This 5-Stock Portfolio Pays Up to 7.3%, is Built for Disaster

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This 5-Stock Portfolio Pays Up to 7.3%, is Built for Disaster

Worried about a serious pullback in the S&P 500?

That something is going to go a bit haywire here in America, or overseas, and send stocks swooning?

If so, this 5-stock portfolio is for you. It yields up to 7.3% and it is built to withstand Armageddon.

No, really. These “low beta” payers can really lower our blood pressure. (Hold my beetroot juice!)

We blunt the bears with big dividends and small betas. Beta is a measure of an investment’s volatility against a benchmark.

If a stock has a beta of 1, it means it’s every bit as volatile as “the market.”… Read more

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Will This REIT Portfolio – up to 9.3% – Finally Get Off the Ground?

We income investors like REITs (real estate investment trusts) because they are obligated to dish most of their profits to us as dividends. Today we’ll discuss five with fat yields between 8.3% and 9.3%.

When to buy REITs can be tricky. Generally speaking, we don’t want to buy them before rate hikes. Higher rates make money more expensive. REITs thrive on cheap money. So, the recent rate hiking cycle has been bad for REITs-at-large.

Rates and REITs Moved in Opposite Directions

Rate hikes appear done, which usually means it is time to buy REITs. After all, the Fed’s next move is likely to be a cut.… Read more

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Earn 3x to 6x the Market’s Dividends Without Breaking a Sweat

I think I’ve been asked every day this week from ordinary people if I’m trading NVIDIA (NVDA).

Be careful out there, my fellow contrarian!

A sharp pullback is possible. Something has to shake the froth out of this market. When that happens, investors will look for stocks that are high on income and low on volatility. Today we’ll highlight six paying up to 8.6%.

The secret is beta, a measure of an investment’s volatility against a benchmark. For instance, usually the S&P 500.

If a stock has a beta of 1, it means it’s every bit as volatile as “the market.”… Read more

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The Steadiest Dividend Stocks Paying Up to 11%

Worried about a pullback? I don’t blame you.

Today we’ll discuss five of the steadiest dividend stocks on the planet. And let’s not confuse stability with penny pinching—these cash cows yield up to 11%!

How do we capture payouts without wild price swings? Two words: low beta.

Beta measures how much (or how little) a stock or fund moves compared to a benchmark—usually the S&P 500, but it depends. The benchmark is set at 1. Lower than 1 means an investment moves less; higher than 1 means it moves more.

Thus, beta is a de facto measure of an investment’s volatility.… Read more

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When the Market Wiggles, These 5%-13% Yields Don’t Waggle

To retire on dividends, we have just two requirements. They are simple, though perhaps not exactly easy:

  1. Earn safe, meaningful yields. Five percent is our floor, thirteen is our stretch goal. We’ll discuss five stocks in this dividend range shortly.
  2. Keep our principal intact. To do this we’ll focus on “low beta” stocks—shares that move less than the broader market.

Beta says how much (or how little!) an investment moves compared to some benchmark. With stocks, beta is usually going to measure movement against the S&P 500.

Here’s an example. Let’s say a stock has a beta of 0.50.… Read more

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22 REIT Dividends I Love, Hate for 2022

If you’re as nervous about the 2022 edition of the stock market as I am, we should take this holiday week to review reliable REIT dividends.

REITs (real estate investment trusts) are stocks that dish 90% of their profits as payouts. This makes them ideal income plays for retirees. Rather than buying shares and “hoping” they’ll go up, we can lock in quarterly (or even monthly!) dividends—real cold cash!—with REITs.

For example, my favorite REIT for 2022 yields 4.9%. This equates to $4,900 per year on a $100K position, a great start to the year. Plus, we have the opportunity for price gains—for a total return of 10% or so.… Read more

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21 REIT Dividends I Love (and Hate!) for 2021

Can we income seekers safely get back into REITs (real estate investment trusts) next year?

With the yield on the S&P 500 about to drop to a sad 1.5% (thanks, Tesla (TSLA) addition), renewed REIT-hope sure would be nice! The landlord industry index Vanguard Real Estate ETF (VNQ) pays 3.5%. That’s a dividend oasis in this zero-point-nothing world.

Once upon a time, VNQ performed in-line or better than the blue-chip index. It was a pretty good deal, as you could double your dividend and keep up with the Joneses’ portfolio with less heartburn.

Then, April 2020 came along, tenants stopped paying rents, and REITs-at-large got crushed:

A Good REIT Run While It Lasted

Does the fork-in-the-road above represent a paradigm shift or relative value?… Read more

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Our Rebound Shopping List: Dividends Over Stocks

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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Our Rebound Shopping List: Dividends Over Stocks

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

Read More

How to Rebalance a “No Withdrawal” Portfolio

1929, 2008 and, now, 2020.

We’ve only seen this level of “selling pressure” three times since 1900. A limited sample size, sure, but we’re in ominous company. Anything and everything has been dumped in a panic liquidation to raise cash.

We saw a similar “global margin call” in late 2008. A year’s worth of selling crescendoed into a financial crisis grand finale that would eventually conclude in March 2009.

The good news then? If you held tight or, better yet, bought through the panic, you eventually did quite well. Let’s take the worst day of that year. On October 15, 2008, the S&P 500 slid 9% in one day.… Read more

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