Disney’s “Hidden” Dividend Cut Will Cost You (Even if You Don’t Own It)

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Disney’s “Hidden” Dividend Cut Will Cost You (Even if You Don’t Own It)

The dividend-cut parade is starting on Wall Street, and we need to be on the lookout for “payout traps” that could be hiding in our portfolios (often in plain sight).

That task is made tougher because some companies are using unconventional approaches to cutting their payouts. Take the Walt Disney Company (DIS), which released first-quarter earnings last week. Included: news that Disney wouldn’t pay out dividends for the first half of 2020.

Disney’s Dividend Growth Stalls

After decades of growing its payouts (that dip you see in 2012 above is when the company went from annual to semi-annual payments—annualized payouts actually went up 19% that year), Disney isn’t outright announcing its dividend cut; it’s simply telling investors they may have to wait to get cash in their hands.… Read more

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Ignore the Pundits: These 63 “Safe” Stocks Are Dangerous

If you’re like many investors these days, you’re warily eyeing your portfolio, wondering where the next dividend cut will come from.

Fear of dividend cuts is reasonable, even if you hold the Dividend Aristocrats—the 63 S&P 500 firms that have raised their payouts for 25 years (or more). This club includes well-known names like McDonald’s (MCD), Lowe’s (LOW), Kimberly-Clark (KMB) and Procter & Gamble (PG), as well as less familiar firms, like Sysco (SYY), VF Corporation (VFC) and Linde (LIN).

For many folks, the Aristocrats are sacred cows. But the crisis will inevitably force some of these companies to cut payouts in the weeks and months ahead.… Read more

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Beat the Recession With this 9%+ Yielding Tech Play

When it comes to protecting—and growing—your dividends (and portfolio) in these trying times, there are two sectors you should watch like a hawk: technology and energy.

Both are standouts in this crisis, but in completely different ways. Energy, for example, is a big reason why the second-quarter earnings outlook for the S&P 500 looks so grim:

Take a look at the chart below and you’ll see that energy is by far the biggest loser. Along with a few other industries, it offsets other areas where profits are forecast, such as tech, utilities and healthcare—all three of which are also great spots to shop for big dividends now.… Read more

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These 3 Huge Dividends Are Still Pricey (but These 41 Aren’t)

Has the market bottomed, or are we headed for another leg down before we can start to even think about any upside? It’s a debate that will be with us for a while yet.

But maybe not in every corner of the market. Because there’s a funny thing happening with closed-end funds (CEFs): for some of these high-yield investments, the recovery has already come.

Let me explain.

In a selloff, a CEF can get hit in a couple ways, namely from the market and from investors. In the case of regular stocks, these are the same. But for CEFs, there’s a key difference: while CEFs trade on the open market, like stocks, they have a fixed number of shares (hence the name“closed-end funds”).… Read more

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2 Guaranteed Ways to Lose Money Now (and 2 Great Buys for 7.5% Dividends and Upside)

Flipping through my stock screener earlier this week, I ran across two of the best examples of bubbles-in-the-making I’ve ever seen:

Looking to Lose Money? Invest Here.

Those would be Tesla (TSLA), in blue above, and Virgin Galactic (SPCE), in orange.

Bubbles, of course, are nothing new: Nobel Prize–winning economist Robert Shiller explained them in his 2000 book, aptly titled Irrational Exuberance:

“Errors of human judgment can infect even the smartest people, thanks to overconfidence, lack of attention to details and excessive trust in the judgments of others, stemming from a failure to understand that others are not making independent judgments but are themselves following still others—the blind leading the blind.”… Read more

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3 Top Tech Buys for 6%+ Dividends, 15% Gains

Almost everyone walked right by the three monster dividends I’ll show you in a minute: they yield up to 9% now, and we’re looking at 15%+ price upside too!

The media always downplays these picks—and never gives them the credit they’re due, especially when it comes to their massive dividend payouts.

But a few folks are starting to see these three funds as the source of steady retirement cash (plus upside) they are. So you only have a short time—I’m talking days—to make your move here.

I’ll unmask these three steady retirement dividends shortly (including one that even pays you every month, as opposed to every quarter), and rank them from worst to first.… Read more

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25 Popular Funds to Sell, 5 to Buy Instead (for 7.2% Dividends!)

The average yield among the 25 largest dividend exchange-traded funds is a meager 2.7% right now. That means if you plunked a $1 million on ETFs dedicated to dividend stocks, you’d only make $27,000 every year.

That’s barely higher than the 2018 federal poverty level for a family of four ($25,100)!

But you and I can do better – by double, even triple! I’m talking about turning these lame 2.7% payouts into fat dividends of 7.2% or more.

Serious yield hunters gravitate toward closed-end funds, where it’s common to find distributions of 7.2% or even higher! A retirement income of $72,000, after all, is a lot cushier than scraping by on $27,000 annually.…
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25 Popular Funds to Sell, 5 to Buy Instead (for 7.2% Dividends!)

The average yield among the 25 largest dividend exchange-traded funds is a meager 2.7% right now. That means if you plunked a $1 million on ETFs dedicated to dividend stocks, you’d only make $27,000 every year.

That’s barely higher than the 2018 federal poverty level for a family of four ($25,100)!

But you and I can do better – by double, even triple! I’m talking about turning these lame 2.7% payouts into fat dividends of 7.2% or more.

Serious yield hunters gravitate toward closed-end funds, where it’s common to find distributions of 7.2% or even higher! A retirement income of $72,000, after all, is a lot cushier than scraping by on $27,000 annually.…
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How to Play the Cryptocurrency Mania for Big Dividends

I know I don’t have to tell you that there are a ton of so-called experts out there dying to tell you why bitcoin, ripple or some other cryptocurrency is a surefire way to get rich.

Too bad they’re all wrong.

If you’ve been reading my columns on Contrarian Outlook, you know I issued a dire warning around Christmas that bitcoin’s promises were hollow, meaning the bubble was going to pop. “The truth is, bitcoin is actually the least private currency in existence!” I wrote, dismissing bitcoin’s biggest appeal for speculators.

But I had a bigger worry: would a burst bitcoin bubble wipe out tech stocks, too?…
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20 Funds to Beat the Fed and Pocket Dividends up to 12.4%

There are 20 elite closed-end funds (CEFs) that have proven their toughness in the last 10 years (including through the Great Recession, the most brutal test of all) and have still handed investors market-beating returns.

And below we’re going to look at all 20 of them.

So if you’re looking for a proven dividend payer that will hold its own through today’s troubles—trade wars and rising interest rates, to name just two—these 20 funds are a great place to start.

The Toughest of the Tough

Some of these cash machines throw off dividends of 6.8% or more (and one I’ll tell you about in a moment pays a sky-high 12.4%!).…
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