Let’s face it: you hardly ever get decent income from commodity stocks. And when you do, these payouts are usually first to get the axe next time, say, oil nosedives.

And with oil doing this…

Oil Falls—Oil Companies’ Profits to Follow 

… you may worry that it’s about to get harder to squeeze income out of oil companies.

Still, if you’re worried about inflation or the Federal Reserve distorting markets, or if you just want to hedge your stock portfolio, you’ll likely turn to commodities at some point. And there’s no more established inflation hedge than gold.

There’s just one problem: gold doesn’t produce anything.

As Warren Buffett said, you could put all the world’s gold in one big cube and it still wouldn’t produce income for you. That’s usually how it goes—and most gold miners don’t pay dividends because they’re too busy pumping cash into the business to mine more gold.

Fortunately there’s another way to get cash out of gold—and no small amount, either: I’m talking a 13.6% dividend yield.

How? With the GAMCO Global Gold Natural Resources & Income Trust (GGN), an actively managed closed-end fund (CEF) that holds energy and gold stocks, and pivots between them when the time is right.

Current holdings include Barrick Gold (GOLD), Newmont Mining (NEM), Chevron (CVX) and Exxon Mobil (XOM).Plus, as I just mentioned, GGN now yields a whopping 13.6%.

And if you’re worried that GGN’s strategy can’t beat its benchmarks, don’t be. Here’s what the fund has done in 2019:

GGN Tops Gold, Energy—and the Market Itself

Here we see that GGN has easily beaten stocks. Plus it’s also topped the energy sector and physical gold—the latter of which is tracked here by the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD). Both energy and gold are far below stocks in general, due to worries that inflation won’t rise soon, despite the Fed’s hints it may cut rates shortly.

If you’re wondering how a gold/energy fund can crush both gold and energy while also beating the stock market, let me explain.

With its portfolio flexibility, GGN can pivot between the two asset classes and buy what’s undervalued at the time. It can also avoid the worst of a downturn by cutting back on the weaker asset class, whether it’s gold or oil. This is why the supposedly safer energy index fund, the Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE), fell further than GGN in late 2018—and while XLE still hasn’t recovered, GGN is already in the black:

Flexibility Is GGN’s Strength

What about the dividend?

GGN hasn’t cut distributions since early 2017, when the fund was still picking up the pieces from the 2014 oil crash, which also resulted in a dividend cut for GGN in 2014 (it’s worth noting XLE’s dividends were also cut at the same time, as were those of almost all energy companies). Fortunately, oil has been predictably range-bound since, making it easier for energy-fund managers to maintain their portfolios and payouts:

Oil’s New Normal 

And with GGN’s recent solid showing, it looks like the fund has found the perfect strategy for oil’s new normal, while also dipping into gold markets when necessary. If the Fed follows through with rate cuts to inflate the economy, expect inflation to follow, making GGN’s gold holdings, its strategy and its dividend a decent hedge against a Fed-driven stock market.

Urgent: Grab This Growing 10.7% Dividend Now—While It’s Cheap

If you want to go beyond volatile commodities, you can bulk up your portfolio’s safety and bag a mammoth 10.7% income stream with my top stock-focused CEF pick now.

I’ve made this top-secret CEF my No. 1 pick in stock-focused funds for 2 reasons:

• It boasts an amazing 10.7% dividend yield.
• Its cash payout is exploding, up an incredible 150% in the last decade!

How does this fund do it?

It’s run by an investment all-star team cherry-picked from 5 of the sharpest management firms on Wall Street.

Together, this crew invests in a “no-gimmicks” portfolio of value and growth stocks, all of which have deep moats protecting their businesses: names like Visa (V), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL) and Abbott Laboratories (ABT).

So how has this all-star team performed?

They’ve dominated, with most of my pick’s monstrous total return coming in cash, thanks to that huge dividend payout:

Crushing the Market in Cash

Finally, this fund trades at an unreal 5% discount as I write this. It’s only a matter of time before that shifts to a massive premium, propelling my pick’s market price higher as it does.

Michael Foster has just uncovered 4 funds that tick off ALL his boxes for the perfect investment: a 7.4% average payout, steady dividend growth and 20%+ price upside. — but that won’t last long! Grab a piece of the action now, before the market comes to its senses. CLICK HERE and he’ll tell you all about his top 4 high-yield picks.

