There are two big stories to watch in the stock market right now. One involves the Federal Reserve… …and the other involves Lyft, Uber, Pinterest, and other tech companies expected to complete initial public offerings (IPOs) in the near future. First, let’s look at the Fed, which recently announced some changes in their outlook. Story #1: The Fed Just three months ago, their forecast indicated we should expect two more interest rate hikes before the end of 2019. Last week, that changed, and the forecast now is for no additional rate hikes this year. Read More

There are two big stories to watch in the stock market right now. One involves the Federal Reserve… …and the other involves Lyft, Uber, Pinterest, and other tech companies expected to complete initial public offerings (IPOs) in the near future. First, let’s look at the Fed, which recently announced some changes in their outlook. Story #1: The Fed Just three months ago, their forecast indicated we should expect two more interest rate hikes before the end of 2019. Last week, that changed, and the forecast now is for no additional rate hikes this year. That indicates the Fed believes the economy will slow, and their forecasts for economic growth confirmed that. GDP is now expected to grow 2.1% this year, a cut of 0.2% from the December forecast. The Fed also announced changes to its plans for drawing down its balance sheet. During the financial crisis, the Fed’s balance sheet increased from less than $1 trillion to more than $4 trillion. In the past year, they have been selling off assets to bring the balance sheet down to a normal level. They had been selling $50 billion worth of securities a month. Read More

Have you ever looked at the portfolio composition of popular equity-income funds such as Vanguard Dividend Appreciation (NYSE: VIG)? The low-cost exchange-traded fund (ETF) was built to give investors access to a broad basket of 200 dividend-paying stocks.  It has done a respectable job, delivering total returns of 10.2% annually over the past five years, better than most category peers. But the fund isn’t nearly as diverse as you might expect. More than 70% of assets are sunk into just three sectors: industrials, consumer services and consumer goods.  I can relate. A good chunk of my High-Yield Investing portfolio is… Read More

Have you ever looked at the portfolio composition of popular equity-income funds such as Vanguard Dividend Appreciation (NYSE: VIG)? The low-cost exchange-traded fund (ETF) was built to give investors access to a broad basket of 200 dividend-paying stocks.  It has done a respectable job, delivering total returns of 10.2% annually over the past five years, better than most category peers. But the fund isn’t nearly as diverse as you might expect. More than 70% of assets are sunk into just three sectors: industrials, consumer services and consumer goods.  I can relate. A good chunk of my High-Yield Investing portfolio is devoted to midstream energy MLPs, real estate trusts, and infrastructure firms.  That’s no accident. These companies own durable assets that generate steady, predictable cash flows. They also offer some of the most generous yields around, with lofty payouts of 6% to 8% or more. So naturally, I do a lot of fishing in these waters. And I won’t complain about long-term returns of 108%, 207%, 421%, and more.  Still, too much concentration can be dangerous. And there’s a lot of ground to cover out there.  —Recommended Link— Congratulations on 10 years of profits We’ve unleashed it again–our annual Game-Changing… Read More

Where do you go to find the very best growth stories?  Clearly, some of the best innovators come from the tech and the health-care industries. And so, almost by default, most of my Fast-Track Millionaire portfolio stocks belong to those two major growth sectors.  But what about the rest of the economy? Does it not generate any innovation or significant profit opportunities?  Of course, it does. And that’s what today’s piece is all about… —Recommended Link— This “Guaranteed Income Strategy” Is Batting .905 Since 2013, one income investment has been knocking it out of the park. In… Read More

Where do you go to find the very best growth stories?  Clearly, some of the best innovators come from the tech and the health-care industries. And so, almost by default, most of my Fast-Track Millionaire portfolio stocks belong to those two major growth sectors.  But what about the rest of the economy? Does it not generate any innovation or significant profit opportunities?  Of course, it does. And that’s what today’s piece is all about… —Recommended Link— This “Guaranteed Income Strategy” Is Batting .905 Since 2013, one income investment has been knocking it out of the park. In fact, the “Guaranteed Income Strategy” has banked 191 winners out of 211 trades — generating a $140,490 windfall. If collecting instant cash and winning 90.5% of the time sounds good to you, then grab the details on how you can pocket your first instant cash this Wednesday. To illustrate my point, look no further than a company like Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA). Believe it or not, Tesla is an industrial company by any official classification. And regardless what you may think of the recent, well-publicized missteps of CEO Elon Musk, is indeed an innovator. And what’s more,… Read More

