In 2008, Apollo Global Management (NYSE: APO) co-founder Joshua Harris was on a losing streak. The firm’s $430 million investment in big-box retailer Linens N’ Things went south when the company filed for bankruptcy. Read More

Most people don’t have a million dollars to invest. It doesn’t matter. What I’m going to show you applies no matter how much money you have to invest — whether it’s $100 or $100 million. #-ad_banner-#But there is a sad truth about a million dollars. Even that heady amount wouldn’t earn you much in regular income — if you put it to work in the “traditional” ways… $560. That’s the most you will get each month if you put that $1 million into a 1-year CD, which, according to BankRate.com, is yielding just 0.67%. For comparison, the average Social Security… Read More

Most people don’t have a million dollars to invest. It doesn’t matter. What I’m going to show you applies no matter how much money you have to invest — whether it’s $100 or $100 million. #-ad_banner-#But there is a sad truth about a million dollars. Even that heady amount wouldn’t earn you much in regular income — if you put it to work in the “traditional” ways… $560. That’s the most you will get each month if you put that $1 million into a 1-year CD, which, according to BankRate.com, is yielding just 0.67%. For comparison, the average Social Security check is $1,266 per month. In other words, you’d earn more from Social Security than you would from $1 million. It’s a similar story with a number of other investments… 10-year Treasury Note — Sitting near historically low levels, if you loaned the federal government $1 million, with annual yields at 2.9%, you’d only earn $29,000 a year… or $2,900 a year on $100,000. Savings Accounts — With a maximum yield of 1%, the absolute best you’ll get from a savings account according to BankRate.com right now is $10,000 a year. Corporate Bonds — If you invest in the right… Read More

This is truly a golden era for dividend-hungry investors. Payouts have been growing at an impressive pace, and many companies have the ability to boost their dividends further, as I noted recently. Indeed, a variety of companies that have historically sought to boost their dividends at a moderate annual pace… Read More

When I was a teenager, my father took me to an empty parking lot to practice driving on ice and snow. Skidding is an eerie feeling. When you first lose control of the car, your gut reaction is to step on the brakes. Read More

Imagine if you had bought these stocks 20 years ago. If you had, then right now you’d be earning dividend yields of… 27%… 33%… even as high as 40%. And that’s from brand-name companies like Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) and Lowe’s (NYSE: LOW). Read More

Why are shares of a huge, profitable energy company — which currently yields 6.5% — selling for the cheapest prices in a decade? There must be a catch. Well… yes and no. To begin with, the company is based in Germany. And since the Great Recession, the European Union has not recovered as well as U.S. markets. Demand for energy has declined. Bailouts in Greece and bank troubles in Spain have dominated headlines, driving share prices lower across the board. However,… Read More

Why are shares of a huge, profitable energy company — which currently yields 6.5% — selling for the cheapest prices in a decade? There must be a catch. Well… yes and no. To begin with, the company is based in Germany. And since the Great Recession, the European Union has not recovered as well as U.S. markets. Demand for energy has declined. Bailouts in Greece and bank troubles in Spain have dominated headlines, driving share prices lower across the board. However, there have been signs of a turnaround recently, and big-name investors have been snapping up bargains in Europe. In February, Warren Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK) invested $1.9 billion in eight European stocks. Buffett said in a May interview with CNBC that Berkshire was continuing to invest in Europe.#-ad_banner-# In his typically understated fashion, Buffett said that Europe was still “going to be around.” With that reassurance in mind, let’s look at this bargain-priced European energy… Read More

They are a rarity on the market today. Most of the headlines over the summer have been about how the stock market is nearing all-time highs… making it difficult for investors to find a good entry point… Read More

This has been an interesting year in the stock market. As the market has been lifted to all-time highs by an accommodative monetary policy and an economy starting to fire on all cylinders, long-term investors have profited handsomely during the first half of the year. A pullback in August led the Dow Jones Industrial Average to drop nearly 1,000 points before stabilizing in the 14,800 range. Despite this… Read More

This has been an interesting year in the stock market. As the market has been lifted to all-time highs by an accommodative monetary policy and an economy starting to fire on all cylinders, long-term investors have profited handsomely during the first half of the year. A pullback in August led the Dow Jones Industrial Average to drop nearly 1,000 points before stabilizing in the 14,800 range. Despite this setback, stocks are still showing signs of strength that should last for the rest of the year.#-ad_banner-# But the fuel powering the stock market has its drawbacks: Low interest rates and accommodative policy have sent yields to ultra-low levels while boosting stocks. In fact, income investors have become so frustrated by the lack of yield that this year’s investing theme can be summed up in four words: the search for yield. I learned from… Read More

They’re on fire this year. Right now, top companies — from IBM (NYSE: IBM) to Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) — are giving shareholders more bang for their investment buck with a special kind of “… Read More

We get a lot of emails here at StreetAuthority… and we read every single one of them. We don’t have time to respond to all of them, but we try. Recently we started getting a rather persistent email from a subscriber to my High-Yield Investing newsletter. Here’s what the subscriber wrote: “The newsletter is called ‘High-Yield Investing!’ Stocks with 4% yields do not constitute high yield. Maybe ‘Conservative-Yield’ would be a more appropriate title. I am deeply disappointed… High Yields… Read More

We get a lot of emails here at StreetAuthority… and we read every single one of them. We don’t have time to respond to all of them, but we try. Recently we started getting a rather persistent email from a subscriber to my High-Yield Investing newsletter. Here’s what the subscriber wrote: “The newsletter is called ‘High-Yield Investing!’ Stocks with 4% yields do not constitute high yield. Maybe ‘Conservative-Yield’ would be a more appropriate title. I am deeply disappointed… High Yields [start] at 9% minimum.” — H.W. I appreciate the feedback from H.W., but the truth is, I think he may not be paying attention to what’s going in the market today. My short answer to H.W.: It’s not 1980 or 2009. But here is my long answer… I would love to be able to showcase high-quality, low-risk stocks and bonds with robust yields of 9% or better to my High-Yield Investing readers week in and week out. If I did, I would likely be writing to you… Read More