Daily Archives: December 27, 2017

Dividends

3 “Sleeper” Funds Poised to Soar in 2018

If there’s one thing I love, it’s picking up on a “sleeper” income opportunity that first-level investors have walked right past.

And today I’m going to show you not one but three. And one of these stealth buys yields a safe, stable 9.5%.

So a $100,000 investment in this unloved fund would hand you a nice $9,500 in 2018, or a steady $2,375 when its dividends drop into your account every quarter.

I’ll have more to say about these 3 funds—all of which are managed by a real, live human—shortly, including why they’re a better way to go than a “dumb” index fund.

But right now, I will reveal that all 3 of these funds are in the utilities sector, which has itself been a sleeping giant in 2017. Even the “dumb” utility index fund, the Utilities Select Sector SPDR (XLU) has had a terrific year!

Utilities Pop in ’17

Note the two different numbers here. The blue line is XLU’s market price, or how much the price of a share has changed in 2017. The orange line is the total return price. As you can see, that’s a good 3.7 percentage points higher.

Why? Because a lot of XLU’s returns come in the form of dividends.

The fund’s 3.1% yield is high by today’s standards, but the nice thing is that utilities raise their payouts in the long run. That’s why XLU’s dividends did this in the last 20 years:

Payouts Keep Rising

This soaring dividend is possible because the companies XLU holds keep raising their payouts to shareholders. Take a look at this chart showing the dividends of the 3 biggest utility firms in America: NextEra Energy (NEE), Duke Energy (DUK) and Dominion Energy (D):

Payouts Rise—But the Ride is Bumpy

Notice how Duke Energy’s dividend actually collapsed in the mid-2000s? This isn’t because of a crisis in the utilities industry. This was a case of mismanagement—and that’s why picking individualutilities is risky.

It also shows the drawbacks of investing in utilities through an index fund like XLU. Because Duke is such a massive utility, the fund had to include the company in its portfolio, even if XLU’s managers thought it might run into trouble.

Luckily, we’ve got a third option: the 3 actively managed, utility focused closed-end funds (CEFs) I’ll show you now. Each one has an experienced pro (or team of pros) at the helm, giving us a muchbetter chance of avoiding dividend disasters. (If you’re unfamiliar with CEFs, click here for a complete primer on these high-yield investments.)

Better yet, we can get a much bigger income stream, like the fund I mentioned off the top that pays 9.5% now (it’s pick No. 3 below).

So without further ado, here are the 3 funds that should be on your list if you’re looking to add some utility exposure to your portfolio.

Fund #1: Big Total Returns and a Nice Discount

The first fund to consider is the Reaves Utility Income Fund (UTG).

This fund holds a ton of utilities and is well run, with a 9.6% annualized total return over the last decade, the best of all utility-focused CEFs. Plus, UTG pays a 6.1% dividend yield—a solid cash stream that’s nearly double what XLU gives us.

The best part? UTG has crushed the index:

Beating the Dumb Money

This strong outperformance shows UTG’s managers are more than earning their 1.7% fees (the returns of this fund, and all funds I show you, are after fees are paid out). That makes it a good fund to consider for utilities exposure.

Fund #2: Strong Returns on Sale

I wrote about the Cohen & Steers Infrastructure Fund (UTF) back on November 24, and since then shareholders have gotten a couple of treats. The first is the special dividend that shareholders are going to get at the end of the year, which boosts the fund’s forward yield to a juicy 8.8%! Despite those generous payouts, UTF has grown its net asset value (NAV, or what its underlying portfolio is worth) by 24.1% in 2017 on a total-return basis, far more than XLU’s 17% NAV gains for the same period.

UTF is also undervalued, with a market price that’s 9.3% lower than its NAV—but the fund traded at half that discount just a few months ago:

A Buy Window for UTF

A 20% capital gain isn’t out of the question for this fund in 2018, on top of its healthy income stream. That definitely makes UTF a utility CEF to consider now.

Fund #3: Bet on World Growth and Get 9.5% Income

Finally, let’s take a look at that fund I mentioned off the top—the one that pays out a 9.5% dividend yield. It also trades at a nice 4.8% discount to its NAV.

Why so cheap?

One reason, and one reason only: the market is stuck in the past. This fund, the Macquarie/First Global Infrastructure Fund (MFD), has had lackluster returns in the last few years due to the US dollar. The income from its investments is sound, but the US dollar had been getting stronger, which meant the foreign currency–based income MFD earns has been worth less and less in US-dollar terms.

Now take a look at this:

Weaker Dollar, Stronger Gains

The recent weakness in the US dollar has helped MFD’s income strengthen throughout 2017, and that’s resulted in more money flowing into the fund. But the weakness in the greenback isn’t over, which means MFD’s income stream is going to get stronger.

How do I know the US dollar isn’t poised for a turnaround?

Simple: the government said so.

Not only has President Trump said he supports a weaker US dollar, but the Federal Reserve has repeatedly said it wants to encourage more risk-taking investment in the American economy.

