Is This 24% Dividend (Paid Monthly!) Too Good to Be True?

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“It’s my money, and I want it now!”

That’s the rallying cry of everyday folks in commercials for J.G. Wentworth, a financial services firm that offers lump-sum cash payments for structured settlements, annuities, lottery payments and more. (If you’ve never seen one of these TV spots, I suggest you try one out. They’re so bad they’re good.)

Every income investor could (and probably should) take a cue from its motto. To quote another spot: “Show us the money!”

Monthly dividend stocks, of course, pay more often than any other income investment. Dividend checks coming in every 30 days are especially handy for retirees who have bills to pay.… Read more

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If you’re like pretty well everyone else, you’re closely watching Gilead Sciences (GILD), creator of remdesivir, a drug that, last week, showed progress in treating the coronavirus in a US government study.

But does that make Gilead a good stock to buy now, particularly if you’re focused on income? Let’s take a look.

First up, unlike many other stocks these days, Gilead boasts a safe payout, with the dividend accounting for just 38% of free cash flow in the last 12 months. And the company has increased its dividend every year since initiating it in 2015:

A Reliable Dividend

It’s on the current-yield front where the dividend story starts to fray.… Read more

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If you’re like pretty well everyone else, you’re closely watching Gilead Sciences (GILD), creator of remdesivir, a drug that, last week, showed progress in treating the coronavirus in a US government study.

But does that make Gilead a good stock to buy now, particularly if you’re focused on income? Let’s take a look.

First up, unlike many other stocks these days, Gilead boasts a safe payout, with the dividend accounting for just 38% of free cash flow in the last 12 months. And the company has increased its dividend every year since initiating it in 2015:

A Reliable Dividend

It’s on the current-yield front where the dividend story starts to fray.… Read more

Read More

The “race to zero” heats up again. You’ve surely heard that Vanguard is now slicing and dicing its already-low fees and commissions. That sounds great, but in reality, the low-fee race is pennywise yet dividend-foolish for us income investors.

To retire on secure, high-yielding long-term investments, we actually prefer to pay a fair management fee. I’ll outline this in a moment via a trio of secure 7% payers. Their generous yields tower above mainstream low-fee options:

More on these three dividend funds in a minute. First, let’s review why we prefer to pay for professional management.

Vanguard kicked off the new trading year by joining the “no-commission” fray that caught the likes of Charles Schwab (SCHW) and E*Trade (ETFC) by surprise in 2019.… Read more

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If you ever want to retire (or stay retired!), you’ve got a big problem. Bonds don’t pay much now, and they’re likely to pay less and less in the months and years ahead.

I probably don’t have to tell you that the yield on the 10-year Treasury note has crashed to 1.6%. In other words, a $500K investment would get you a pathetic $4,000 in interest income every six months (as Treasuries only pay semiannually, unlike the three strong monthly dividend payers I’ll show you shortly).

Then there’s the specter of negative interest rates, something folks in many countries already know: today, $15 trillion of government bonds around the world are sloshing around with yields below zero.… Read more

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Don’t become complacent with your dividends! Your portfolio and your income are at the whim of Fed Chair Jerome Powell—now more than ever.

I realize he’s acting like a “good boy” at the moment. But what if JP decides to go rogue again and exercise his independence? A surprise rate hike would be catastrophic to many income portfolios.

That means you need to “Fed-proof” your nest egg and your dividends. Today we’ll discuss four funds paying dividends up to 10.7% that do just that.

These four closed-end funds (CEFs) have been left for dead in this market rally. That makes them great “Fed insurance”: they’re cheap, so they’ve got built-in upside if the rally goes into overtime.… Read more

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Don’t become complacent with your dividends! Your portfolio and your income are at the whim of Fed Chair Jerome Powell—now more than ever.

I realize he’s acting like a “good boy” at the moment. But what if JP decides to go rogue again and exercise his independence? A surprise rate hike would be catastrophic to many income portfolios.

That means you need to “Fed-proof” your nest egg and your dividends. Today we’ll discuss four funds paying dividends up to 10.7% that do just that.

These four closed-end funds (CEFs) have been left for dead in this market rally. That makes them great “Fed insurance”: they’re cheap, so they’ve got built-in upside if the rally goes into overtime.… Read more

Read More

Don’t become complacent with your dividends! Your portfolio and your income are at the whim of Fed Chair Jerome Powell—now more than ever.

I realize he’s acting like a “good boy” at the moment. But what if JP decides to go rogue again and exercise his independence? A surprise rate hike would be catastrophic to many income portfolios.

That means you need to “Fed-proof” your nest egg and your dividends. Today we’ll discuss four funds paying dividends up to 10.7% that do just that.

These four closed-end funds (CEFs) have been left for dead in this market rally. That makes them great “Fed insurance”: they’re cheap, so they’ve got built-in upside if the rally goes into overtime.… Read more

Read More

What if you could lock in a 7.7% gain year in and year out, and get it all in cash, no matter what the S&P 500 does?

With the market’s paper gains for 2018 now mostly gone, no thanks to the correction, I’m guessing this would have a lot of appeal. So today, I’m going to show you 2 “pullback-proof” dividends paying 5.4% and 7.7%, with plenty of price upside ahead, too.

Thanks to the pullback, these two are perfect for buying now and sitting on forever (or at least a few decades). More on them in a moment.

How to Beat Fear and Get Rich From the Pullback

First, if the daily barrage of negative headlines has you pondering bailing out on stocks, stick with me for a second, because that’s the worst thing you could do now.… Read more

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We’ve seen a lot of volatility and fear in 2018, and that’s handed us a great buying opportunity—particularly in the 5 unloved funds I’ll show you below.

Make no mistake: each of these 5 despised funds is poised for serious upside before 2018 is out … and they’ll pay us 8.2% average dividends, to boot. That’s enough to hand you $3,400 a month on a $500k nest egg! Before we get to them, let’s take a look back at the year so far and see what’s handed us this terrific opportunity.

History Is Set to Repeat

If you bought closed-end funds (CEFs) back in early March, when the market tanked and I urged investors to buy, you’d be enjoying a nice double-digit total return in just 6 months:

Hated CEFs Turn the Corner

Why did these 3 funds—the Reaves Utility Income Fund (UTG), the Cohen & Steers Infrastructure Fund (UTF) and the DNP Select Income Fund (DNP)—all of which I recommended back on March 1—soar?… Read more

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