Despite choppy oil prices, master limited partnership (MLP) Magellan Midstream (NYSE: MMP) has managed to produce record distributable cash flows (DCFs) over the past year.  But that’s not altogether surprising, considering 90% of the firm’s income is fee-based, leaving just 10% sensitive to commodity prices. It’s also why we’ve held it in our portfolio over at The Daily Paycheck since 2010. Magellan At A Glance For those who are unfamiliar, Magellan owns 9,700 miles of refined products pipelines that connect with roughly half of the nation’s refineries. It also operates 53 terminals that have 45 million barrels of… Read More

Despite choppy oil prices, master limited partnership (MLP) Magellan Midstream (NYSE: MMP) has managed to produce record distributable cash flows (DCFs) over the past year.  But that’s not altogether surprising, considering 90% of the firm’s income is fee-based, leaving just 10% sensitive to commodity prices. It’s also why we’ve held it in our portfolio over at The Daily Paycheck since 2010. Magellan At A Glance For those who are unfamiliar, Magellan owns 9,700 miles of refined products pipelines that connect with roughly half of the nation’s refineries. It also operates 53 terminals that have 45 million barrels of gas and diesel fuel storage capacity. That’s in addition to 2,200 miles of crude oil pipelines that feed storage systems from the Gulf Coast to the nation’s main hub in Cushing, Oklahoma. Magellan doesn’t take possession of any oil or other liquids — it just gets paid for storage and transportation services. That compensation comes in the form of tariffs and fees (often under long-term contracts) based on the volume of oil and refined products flowing through its networks. #-ad_banner-#What’s New With MMP Thanks in part to a 4.4% tariff increase at mid-year, the company delivered record DCF of… Read More

You know you’ve stumbled across something good when other financial publishing outlets begin using it.  It is a bit of a catch-22, however, because on the one hand it’s an idea that we here at StreetAuthority developed and made popular, but don’t get credit for… On the other hand, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. To be sure, it’s not as if we developed an iPhone model that every other competitor began mimicking, or some other ground-breaking technology. We simply came up with giving a sound, time-tested way of investing, a couple of catchy phrases. They aren’t proprietary, trademarked… Read More

You know you’ve stumbled across something good when other financial publishing outlets begin using it.  It is a bit of a catch-22, however, because on the one hand it’s an idea that we here at StreetAuthority developed and made popular, but don’t get credit for… On the other hand, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. To be sure, it’s not as if we developed an iPhone model that every other competitor began mimicking, or some other ground-breaking technology. We simply came up with giving a sound, time-tested way of investing, a couple of catchy phrases. They aren’t proprietary, trademarked or patented. Nor should they be. But now, whenever I come across them on the Web, I simply smile and know that the history behind these popular headlines and marketing commentary all started here. You see, we’ve published thousands of in-depth research reports. Everything from high-dividend payers, game-changing innovations, top tech stocks, best plays in emerging markets — you name it, we’ve told you how to profit from it. But there are two pieces of research that have spread like wildfire since we first began publishing them over a decade ago. In fact, I hardly even mention or use the… Read More

Once again, an old-school company fails to keep up. Or just fails. General Electric (NYSE: GE), which just a month or so ago seemed to be out of the woods after two years of declining earnings and dividend cuts, just warned investors of another year of lower profits and forecasted that its industrial operations — formerly its bread and butter — could be up to $2 billion cash-flow negative this year. Just a month ago, the market was cheering GE’s decision to sell one of its important assets, the company’s biopharma unit, to Danaher (NYSE: DHR) for $21.4 billion. The… Read More

Once again, an old-school company fails to keep up. Or just fails. General Electric (NYSE: GE), which just a month or so ago seemed to be out of the woods after two years of declining earnings and dividend cuts, just warned investors of another year of lower profits and forecasted that its industrial operations — formerly its bread and butter — could be up to $2 billion cash-flow negative this year. Just a month ago, the market was cheering GE’s decision to sell one of its important assets, the company’s biopharma unit, to Danaher (NYSE: DHR) for $21.4 billion. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter. But the proceeds won’t be reinvested in the business. Rather, the proceeds will be used to reduce GE’s enormous debt. At year-end, GE had $108 billion in debt (almost as much as it had taken in revenue during the entire year, which was $121.6 billion). ​ The decision to reduce debt is the right one. The size of a company’s debt matters, especially when business suddenly slows. Too much debt can often lead to bankruptcy — even in a strong economy like ours today, let alone in leaner times. But when… Read More