Source: Contrarian Outlook

Stock Symbol	Ex-Div Date	Pay Date	Div Payout	Yield
DX	06/25/19	7/3/19	0.2	38.50%
PVL	06/2719	07/15/19	0	18.13%
ORC	06/27/19	07/31/19	0.1	15.00%
TWO	06/28/19	07/29/19	0.4	12.66%
NRZ	06/28/19	07/26/19	0.5	12.63%
MITT	06/27/19	07/31/19	0.5	12.36%
CHMI	06/27/19	07/30/19	0.5	11.82%
ANH	06/27/19	07/29/19	0.1	11.52%
AGNC	06/27/19	07/10/19	0.2	11.35%
CLNC	06/27/19	07/10/19	0.1	11.29%

Data current as of market close 06/19/19.

Pay Your Bills for LIFE with These Dividend Stocks

Get your hands on my most comprehensive, step-by-step dividend plan yet. In just a few minutes, you will have a 36-month road map that could generate $4,804 (or more!) per month for life. It's the perfect supplement to Social Security and works even if the stock market tanks. Over 6,500 retirement investors have already followed the recommendations I've laid out.

Click here for complete details to start your plan today.

Source: Investors Alley

Today I’m going to give you a strategy—and a strong 6.5%-yielding fund—that both shine when the market throws a tantrum.

And both are way better than what most people do when things get rough: cash in.

Many studies have shown that trying to time the market simply doesn’t work. And even if you did have the superhuman ability to get in and out perfectly, you’d still underperform a buy-and-hold approach. Thanks to compound interest, keeping skin in the game is more important than trying to save your skin.

Options: Your (Surprising) Friend When Markets Roil

Instead of fruitlessly trying to time the market, we’re going to do something that actually works (and takes far less effort!).

We’re going to hedge our stock portfolio with a tool many folks think is dangerous but really isn’t (when used the way we’re going to use it).

I’m talking about options.

Now it is completely true that buying options is akin to gambling. But we’re not going to buy options; we’re going to sell options (call options, specifically). And that changes the game completely.

Best of all, we’re going to sell our call options through a “covered-call fund,” a special type of closed-end fund (CEF)run by professionals who do all the work for us.

(Call options give the holder the right, but not the obligation, to buy a security before a certain date. The buyer pays the seller—in this case our fund—for this right, and that cash stream helps smooth out covered-call funds’ volatility.)

Funds that sell call options against a portfolio of stocks can do better than funds that simply buy and hold in volatile times, while also outperforming in sideways markets. Since stocks have been both volatile and sideways for the last year, this strategy is tailor-made for today.

That brings me to our pick, which both buys high-quality companies at a good price and limits its downside with options.

This Fund Defends Your Nest Egg and Yields 6.5%

Our CEF is one of the largest of its class and one of the most discounted: the BlackRock Enhanced Equity Dividend Trust (BDJ).

This is a 6.5%-yielder trading at an 8.9% discount to NAV, even though its discount was half that just a few months ago. Those two facts are important because they mean BDJ’s managers only need to get a 6% return in the stock market to maintain the fund’s dividend payout, which is easy, since the market averages an 8% annual return over the long haul.

And BDJ has done even better, with a 9.4% annualized return over the last decade.

A Sparkling History

In fact, BDJ’s dividend has remained the same for the last four years—ever since the Fed started raising rates and volatility in stocks increased. That makes sense, considering the fund’s portfolio and strategy.

Large-Cap Safety Through and Through

With a portfolio of large-cap stocks from all sectors and a focus on cash-flow generation, BDJ marries value-investing and covered-call strategies in one easy-to-buy fund.

Plus, those 6.5% dividends are a nice treat.

Yet BDJ isn’t getting much respect—at least not yet. After its discount to NAV widened at the end of 2018, when investors panicked, BDJ is still cheaper than it was a year ago, even though its NAV has pretty much fully recovered:

An Underappreciated Bargain

If volatility comes back, that NAV recovery may slow down a bit, but it should stay on the same trajectory. And if volatility disappears, expect BDJ’s discount to NAV to continue to vanish. That spells out a rare win-win for income investors looking to protect themselves while still getting a reliable income stream.

This 7% Dividend Is Recession-Proof—and Tax-Free, Too

Covered-call funds aren’t the only CEFs that can build some Zen into your portfolio during a market wipeout.

There’s another type of high-yield CEF that does the exact same thing. I’m talking about municipal-bond funds.

I know. Just the name is enough to make your eyes glaze over. But don’t let that put you off, because “muni” funds are perfect for any investor’s portfolio.