That means the Fed wants companies to take the dollars they’re sitting on and put them to use through building, investing and hiring. This lowers demand for the greenback, as we’ve seen throughout 2017. Expect this trend to continue—and expect MFD to benefit.

4 More “Sleeper Hits” With Dividends Up to 10.4%

Just a couple weeks ago, I released a fully updated FREE Special Report on my 4 favorite funds for 2018—and I made one last-minute addition I think you’ll love.

It’s a totally ignored CEF that boasts an incredible (and easily sustainable) 10.4% dividend payout! So a $100,000 investment would hand us a safe $10,400 a year in dividend payouts—or $2,600 every quarter!

Just imagine what that could do for your retirement.

There’s more: this unsung CEF is ridiculously undervalued—I’m talking about a 5.3% discount to NAV here. That doesn’t sound like much until you realize that this fund usually trades at a 1.7% premium.

That simply means we’ve got a nice gain already baked in when that “normal” premium returns—as it’s already starting to do!

That’s to say nothing about the “bonus” upside this 10.4%-paying income titan has, thanks to its other secret weapon: its top-notch management team.

In short, this crew has an eye for bargains unlike any I’ve ever seen: this CEF’s portfolio is made up of a basket of stocks with an average P/E ratio of 17.5—way lower than the S&P 500’s nosebleed 25!

Add it all up, and this unsung fund is lined up for EASY 20% price gains “on the side” in 2018.And I’ll say it again: we’ll still be collecting that 10.4% income stream along the way!

Editor's Note: The stock market is way up – and that’s terrible news for us dividend investors. Yields haven’t been this low in decades! But there are still plenty of great opportunities to secure meaningful income if you know where to look. Brett Owens' latest report reveals how you can easily (and safely) rake in 8%+ dividends and never worry about drawing down your capital again. Click here for full details!

Source: Contrarian Outlook

Bear

Like All Bubbles, This One Will End Badly

Stock market crashes always seem to come out of nowhere. But, in hindsight, we realize that all the elements for a crash were in place months before prices fell. There will, of course, be another crash, and we can already see many of the black swans lining up to cause the crash.

A black swan is a rare event that no one seems to be able to predict. It could be a housing crash after prices soar to unsustainable levels and are propped up by lax mortgage-underwriting standards. Or a black swan could be a surge in inflation or a geopolitical crisis.

When we study the black swans after the fact, they seem obvious. There were clues, but investors ignored the clues because they were caught up in “irrational exuberance.” Sometimes, investors can remain irrational for years. That’s what happened in 1996, the last time Alan Greenspan issued a warning.

Greenspan was chairman of the Federal Reserve at the time. He famously asked: “How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?”

Analysts at the time thought Greenspan was warning of a stock market bubble. He was, but the bubble lasted until early 2000, and the S&P 500 more than doubled before the bubble popped. Internet stocks recorded even bigger gains.

This time, Greenspan thinks we’re in a different kind of bubble…

 The Bond-Market Bubble Will Burst

For now, Greenspan thinks the stock market is in good shape. But he believes higher interest rates will cause a bear market someday.

Greenspan recently spoke to Bloomberg and confirmed what almost everyone who isn’t in the Fed believes: “By any measure, real long-term interest rates are much too low.”

In his view, the bond-market is in a bubble. And like all bubbles, the bond-market bubble will end badly.

“The real problem,” he said, “is that when the bond-market bubble collapses, long-term interest rates will rise. We are moving into a different phase of the economy — to a stagflation not seen since the 1970s. That is not good for asset prices.”

Many of us are too young to remember what the stock market was like in the 1970s. The chart below shows Greenspan was right. It was not a good time for asset prices, and investors suffered large losses.

Greenspan thinks the stock market is in good shape but that bonds are in a bubble. And like all bubbles, the bond market bubble is going to end badly.

The early 1970s was a time of relatively low inflation. The annual change in the Consumer Price Index is the red line in the chart below. The blue line shows the interest rate on 10-year Treasury notes.

Inflation jumped suddenly in 1973, and the Fed was slow to react. It kept interest rates too low for too long, and inflation roared toward 15%.

Greenspan thinks the stock market is in good shape but that bonds are in a bubble. And like all bubbles, the bond-market bubble is going to end badly.

(Source: Federal Reserve)

Eventually, the Fed raised interest rates and broke the inflationary spiral. But consumers endured high unemployment and high inflation while the Fed learned to battle inflation.

Maybe this time is different, and the Fed won’t allow inflation to accelerate. But that seems unlikely. We already have half of the stagflation formula in place with a stagnant economy.

Greenspan is warning that an unexpected spark will set off inflation. He’s probably right, because the Fed is in uncharted territory and has created a bubble in bonds. The bubble will burst … we just don’t know when. We do know, as Greenspan notes, that that will not be good for asset prices.

Regards,

Michael Carr, CMT
Editor, Peak Velocity Trader

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