What the Trump Election Win Means for Our CEFs (Including This 11%-Payer)

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What the Trump Election Win Means for Our CEFs (Including This 11%-Payer)

Immediately after President-Elect Donald Trump won his second term last week, the US dollar surged, while US Treasuries fell:

Election Sends Dollar Up, Treasuries Down in Early Trading

Both moves are opposite sides of the same coin: Investors believe Trump’s policies will be inflationary. The theory suggests this would happen for a couple of reasons:

  1. The US government will spend more, and interest rates will rise higher than rates elsewhere in the world in response. That will attract foreign capital to America while making it less attractive for capital to leave the US.
  2. All of that extra capital in America will boost economic activity and demand for the dollar.

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Yearly Dividends Up to $68,500 on Just $500K

If there’s anything better than monthly dividends, well, we contrarians don’t want to know about it. Getting paid on the same schedule as our bills (monthly!), makes retirement planning easy.

We still need enough yield, though, to get rid (and stay rid) of our day jobs. Our pile of savings is what it is at this point, so we look to larger dividends to do the heavy lifting for us.

The S&P 500, needless to say, won’t cut it. First, the “SPY” pays quarterly—not often enough! Second, it pays 1.2%—not high enough!

“The Market” Is Paying Just Pennies

Even yield-focused funds’ yields are pretty lame right now.… Read more

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Here’s What to Buy (for Big Dividends) After Last Week’s Market Plunge

What the heck happened last Monday? I know I don’t have to tell you that the market dropped off a cliff, only to float back higher as the week continued.

The media has been saying that it was all about the latest jobs report in the US, which came out on Friday and simply wasn’t that bad—certainly not the kind of result that deserves the response we saw from stocks.

To put it in perspective, the NASDAQ 100’s fall in a single day was worse than what we saw in the pandemic, when the global economy literally shut down.

Despite the rise in the unemployment rate, joblessness is still relatively low historically speaking, companies are defaulting less than a few months ago (and at historically low levels), and the US economy is set to grow well over 2% this year, after strong growth last year.… Read more

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Ackman’s $25-Billion Fund Goes Poof (and We Profit With Huge Dividends)

When legendary activist Bill Ackman makes a move, the investment world notices. So when he said he was going to jump into our favorite income plays—8%+ yielding closed-end funds (CEFs)—it certainly got our attention.

We broke it all down in a July 11 article, specifically how Ackman’s latest move—a plan to launch a new CEF with $25 billion in assets under management (making it by far the biggest CEF ever)—was likely to send these funds soaring.

Notice I used the word “was” a number of times just now. That’s because Ackman scrapped the plan just last week.

Ackman’s sudden about-face left many heads spinning in CEF-land.… Read more

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Yields 14.4%, Sure, But It’s Comically Overpriced

Who is paying a 27% premium for Guggenheim Strategic Opportunity Fund (GOF)?

Don’t get me wrong. GOF is a fine fund, delivering 9.8% yearly returns on its net asset value (NAV) since inception. But we are talking nosebleed valuation territory for GOF. It’s a dangerous purchase at these levels.

Bandwagoners buying today are unlikely to see 9.8% returns. Or anything close. Plus, they are exposing themselves to 27% downside risk because, as we’ll discuss in a minute, GOF eventually finds its way back to par.

How can a premium like this exist? GOF is a closed-end fund (CEF) with a fixed pool of shares.… Read more

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The Bond Market Is Booming (and these 9% Dividends Are the Best Play)

It’s no secret that corporate bonds are booming. But what might come as a surprise to some folks is that we’re not too late to get in. Through a group of well-run closed-end funds (CEFs), we can still tap big corporate-bond yields at a discount.

Even perennially gloomy Business Insider (notorious for its overdone calls for an inflation/recession-driven crash in 2022) acknowledges the terrific environment for bonds right now. Recently, BI had to admit not only that “Corporate bonds are the safest they’ve been in years,” but that this is one of the best bond markets we’ve ever seen.… Read more

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Should You Lock in These Monthly Dividends Up to 16.7%, Or Is It Too Late?

Today we’ll discuss five monthly dividends with yields between 7.3% and 16.7%. But let’s be careful—market participants are showing signs of greed right now.


Source: CNN

Monthly dividend stocks can help settle down a seasick portfolio. First, they pay every 30 days. What a concept! Their payments line up with our bills. Brilliant.

Quarterly payers aren’t as nice. Let’s look at a $500,000 portfolio split evenly among a group of five mega-cap dividend payers. This is a set of wildly popular blue chips you can find in the top 10 or top 20 holdings of just about every major large-cap fund—and despite this, they deliver a downright miserly sub-1% yield!… Read more

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4 Keys to Steady 11%+ Dividends in CEFs

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. No, I’m not talking about Dickensian London—I’m talking about the mood among investors in our favorite high-yield investments, closed-end funds (CEFs), these days.

Those of us who know what to look for in CEFs are finding a rich hunting ground of big dividends. Yields are up—our CEF Insider portfolio yields an average of 10.2% today—and we’re in a good position to book longer-term profits due to the big discounts still available. (We can thank the cautious folks who invest in CEFs for that—they’ve been slower to buy back in after the 2022 pullback, due to alarmist media headlines.)… Read more

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Do This for $4,000+ in Dividend Income Every Month

The hardest part of convincing folks they can lock in high dividends for the long haul (I’m talking 9%+ yields here) is that many just don’t believe it.

And frankly, I can’t blame them. Too many people are paid a lot of money to tell investors that yields like that are impossible. But the truth is you can get a 9.5% yield today—and even more. But even at 9.5%, we’re talking about a middle-class income of $4,000 per month on an investment of just a touch over $500K.


Source: CEF Insider

Below, I’ll reveal how to start building a portfolio that could get you an even bigger income stream than this today.… Read more

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Why 2023 Is Not 2008 (and a 13.1% Dividend That Doesn’t Care)

I recently got a really good question from a reader, who wondered how our current market situation compares to the 2008–2009 crash.

The short answer is that it really doesn’t. But the longer answer is much more interesting, and profitable, because it outlines the unique opportunity we now have to collect historically high dividends from my favorite income plays: closed-end funds (CEFs).

The Current State of Play for Income Investments

On cue, the current selloff has prompted the media to get on the gloom-and-doom train. As a result, we’re starting to see more fear in the markets. It’s tough to understate the impact this fear can have.… Read more

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