That’s because they’re backed by the most reliable consumer there is: the government!

States, counties and cities issue munis to fund badly needed infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, airports and railroads.

That makes them a solid source of income on their own—and you can boost your dividend stream even more if you buy your munis through a CEF, like the one I just recommended in the latest issue of my CEF Insider service.

Check out the steady upward climb my new pick has put on over the past year (in blue below), compared to the motion sickness your typical S&P 500 investor suffered:

Imagine Holding This “Steady Eddie” Fund

And it still has plenty of room to run!

Michael Foster has just uncovered 4 funds that tick off ALL his boxes for the perfect investment: a 7.4% average payout, steady dividend growth and 20%+ price upside. — but that won’t last long! Grab a piece of the action now, before the market comes to its senses. CLICK HERE and he’ll tell you all about his top 4 high-yield picks.

More CEF Insider subscribers have been asking me how to deal with volatility lately. It’s easy to see why:

Another Downturn Appears … Then Disappears

So today I’m going to give you an easy way to cushion your portfolio in this whipsawing market. I’m actually going to show you three ways.

All three are closed-end funds (CEFs) with a special “insurance policy” that tones down market lurches. But you’ll still enjoy market recoveries, like the one we’ve seen in recent days.

The best part: we’ll keep our income stream strong and growing, thanks to these three funds’ massive 6.7%+ dividend yields. That kind of income stream isn’t only nice to have, it’ll be critical when we run into the next crisis, as I’ll explain further on.

The Covered-Call Edge

Let’s start with the traditional ways most people try to cut down volatility. Those would be holding cash—which, of course, gets you zero return—or so-called “safe” assets like Treasury notes, which pay a measly 2.5% at best.

If we want to have any kind of livable income stream in retirement, we need to do better. Which brings me to the solution I talked about off the top. It’s called a covered-call fund.

Let me explain.

“Covered call” refers to a strategy where a fund holds a basket of stocks, then sells “call options” (or the right to buy a security if it hits a certain price) to an outside buyer against one of its stock holdings. That generates income, as the buyer pays the seller (in this case our closed-end fund) a “premium” for the call option. This extra cash flow, in turn, acts as a kind of hedge if the fund’s stocks fall in value.

That’s how covered-call funds take the edge off a volatile market. Now let’s talk income—and dive into the three specific covered-call funds I have for you today.

3 “Laid Back” 6.7%+ Dividends You Can Buy Now

Since these funds receive cash for their call options, you can expect a bigger dividend stream from them. And that’s exactly what you get.

Massive Income Up for Grabs

The chart above shows three passive index ETFs you’re probably familiar with: the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA), the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) and the Invesco QQQ Fund (QQQ). This trio attempt to match the performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 indexes, respectively.

As income plays, these three passive ETFs are all duds.

While DIA’s 3% yield is relatively strong, as you can see above, it’s the best of a pretty meager bunch when you compare them to their covered-call CEF alternatives: the Nuveen Dow 30 Dynamic Overwrite Fund (DIAX), the Nuveen S&P Dynamic Overwrite Fund (SPXX) and the Nuveen NASDAQ 100 Dynamic Overwrite Fund (QQQX).

Heck, QQQX actually yields 10 times more than its ETF cousin!

These three CEFs track the three indexes very closely, but with one big exception: they also sell covered calls against their holdings, which is why their yields are many times greater than those of their index counterparts.

Also, since they sell call options on their portfolios, the value of their portfolios doesn’t fall as sharply during times of volatility. That’s why DIAX’s net asset value (NAV) bottomed above that of DIA in the last month:

A Step Ahead of the Index Once …

And DIAX wasn’t the only one, since QQQX’s NAV, while still down, as tech hasn’t recovered as much as other sectors, still didn’t hit the lowest point QQQ’s NAV did:

… Twice …

And for the broader index fund, the covered-call approach also helped SPXX’s NAV escape the lowest point SPY did:

… And Three Times!

So, as you can see, holding these covered-call funds helps limit your fund’s downside during brief periods of volatility while also providing you with the market’s upside when stocks recover.

But the most important part is the income.

Your “Dividend Hedge” Against the Next Crash

For any retiree, or anyone who uses their portfolio as a source of income, these funds are a no-brainer, and a way to safeguard against accelerated losses during a downturn.

