From BlackRock: It’s not always easy for investors to watch large market drops and not react, especially if the value of your retirement savings is falling. Paul Mele talks about recent market events and reminds us of the three things we should remember when markets falter.
From Zacks: With rising rate worries weighing on the broader equity market, investors might be in the dark about future movements and apprehensive of more selloffs ahead. This is especially true given the global markets massacre last week.
From Contrarian Outlook: Members of my CEF Insider service often tell me they’d love to know a lot more about the people at the helm of closed-end funds–the good, the bad and the ugly.
From Contrarian Outlook: I get a lot of questions from readers about high-paying “preferred shares.” And most of these queries have one thing in common: worry.
From Contrarian Outlook: It’s a piece of advice so common I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times. Too bad it’s dead wrong.
From Contrarian Outlook: Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) shattered growth records in 2017, with inflows topping $464 billion last year. The global ETF market now boasts more than $4.5 trillion in assets, and a large part of the appeal has been driven by dirt-cheap fees.
From Franklin Templeton Investments: When the outlook is uncertain, it can be good to keep one’s options open.
From Contrarian Outlook: Preferred stocks often pay high-single-digit yields, with far less risk than their similar-yielding “common” stock cousins. While many 5% and 6% common payers are yield traps with broken business models, it is possible to find preferred payouts at these levels that are perfectly secure.
From Contrarian Outlook: The desperate hunt for yield is getting way out of hand–and it’s setting up a terrific buying opportunity for you and me.
From Contrarian Outlook: Is there a bond bubble? There’s certainly more froth than not, with investors recklessly reaching for the riskiest of yields.
Recently we discussed the steep drop in interest rates (amid rising bond prices) that has occurred since mid-May, and this brings some of our focus to the “Preferred Stock” space which is relevant in this conversation.
From Contrarian Outlook: Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have rapidly earned a favored spot among investors thanks to their dirt-cheap diversification. If you want to quickly build a blended portfolio at a low price, it’s hard to do better than ETFs.
From Contrarian Outlook: The annual “sell in May and go away” period for stocks is nearly upon us, and many investors are worried about Wall Street starting to take profits from the market’s go-go run since November.
From David Fabian: Preferred stocks offer the distinction of being unique hybrid instruments with qualities of both stocks and bonds. In that manner, they offer healthy dividend yields alongside a favored position in the capital structure of many companies that issue these securities.
From Contrarian Outlook: One question I field all the time is, “Should I own preferred stocks?” and my answer is always the same: “Yes, yes and yes.”