If you’re a regular reader of StreetAuthority, you know I love getting — and reinvesting — dividend paychecks. Simply put, my goal is to earn a paycheck every day of the month by owning a basket of solid income securities — and then grow the size of those paychecks by harnessing the power of compounding through dividend reinvestment. So far, the results have been very rewarding. From an initial $200,000 investment, I’m earning more than $16,000 in dividends a year (or more than $1,300 a month) using this strategy. And that doesn’t even include a penny from the healthy capital… Read More

If you’re a regular reader of StreetAuthority, you know I love getting — and reinvesting — dividend paychecks. Simply put, my goal is to earn a paycheck every day of the month by owning a basket of solid income securities — and then grow the size of those paychecks by harnessing the power of compounding through dividend reinvestment. So far, the results have been very rewarding. From an initial $200,000 investment, I’m earning more than $16,000 in dividends a year (or more than $1,300 a month) using this strategy. And that doesn’t even include a penny from the healthy capital gains I’ve made from most of my holdings. But as I said, you may have already heard this before. My goal today is to show you how to get the most out of your income investments using a simple yet effective three-part strategy. #-ad_banner-#I call it the Dividend Trifecta, and it’s the cornerstone of my advisory, The Daily Paycheck. The great thing about the Dividend Trifecta is that it’s fully customizable to your own needs. You can use it to multiply your wealth over time, preserve capital — even bring in a second income to fund your retirement. Here’s how… Read More

The week after options expire is one of my favorite times of each month. That’s because, as usual, it means it’s time for readers of my premium advisory, Income Trader, and I to review our trades. And so far, we’ve seen outstanding results. #-ad_banner-#This past month, six put positions expired worthless. For those of you who are unfamiliar with options, that’s a good thing for us. You see, every time I make a trade, I get “Instant Income,” or money upfront for selling a put contract. And when the options I sell expire worthless, that income… Read More

The week after options expire is one of my favorite times of each month. That’s because, as usual, it means it’s time for readers of my premium advisory, Income Trader, and I to review our trades. And so far, we’ve seen outstanding results. #-ad_banner-#This past month, six put positions expired worthless. For those of you who are unfamiliar with options, that’s a good thing for us. You see, every time I make a trade, I get “Instant Income,” or money upfront for selling a put contract. And when the options I sell expire worthless, that income becomes pure profit. We have now closed 41 put option trades since last February, and 39 (95%) have expired worthless. And with the help of another income-generating strategy, covered calls, the other two trades also delivered a profit (you can read more about covered calls here). You can see the positions we closed in January below: Every trade we closed this month made a profit. Even my “worst” trade — FFIV — made a 3.9% return in just a 65-day trading period. That may not sound like a lot at first, but if you were to get a… Read More

  We’re barely a month into 2014, and it’s already promising to be an interesting year. In this month alone, natural gas is up 20%… shares of Apple plunged double-digits after a bad earnings announcement… and emerging markets have gone belly-up. In fact, they have been absolutely pummeled since the beginning of the January. As you can see from the chart above, emerging markets — as represented by the WisdomTree Emerging Markets Equity ETF (NYSE: DEM) — have fallen 9% since Jan. 1. Michael Vodicka explains the bearish sentiment towards emerging markets in his most recent issue of… Read More

  We’re barely a month into 2014, and it’s already promising to be an interesting year. In this month alone, natural gas is up 20%… shares of Apple plunged double-digits after a bad earnings announcement… and emerging markets have gone belly-up. In fact, they have been absolutely pummeled since the beginning of the January. As you can see from the chart above, emerging markets — as represented by the WisdomTree Emerging Markets Equity ETF (NYSE: DEM) — have fallen 9% since Jan. 1. Michael Vodicka explains the bearish sentiment towards emerging markets in his most recent issue of High-Yield International:       The Fed’s quantitative easing (QE) program supported low borrowing costs in the United States for the past few years. That enabled large institutional investors to borrow at a low rate in the United States and deploy that capital into high-yield securities in emerging markets, such as emerging-market bonds, which are currently yielding around 10% in Brazil. That low-risk carry trade was extremely profitable when the 10-year Treasury was trading below 2%. But now that interest rates are back on the upswing and yield spreads are compressing, this low-risk trade is becoming less profitable. That is… Read More

This year is already a sharp contrast to 2013, when the overall stock market rose an impressive 32%. Following the recent pullbacks, the market only needs to shed about 5% more to meet the widely accepted definition of a correction (a decline of at least 10%).#-ad_banner-# It has been a while since stock investors have had to endure such pain, so further sell-offs may prompt many to seek safer havens — especially if a full-on correction materializes soon. Since bonds don’t generally offer much in the way of returns right now, investors who want to dial back risk… Read More