Think of it this way: if you held SPY over SPXX and you needed a 6.7% income stream, you would need to sell part of your portfolio during the downturn to guarantee that income stream keeps coming in. But SPXX avoids this forced-loss selling: thanks to its higher yield, you’re getting a huge slice of your return in cash, cutting the need to sell anything when you don’t want to.

During times of protracted volatility, like we saw in late 2018, being able to avoid selling is the difference between double-digit losses and long-term gains driven by patience and perseverance. And that’s exactly what these CEFs make possible.

This “Hidden” 7% Dividend Is Recession-Proof—and Tax-Free, Too

Covered-call funds aren’t the only CEFs that can build some Zen into your portfolio during a market wipeout.

There’s another type of high-yield CEF that can do the exact same thing: municipal-bond funds.

Muni-bonds are among the steadiest CEFs you’ll find because they’re backstopped by the most reliable consumer there is: the government!

States, counties, towns and cities issue municipal bonds (or “munis”) to fund badly needed infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, airports and railroads.

That makes them a solid source of income on their own—and you can boost your dividend stream even more if you buy your munis through a CEF, like the one I recommended just a few days ago, in the latest issue of CEF Insider.

Check out the steady upward climb my brand-new pick has put on over the past year (in blue below), compared to the motion sickness your typical S&P 500 investor suffered:

Imagine Holding This “Steady Eddie” Fund

And it still has plenty of room to run!

Michael Foster has just uncovered 4 funds that tick off ALL his boxes for the perfect investment: a 7.4% average payout, steady dividend growth and 20%+ price upside. — but that won’t last long! Grab a piece of the action now, before the market comes to its senses. CLICK HERE and he’ll tell you all about his top 4 high-yield picks.

Source: Contrarian Outlook

With my focus on higher yield investments, I often receive questions about various closed-end funds. CEFs are actively managed investment pools with shares that trade on the stock exchanges.

A lot of these funds carry very attractive yields. The danger is that this is an asset class where it is hard to separate the good from the bad from the truly ugly. Here are some danger signs and CEFs that illustrate those dangers.

There are over 500 CEFs trading on the U.S. stock exchanges. A large portion of the funds own municipal bonds and pay dividends that are the pass-through vehicles for the tax-free interest paid by munis.

These funds require different investment criteria and are a topic for another day. Today the focus is on CEFs in the taxable side of the investment universe. The group includes stock funds, bond funds, and hybrid funds.

Evaluating individual closed-end funds can be frustrating. Many fund managers are not very forthcoming about what the own in the portfolios and how they implement investment strategies. Here are some clues with examples that show potential closed-end fund problems.

Share price to NAV premiums. A defining feature of closed-end funds is that once a fund is launched, the management company will not buy back shares. Shares only trade on the stock exchange. That means a CEF will have two share prices, the market price and the net asset value (NAV).

Both deep discounts and high premiums to NAV are danger signals. If you pay a premium for NAV shares, you are paying more than the portfolio assets are worth. Premiums can collapse leading to losses in your fund investments.

The PIMCO High Income Fund (PHK) currently trades at a 29.0% premium to NAV. This means you pay almost $1,300 for $1,000 worth of bond assets. The chart shows how the share price collapsed in in the Spring even has the NAV was stable to rising.

From the price to NAV premium alone, this is a CEF to sell, not buy. If it was on an investor’s buy list, the best course is to wait until the spread again reaches a low teens percentage, comparable to where it was at the end of 2017.

This closed-end fund is not worth the 10.6% yield.

CEF dividends are not always dividends. Closed-end funds can establish what are called managed distribution schemes. This lets a fund pay level dividends, even if the portfolio income is uneven. What are paid as dividends may be portfolio income, realized capital gains or even return of investor capital –ROC. While some ROC is not destructive to the portfolio value, it is a danger signal and may indicate the fund manager is selling assets to keep paying the dividend. That will erode the NAV over time.

Cornerstone Strategic Value Fund (CLM) is a global equities fund with a 20% yield. CLM is paying a $0.2035 per share monthly dividend. Unfortunately, well over half of the dividend history for the last two years has been ROC.

So far in 2019, 79.7% of the dividends paid have been classified as ROC. That’s 80% of each dividend coming back as a return of the investors’ own money. The paying out of principal instead of earnings will lead to dividend cuts.

To start 2019 this fund slashed the monthly payout by 13%. This fund is an example of a CEF with an eye-popping yield that in reality provides a false sense of investment gains.

CLM is a fund to sell, not own.

