specific!… Read more

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The Best Bonds to Buy for a Retirement Portfolio Right Now

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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5 Dividend Stocks That’ll Keep You From Drowning in Retirement

Your 2% bonds are going to make you broke. You need to buy these safe, higher paying dividends instead.

We’ll get to these “real yields” (up to 9.3%!) in a moment. First, let’s recap. Treasury yields just took their biggest bath in weeks, sending the 10-year T-note to 2%. Less than a year ago, the 10-year was flirting with (a not exactly nosebleed) 3%.

And now that Fed chair Jay Powell has fallen in love with the doves (whether by choice or by force), he’s going to keep rates low for a long time. Which means bonds will have no place in a retirement portfolio geared towards income.… Read more

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981 Risky Bonds to Sell, 400 Safe Ones to Buy Instead (for 7.7%)

Be careful how you buy your bonds. The most popular tickers have a few “fatal flaws” that’ll doom you to underperformance at best, or leave you hanging in the event of a market meltdown at worst!

Let’s pick on the widely followed and owned iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYG) as an example. It has attracted $15 billion in assets because:

  1. It’s convenient – as easy to buy as a stock.
  2. It’s diversified (for better or worse, as we’ll see shortly) with 981 individual holdings.
  3. It pays–5.6% today, to be specific.

The accessibility of funds like HYG appears cute and comfortable enough.… Read more

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6 “Retirement Maker” Funds Paying Up to 10.8%

Today we’re going to discuss six “retirement maker” funds that pay dividends up to 10.8% annually. You will not find these types of yields in mainstream financial publications. Here’s why.

It’s important for you to fade Wall Street’s advertising machine and buy value, not hype – especially when it comes to dividend payers. Stick with excellent yet off-the-beaten-trail CEFs (closed-end funds) and ignore the marketing machines promoting their latest overrated ETFs (exchange traded funds).

Please, Whatever You Do, Don’t Buy Bond ETFs

Be careful how you buy your bonds. The most popular tickers have a few fatal flaws that’ll doom you to underperformance at best, or leave you hanging in the event of a market meltdown at worst!… Read more

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There Are 17 Better Plays (Paying 7.5%) Than These 998 Bonds

How’s your bond portfolio doing? It should be a rock of stability right now.

Of course we may need to look past prices, which can swing wildly, and focus on net asset values and income, which are more reliable anchors.

For example I’ve been hearing from readers who were concerned that our excellent PIMCO Dynamic Credit and Mortgage Fund (PCI) isn’t “acting well.” Its price has whipsawed around this year, mostly in our favor. But lately it’s pulled back amidst the broader market drama and subscribers are worried the market “knows something” that we don’t.

Let’s put this price volatility in perspective.… Read more

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My Easy Plan for $3,300 Per MONTH in Dividends

You might think a $500,000 nest egg isn’t enough to retire on, and I wouldn’t blame you. The financial media loves to tout $1 million as the end-all be-all mark of financial security.

But today, I’ll show you how wrong they are, and how secure you can be even with just half of what “conventional wisdom” says you need – as long as you’re in the right kind of dividend stock.

And I’ll also show you exactly what kind of dividend stocks you need to get the job done and the bills paid.

Those bills, by the way, come every month.… Read more

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1,005 Bonds You Must Sell Now!

Be careful how you buy your bonds. The most popular tickers have a few “fatal flaws” that’ll doom you to underperformance at best, or leave you hanging in the event of a market meltdown at worst!

Let’s pick on the widely followed and owned iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYG) as an example. It has attracted nearly $15 billion in assets because:

  1. It’s convenient – as easy to buy as a stock.
  2. It’s diversified (for better or worse, as we’ll see shortly) with 1,005 individual holdings.
  3. It pays – 6% today, to be specific.

The accessibility of funds like HYG appears appears cute and comfortable enough.…
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2 Perfect Buys for Rising Rates (yields up to 10.6%)

It’s one of the biggest worries I hear from investors who hold bonds: what’s going to happen to my portfolio when the Federal Reserve raises interest rates?

My short answer is always the same: don’t worry—it’s not as big of a deal as you think.

That’s true for many bond funds out there—but there are some that are still ticking time bombs because they’re poorly managed. The worst offenders are the ones that aren’t managed at all—the “dumb” funds that blindly track the index and keep a ton of bonds from near-bankrupt companies alongside much better issues.

Funds like the iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (JNK) and the SPDR Bloomberg Barclays High Yield Bond ETF (HYG) are the worst offenders here.…
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The Best, and Worst, Junk Bond Funds (Paying Up to 10.2%)

Junk bonds can be a great source of retirement income, or a terrible idea altogether. It depends what you buy, and really, which managers and vehicles you entrust to find value in the bargain bin.

There’s a right way to do it, and a wrong way. Let’s start with the latter, led by the popular iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYG) and SPDR Barclays High Yield Bond ETF (JNK) – the two largest junk bond exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and both top-10 fixed-income ETFs by assets under management.

You and I can do better than these dumb ETFs. They are popular thanks to their low fees.…
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