In our last newsletter we talked about the very exciting and attractive opportunities to invest in quality bonds yielding between 7-11% per annum on a yield-to-maturity basis.  In today’s newsletter, I’d like to discuss some of the high dividend yields that are available currently, which provide both a solid income and appreciation potential.  The stock...Read More

As we retire or get closer to retirement, the need to generate investment income takes on a much greater importance.  Historically, it was much easier, as one could divert a larger portion of their stock portfolio into bonds, while capturing yields that might vary from 5-10%.  Those yields, combined with the nearly 40-year bull market...Read More

I’ve been warning all year about a clear and obvious bubble in consumer staples stocks.  The same can be said for utilities and many areas on the fixed income market.  This bubble has been built on the pervasive market sentiment that as long as the dividend yield is reasonably greater than what can be obtained...Read More

Avon Products is a stock that we started buying and selling puts on in November of 2011 for some clients.  During that time period Avon’s share price had dropped significantly due to regulatory problems in Brazil, and poor management from Andrea Jung. Today the company announced that privately held Coty Inc., offered to buy the...Read More

On December 19th I sent out an email discussing the unbelievably cheap valuations that we were seeing, which you can see from the forwarded email below.  This is just a quick update on how they are faring.  The point is not to get overly excited, just as we don’t want to get overly pessimistic when...Read More

One position that has been prominent in many portfolios this year is (NLY) or Annaly Capital.  The investment has worked out quite nicely but recently we decided to lock in profits on this high yielding mortgage REIT.  The reason that we exited was because of the expectation that more borrowers will refinance at lower rates,...Read More