Rising interest rates will be bad for bond funds. In the world of taxable CEFs, there are similar numbers of stock funds and bond funds. For bond funds, an increase in interest rates will lead to falling bond prices. The longer the maturity of bonds owned, the steeper the price decline.

Preferred shares are bond-like investments that typically do not have maturity dates. In a rising rate environment, preferred stocks share will decline even more than bond prices.

Nuveen Preferred Income Opportunities Fund (JPC) is a closed-end fund that owns a portfolio of debt securities and preferred stock.

79% of the portfolio has time to maturities more than 20 years. This is not the portfolio to own if long term rates start to increase. In additional to the long maturities, the PRF portfolio is 34% leveraged.

In a rising rate environment, the cost of leverage will go up, and that leverage will multiply the bond value drop.

This is a fund to sell if you think interest rates will go up in the next few years and is not worth the 7.5% yield.

I know I don’t have to tell you it’s tough (and very frustrating) trying to get any kind of income stream from your savings these days.

The average S&P 500 stock yields just 1.9%. That’s not even enough to cover inflation!

Treasuries? The 10-year note yields an almost equally pathetic 2.3%.

But there are still safe 7%+ dividends to be had—even in the “income desert” we’re living in now. I’ll show you three funds yielding up to 8.5% (more than 4 times the typical S&P 500 yield) in a second.

Dividends like those can let you clock out on a nest egg that’s far smaller than advisers say you need. I’m talking $550K—and maybe less. Here are two simple strategies for pulling it off:

• Go contrarian: Buy safe, 7%+-paying funds when they’re out of favor (I’ll give you a simple way to determine this shortly) and hold them through any market.
• “No Withdrawal”: We’ll build a portfolio that can let you retire on dividends alone. Because when you’re pulling in, say, a 7.5% average yield, you can generate a $40,000 income stream on just a $550K nest egg.
   
  For many folks, that’s enough to punch out, collect their dividend checks and ignore the market’s daily swings altogether!

Better yet, I’ve done the work for you.

Here are three overlooked funds yielding up to 8.5%. All three are what I call “pullback proof”: they hold the line during corrections like the “May massacre” we just saw.

High-Yield Pick No. 1: A “Preferred” 7% Dividend Paid Monthly

My first fund holds preferred shares, which are a perfect substitute for the “common” shares you probably own today.

A company’s preferred stock usually pays a much higher dividend than the “common” shares most folks buy. So by simply “trading in” your common shares for preferreds, you can double (or more) your income stream while still investing in the same company.

The tradeoff is usually less upside, but if you buy your preferreds through a well-run closed-end fund (CEF) —which I recommend—the cash return from your dividends can be so high you might not even notice.

Consider the Flaherty & Crumrine Total Return Fund (FLC) (payer of a monthly 7% dividend): it’s delivered a 214% total return (including dividends) since inception in 2003, driven by its huge cash payouts:

A Huge Gain—Mostly in Cash

And talk about pullback proof! Look at how it performed over the past month:

The Ultimate “Pullback-Proof” Play

And check out the total return FLC has posted since September 20, 2018, when last year’s collapse started.

FLC Shows Its Mettle

As you can see, the fund’s return didn’t drop nearly as far as the S&P 500 in the meltdown, and shareholders are actually up 10% since that correction started.

Finally, let’s talk upside.

With CEFs, the key number to watch is the gap between the fund’s market price and the value of the assets in its portfolio, known as the net asset value, or NAV.

As I write this, FLC’s discount stands at 4%, and it’s traded at narrower discounts (and even hefty premiums) over the last five years, so we can look forward to price gains as that discount creeps ever closer to par—and beyond.

High-Yield Play No. 2: A Top REIT Fund Yielding 7.1%

If your portfolio is low on preferreds and real estate investment trusts, you can grab both in one buy with the Cohen & Steers REIT & Preferred Income Fund (RNP).

RNP has crushed both the S&P 500 and the REIT benchmark Vanguard REIT ETF (VNQ) since inception in 2004—no mean feat for an income play like this.

A High-Yield Market Beater

And thanks to its huge dividend (current yield: 7.1%), a huge slice of that gain was in cash.

This fund taps its REIT holdings (51% of the portfolio) and preferred stocks (49%) to give us that steady 7.1% dividend (also paid monthly). And as with FLC, RNP has held up nicely this past month:

RNP Sails Through the “May Massacre” …

Also like FLC, it fell far less than the market during last fall’s correction, and bounced back faster, handing investors a nice 10% return.