This year is already a sharp contrast to 2013, when the overall stock market rose an impressive 32%. Following the recent pullbacks, the market only needs to shed about 5% more to meet the widely accepted definition of a correction (a decline of at least 10%).#-ad_banner-# It has been a while since stock investors have had to endure such pain, so further sell-offs may prompt many to seek safer havens — especially if a full-on correction materializes soon. Since bonds don’t generally offer much in the way of returns right now, investors who want to dial back risk but still make money should consider top-flight large-cap stocks with attractive yields. You might think they’d be hard to find after the market’s long run-up, but they’re available — right under our noses, really. To spot them, just scan the list of stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. You’ll quickly see the index’s top five dividend payers all have generous yields in the 4% to 6% range. And you should be able to count on them for attractive payouts for years to come. Read More

It’s a favorite investment among America’s wealthy. It also has nothing to do with stocks or bonds. Nor is it affected by the economy. #-ad_banner-#Once exclusively available to the richest Americans, this effective wealth-generating asset is now available to the rest of us. I’m not talking about hedge funds… accredited investment deals… or private offerings. But about another investment that has been known to shelter wealth more resiliently than any of these… a source of perpetual income that has supported the lavish lifestyles of wealthy Americans through good times and through bad. And it does this by growing faster than… Read More

It’s a favorite investment among America’s wealthy. It also has nothing to do with stocks or bonds. Nor is it affected by the economy. #-ad_banner-#Once exclusively available to the richest Americans, this effective wealth-generating asset is now available to the rest of us. I’m not talking about hedge funds… accredited investment deals… or private offerings. But about another investment that has been known to shelter wealth more resiliently than any of these… a source of perpetual income that has supported the lavish lifestyles of wealthy Americans through good times and through bad. And it does this by growing faster than the rise of inflation… an average 10% a year for the past 60 years. That’s enough to double your income every four years. That means every $1,000 invested in 2005 would have grown to $4,000 by 2013, and would possibly grow to $16,000 by 2021 if this investment continued compounding at its 60-year historical average growth rate. Projected Growth Using This Wealth-Generating Asset If you’ve read my previous essays on this investment before, you know that thanks to a law hidden deep inside the Cigar Excise Tax Extension Act, signed more than 50 years ago… Read More

I want to let you in on a secret… Wall Street doesn’t make most of its money from the stock market. While trading equities constitutes a large part of “big banking,” if you were to add the value of all the stocks in the world it would only come out to $36.6 trillion. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a big number. It’s also one reason brokerage commissions have been the bread and butter of Wall Street firms since the New York Stock Exchange was founded in 1817. But the truth is there’s a much bigger market out there. This market,… Read More

I want to let you in on a secret… Wall Street doesn’t make most of its money from the stock market. While trading equities constitutes a large part of “big banking,” if you were to add the value of all the stocks in the world it would only come out to $36.6 trillion. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a big number. It’s also one reason brokerage commissions have been the bread and butter of Wall Street firms since the New York Stock Exchange was founded in 1817. But the truth is there’s a much bigger market out there. This market, which is valued at over $790 trillion, has grown exponentially since the Securities and Exchange Commission deregulated it in the 1990s. #-ad_banner-#Unlike most stocks and bonds, which tend to be “boring” and relatively stable, the securities in this market allow investors to make bets on the outcome of certain asset prices. For instance, right now traders are betting $56,880 that the price of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) will be over $610 on March 22 — 21% above its recent price of $506. Investors in this market are also betting over $874,000 that Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) will be trading at $1,300 —… Read More

Several years ago, during one of my journalistic endeavors, I scored an interview with one of my investing heroes, commodity trading legend Jim Rogers. I couldn’t believe my good luck.#-ad_banner-# My assignment was to interview one famous trader, money manager or financial professional on a weekly basis. The editors wanted me to drill down into their methods, tactics and ideas for fresh, actionable ideas for our readers. While I knew Jim Rogers was a unique individual, I was taken aback and surprised at our interview, which he conducted while running on a treadmill. Although Rogers was gracious and… Read More

Several years ago, during one of my journalistic endeavors, I scored an interview with one of my investing heroes, commodity trading legend Jim Rogers. I couldn’t believe my good luck.#-ad_banner-# My assignment was to interview one famous trader, money manager or financial professional on a weekly basis. The editors wanted me to drill down into their methods, tactics and ideas for fresh, actionable ideas for our readers. While I knew Jim Rogers was a unique individual, I was taken aback and surprised at our interview, which he conducted while running on a treadmill. Although Rogers was gracious and kind, he avoided my direct questions, answering me instead with broad generalities and stories. The one thing that he stressed again and again when asked for investment ideas was to simply look around — in other words, invest in what you buy and what you see. At the time I was disappointed with his answer, which I saw as a cop-out. However, I’ve learned to appreciate the wisdom of his words. By following this simple investment rule, I have discovered far more profitable opportunities and ideas than I ever would have expected. In the search for the next profitable investment,… Read More