… And the Fall Collapse, Too

Finally, you can grab this one at an 8.5% discount to NAV, a discount that can’t last, considering RNP’s “no-drama” approach and long history of crushing the S&P 500.

High-Yield Play No. 3: An 8.5% Dividend With Upside

The Western Asset High Income Fund II (HIX) is a high-yield bond fund with a long history of strong performance, having tripled in value (including dividends) since its IPO in the late 1990s, crushing the S&P 500.

This Fund Can’t Stop Climbing

HIX gives investors that strong return while yielding 8.5%. Management firm Legg Mason, which has been in the fixed-income business for 48 years, generates HIX’s 8.5% dividend through a portfolio that includes emerging-market bonds, high-yield corporate bonds, investment-grade corporates, bank loans and a small cash holding.

That high total return and consistent share-price performance make HIX worth your attention at any time, but now that it’s trading at a 9% discount to NAV, it’s particularly compelling.

That’s because the fund has traded near (or even above) par with its NAV for months on end in the past. So if you buy HIX now and wait for its discount to evaporate, you’d be looking at 9.9% gains on top of your 8.5% dividend stream.

5 More “Pullback-Proof” Plays Yielding Up to 9.6%

These three funds are just the start. And to tell you the truth, they’re not even my favorite “pullback-proof” buys now.

Those would be the 5 stocks in my just-released “Pullback-Proof” retirement portfolio, including one stock—a conservative lender with stellar loan performance—paying a “hidden” 9.6% dividend.

I say this stock’s dividend is hidden because its current yield—the one you’d see on Google Finance and Yahoo Finance—clocks in at 8.1%. That’s already massive, but the current yields on most screeners don’t account for one critical thing:

Special dividends.

And this REIT has a long history of special payouts. Check it out:

An 8.1% Dividend—and More

Add in this company’s last special payout, and its “real” yield pops to that incredible 9.6% I just mentioned.

Here’s what that payout means in dollars and cents: if you had $100K in this cash machine, you’d get $9,600 back in dividend cash in the past year alone—and I expect a similar total payout this year (this REIT usually rolls out its special dividend in the fall).

And when I say this stout dividend is “pullback-proof,” I mean it: check out how this stock performed in 2018—a year most investors would rather forget:

My Pick Soars in a Rough Year

That’s right: when the rest of the market tumbled, this pick’s owners actually bagged a near-14% return!

I’m ready to share the name of this pick and my 4 other top “Pullback-Proof” buys with you now.

These 5 reliable CEFs are similar to the 3 funds I showed you above, but with two critical differences: they’re set for stronger price upside (7% to 15% in the next year alone) and faster payout growth, too!

And you’re about to get the full story on each of them.

Stock Symbol	Ex-Div Date	Pay Date	Div Payout	Yield
GARS	06/06/19	06/21/19	0.23	13.35%
IGD	06/03/19	06/17/19	0.06	11.46%
IID	06/03/19	06/17/19	0.05	11.02%
FDEU	06/03/19	06/17/19	0.12	10.94%
AFIN	06/07/19	06/17/19	0.09	10.64%
FEI	06/03/19	06/17/19	0.1	10.25%
FPL	06/03/19	06/17/19	0.07	10.04%
CATO	06/07/19	06/24/19	0.33	9.73%
FDUS	06/06/19	06/21/19	0.39	9.65%
WHG	06/06/19	07/01/19	0.72	9.37%

source: Investors Alley

Pay Your Bills for LIFE with These Dividend Stocks

Get your hands on my most comprehensive, step-by-step dividend plan yet. In just a few minutes, you will have a 36-month road map that could generate $4,804 (or more!) per month for life. It's the perfect supplement to Social Security and works even if the stock market tanks. Over 6,500 retirement investors have already followed the recommendations I've laid out.

Click here for complete details to start your plan today.

For an investor trying to build wealth, the massive amount of news coming out of the financial media can be contradictory and confusing. Investors often don’t realize that there are two sides to every stock trade.

The seller doesn’t want to own the shares for a range of reasons, and the buyer does so with the belief that the share price will go up. One key to success is to understand which financial news is “real” and which is rumor or opinion, and thus “fake.”

Here are some tips that help you decide whether the stock market information you are hearing, or reading is actual, useful information, or is something we can drop into the “fake news” file.

• Real News: Information provided directly from the company behind the stock. The best of these are the quarterly and annual earnings reports. Income statements and balance sheets give accurate pictures of how a company is operating. Also useful are press releases on other topics and management comments during conference calls and Q and A sessions.

• Fake News: Short term market reactions and financial news comments about an earnings report. Wall Street analysts generate earnings forecasts that are just estimates, and the stock market treats it them as hit or miss targets. Also, in the fake news category are financial writer analysis articles. They can be useful to get an educated opinion, but they are not a substitute for doing your own analysis.

• Real News: Dividend payments. Dividends are a cash return on your investment that cannot be clawed back. Dividends are how a company shares profits with shareholders. If a company can grow profits, it will also grow the dividend payments. Looking at history and monitoring continued dividend payments are a great way to monitor a company’s financial success.

• Fake News: Counting on share price gains as sustainable and predictable profits. It can be surprising how quickly a stock that shows as a profit in your brokerage account can drop and wipe out your gains, and even go to a loss.

The challenge of expecting share appreciation to fuel your expected investment returns is that at some point you need to find another investor willing to buy your shares at a higher price. Trying to pick tops and bottoms in the stock market and share prices is a very difficult, if not impossible, way to build and sustain wealth.

• Real News: To build wealth or sustain a nest egg to last for decades, you need an investment strategy that will work through the stock market cycles. This means being ready to manage and invest during corrections and bear markets as well as when stocks are going up. In my newsletters I discuss strategies focused on building a dividend income stream. Whatever system and strategy selected, you should know how you are going to handle the periods when stock values are falling.

• Fake News: Hot tips and get rich quick offers are designed to separate investors from their money and not to help them actually succeed in reaching their investment goals. Think about this: If someone has a system that will turn a few thousand dollars into millions, why do they need to sell it?

The bottom line to this discussion is that successful investing for the long term will be based on fundamental analysis of the companies behind the shares. Dividend history and payments are a great way to track how well a company is doing, and an attractive yield is a great return in itself.

Here are three stocks currently out of favor with the market with great long term potential.

Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. (SKT) is a pure play owner of outlet style shopping centers. It is the only REIT focused on this type of retail space. Tanger has increased its dividend rate every year since the company’s 1996 IPO.

The recent “fake news” about the end of brick and mortar retail has driven the SKT share price down to around $18, compared to a high over $41 two years ago. The company is financially conservatively managed, and at some point, will resume a growth trajectory. Right now, value oriented investors can pick up shares with a 7.9% yield and annual dividend increases.

History shows that retail trends go through repeating cycles, and when retailers are again opening more stores than closing them, Tanger will be a great stock to own.

Aircastle Limited (AYR): is an aircraft leasing company that has almost 300 commercial planes leased to airlines around the world.

There are many factors that have “fake” news effects on the Aircastle share price. These include the global economic predictions, forecast travel plans, and the Boeing 737 Max problems. Good news is that Aircastle doesn’t own any 737’s.

Despite all the events that investors believe will affect the company’s results, Aircastle is a very profitable company with steady revenue and free cash flow growth. The dividend will be increased by 6% to 9% per year, generating attractive long term total returns, especially if you add shares on any dips.

Current yield is 6.0%.

CNX Midstream Partners LP (CNXM) is a is a master limited partnership that owns, operates, develops and acquires gathering and other midstream energy assets to service natural gas production in the Appalachian Basin in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

This MLP is managed and sponsored by CNX Resources Corporation. The share values of both CNX and CNXM are down on lower natural gas prices. However, as a midstream services provider, CNXM operates as a fee based business whose revenues are not dependent on natural gas prices.

The MLP’s management team has stated they are targeting 15% annual distribution growth. Combine that growth with a current 9.7% yield and you have tremendous total return potential.

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I want to show you 10 funds that yield up to 9.4%—and that you should sell now (or steer clear of if you don’t own them).

Of course, near-10% yields are attractive, and I often see attractive funds yielding as much as (and more than) the 10 funds I’ll reveal in a second. But sometimes a big yield is too good to be true, and that’s the case here.

The reason I’m saying this now? These funds have been on a tear in the last few months, which is far out of character for both them and their asset class.

I’m talking about utilities funds.

Utilities are typically seen as a boring investment and, historically, a good one to be in. An investor who stuck to just utilities over the last 20 years has crushed the S&P 500 SPDR ETF (SPY), even if they simply bought the Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLU) and left it at that:

“Boring” Picks Crush the Market

This is one reason why I love utilities for the long term, but sometimes the market gets irrational and bids these stocks up too much.