A few weeks ago, StreetAuthority analyst Michael Vodicka stumbled on a compelling pattern while performing some routine research for his new newsletter, High-Yield International. When he and his team of experts ran a stock screen looking for all the stocks in the world yielding over 12%, they found that out of the 118 stocks their analysis identified, only 25 them were located in the U.S. In other words, Michael’s study showed that if you aren’t looking overseas, you’re likely missing out on 79% the world’s highest-yielding securities before you even get started. #-ad_banner-#Unfortunately, even if we dedicated every issue of… Read More

A few weeks ago, StreetAuthority analyst Michael Vodicka stumbled on a compelling pattern while performing some routine research for his new newsletter, High-Yield International. When he and his team of experts ran a stock screen looking for all the stocks in the world yielding over 12%, they found that out of the 118 stocks their analysis identified, only 25 them were located in the U.S. In other words, Michael’s study showed that if you aren’t looking overseas, you’re likely missing out on 79% the world’s highest-yielding securities before you even get started. #-ad_banner-#Unfortunately, even if we dedicated every issue of this newsletter to international dividend companies, I’m willing to bet some of you still wouldn’t get the message. Since most investors associate the word “international” with high-risk growth stocks, our recommendations often fall on deaf ears.  If you’re one of those investors, I urge you not to think that way.  The truth is, in addition to offering the vast majority of high-yield stocks, foreign markets can be just as safe as investing in the U.S. — if not safer. Michael explains why in his recent report “Why You’re Not Hearing About 79% Of The World’s Highest-Yielding Stocks”: In the… Read More

The closest thing to a no-brainer in investing is investing in a market-dominating company.  #-ad_banner-#One of the biggest markets in the world is the wireless industry. As emerging markets continue to urbanize, the number of mobile phone users will only increase. The other beauty about the wireless market is that there are only a handful of major operators, giving them a monopoly-like hold on the industry.  That’s what you get with AT&T (NYSE: T), a market leader with a very robust dividend and one of the best balance sheets in the business. Its debt-to-equity ratio is 89%, compared… Read More

The closest thing to a no-brainer in investing is investing in a market-dominating company.  #-ad_banner-#One of the biggest markets in the world is the wireless industry. As emerging markets continue to urbanize, the number of mobile phone users will only increase. The other beauty about the wireless market is that there are only a handful of major operators, giving them a monopoly-like hold on the industry.  That’s what you get with AT&T (NYSE: T), a market leader with a very robust dividend and one of the best balance sheets in the business. Its debt-to-equity ratio is 89%, compared with rival Verizon’s (NYSE: VZ) 110%. During 2012, AT&T doubled its share buyback authorization, to 600 million shares.  The focus for AT&T going forward is wireless, which is a $22 billion per year business for the company and will likely continue to be its main revenue driver. AT&T already offers users some of the fastest speeds in the wireless Internet space, and it’s running ahead of schedule for its 4G LTE buildout.  AT&T covers some 250 million users with 4G LTE, and it expects to have that number up to 300 million by the end of this year. AT&T beat… Read More

The subject of female condoms might make some people blush, but the company responsible for manufacturing them has nothing to be embarrassed about.#-ad_banner-#​ In fact, the Female Health Co. (Nasdaq: FHCO) is doing a public service by making its FC2 condom available to women in 143 countries, especially where preventing unwanted pregnancy and protection against HIV are paramount. To many investors, FHCO is the epitome of a socially responsible investment. The FC2 isn’t as well-known as its male counterpart, so FHC has leaned on public agencies to help spread the word, allowing internal efforts to focus on production. Read More

The subject of female condoms might make some people blush, but the company responsible for manufacturing them has nothing to be embarrassed about.#-ad_banner-#​ In fact, the Female Health Co. (Nasdaq: FHCO) is doing a public service by making its FC2 condom available to women in 143 countries, especially where preventing unwanted pregnancy and protection against HIV are paramount. To many investors, FHCO is the epitome of a socially responsible investment. The FC2 isn’t as well-known as its male counterpart, so FHC has leaned on public agencies to help spread the word, allowing internal efforts to focus on production. Once FC2 gained the FDA’s approval in 2009, FHC was off and running, with ownership of patents worldwide. It first reached out to larger cities where HIV/AIDS infections and sexually transmitted diseases were most prevalent. FHC worked with health care providers and agencies to gain a foothold among the public. The company also zeroed in on colleges and universities where on-campus organizations benefited from grants to put together programs that helped make the FC2 a household name among young women. The reliance on public entities has allowed FHC to operate with no debt and high net profit margins — to… Read More