Now is such a time.

There are two trends at play here. The first involves all utilities funds; after a short dip in late 2018, investors are running back to utilities, as they are with many other investments. The idea is that utilities fell too hard in late 2018, creating value that needs to be scooped up now.

It’s a good hypothesis, and it’s true for many assets. But it’s not true for utilities.

Too High, Too Fast

What investors forget is that utilities didn’t go down in 2018; in fact, they were one of the few asset classes to have a positive year, gaining about 5%. That means they’re now up nearly 24% in the past year and 16.7% since the start of 2018.

That’s just too much too soon.

Why? Because utilities aren’t terribly surprising assets. They buy commodities and produce electricity and other, well, utilities for consumers, while hedging their commodity exposure. It’s a predictable industry, which makes for a strong cash flow and a high yield (XLU’s 2.9% yield is one of the highest among passive stock funds).

While that means XLU is best avoided now, there are also warning signs in the world of utility-focused closed-end funds (CEFs). Of the 10 utilities CEFs out there, seven have had year-to-date market-price returns exceeding their NAV returns—or the performance of their underlying portfolios:

With the exception of DNP, these funds have pretty much priced in their NAV returns (which are all exceptional) for 2019, which curbs their upside.

That might make DNP look appealing here—especially when you consider that it has a decent track record compared to its peers:

With an annualized 10.7% return over the nine-plus years since its IPO, DNP is just a bit better than a typical utilities CEF, even if it has trailed XLU’s 12.5% annualized return over the same period. But DNP’s reliable dividend and 6.7% yield more than make up for that. With this in mind, DNP isn’t a bad fund, despite the market privileging other utilities funds over it.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean DNP is an option for income investors right now. Remember, one of the key benefits of buying CEFs is getting a strong collection of investments at a discount, yet DNP currently trades at the second-highest premium of any utilities CEF:

While DNP’s 15% premium is nowhere near as massive as GUT’s near 40% premium, it’s still a large amount that could feasibly disappear any minute if the market decides to turn on utilities—which appears to be an imminent threat.

And while the discounted CEFs above could all be considered attractive, only GLU, DPG and MGU have discounts wider than their long-term averages. But in the case of GLU and DPG, that discount makes a lot of sense; both funds are duds, being the worst performers in the CEF utilities universe and trailing the index by a wide margin.

And as for MGU, its foreign exposure at a time when global growth is slowing and American growth is strengthening makes it a high-risk venture—which explains its big discount.

The bottom line? Utilities are a reliable sector for income, and utilities CEFs are a great high-yield way to buy into that sector, but now is clearly not the time to buy these funds.

Forget Utilities: This 10.7% Dividend Grew 150% (and it’s just getting started)

Now that we’ve covered the 10 funds you need to sell in this soaring market, let’s talk about what we’re going to buynow.

Because contrary to popular belief, there are still plenty of bargain dividends to be found out there—especially in CEFs.

Like the ignored fund my team and I just uncovered: it boasts something most people will tell you is impossible: a 10.7% dividend that’s growing triple digits!

That’s right: this unsung fund yields a mammoth 10.7% as I write, and its payout has exploded 150% in the last decade:

1 Click for a Massive Yield and Soaring Payout Growth

How does this fund do it?

My 10.7%-paying pick is run by a hand-picked investment “all-star team.” These pros have quietly assembled a “no-gimmicks” portfolio of value and growth stocks from across the economy, such as Visa (V), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL) and Abbott Laboratories (ABT).

I know what you’re going to ask next: how has this so-called “all-star team” performed in the past?

See for yourself:

A 10.7%-Paying Market Dominator

Best of all, this monstrous return includes dividends, a huge slice of it was in cash, thanks to my pick’s massive dividend payout.

Finally, this fund trades at an unreal 5.1% discount as I write. When you consider its market dominance, 10.7% dividend and 150% dividend growth, you can only come to one conclusion:

It’s only a matter of time before investors bid this CEF up to a huge premium—driving its price through the roof!

The time to buy is now.

Michael Foster has just uncovered 4 funds that tick off ALL his boxes for the perfect investment: a 7.4% average payout, steady dividend growth and 20%+ price upside. — but that won’t last long! Grab a piece of the action now, before the market comes to its senses. CLICK HERE and he’ll tell you all about his top 4 high-yield picks.