You didn’t think the US Treasury Secretary was just going to sit back and watch interest rates rise, did you? Of course not. We careful contrarians knew better!

This country can’t afford high rates. Not on a $40 trillion debt pile! The interest payments are already too much for Uncle Sam to handle.

Yet the bond market decided to test Secretary Bessent, who replied emphatically.

Or did he?

I’ve argued in these pages that rising long-term rates would not be allowed. At some point, they would draw a reaction from the Treasury Secretary. And now that we have the reaction, I ran the numbers to see what happens during similar bond operations to the one Bessent just announced.… Read more

Investors just don’t understand Home Depot (HD).

They see the world’s biggest home-improvement retailer as a proxy for the real estate market: When home sales are strong, the thinking goes, more people buy homes—and go on to renovate them.

Makes sense. But it’s only half the story (at best!).

It’s true that many people—your income strategist included—locked in a sweet mortgage rate during the pandemic. So why would they give that up for today’s budget-busting 30-year rates?

With that in mind, it’s no surprise that, as mortgage rates have climbed this year, HD’s stock has slipped, erasing a big gain in early 2026 (see in purple below):

Rising Mortgage Rates Squeeze HD’s Stock

It’s left HD shares just below where they were at the start of 2026, while the S&P 500 has popped just shy of 12%, as of this writing.… Read more

Today we’re going to look at a closed-end fund (CEF) that seemingly offers everything:

1. A 6.7%-yielding dividend that pays monthly.
2. A solid payout track record: This dividend has been delivered reliably for more than six years.
3. Terrific performance, to the tune of an 8.5% annualized return over the last decade.

And yet, this fund is a sell. If you own it, I recommend dumping it immediately.

I know that sounds a bit strange, so let me explain why it’s a risky investment, and how other funds like it are, as well.

Before I do, though, let me emphasize one thing: The managers of the GAMCO Global Gold, Natural Resources & Income Trust (GGN) are professional, qualified and good at what they do.… Read more

We contrarians rarely play in the tech sector. It’s just not built for us.

Technology stocks are often overhyped, overcovered and valuation-rich. Wall Street already loves them, which means there’s no room for upgrade-triggered pops and few inefficiencies for us to exploit.

They’re also historically dividend-poor.

And Right Now, Tech Stocks Are Dividend-Destitute

But despite ludicrous prices in the likes of Palantir Technologies (PLTR) and Crowdstrike Holdings (CRWD), the sector as a whole is starting to look more reasonable. Tech stocks’ forward P/E has quickly winnowed to near pre-COVID levels and isn’t much more expensive than the broader market.

And while the S&P 500’s tech companies might as well be paying IOUs, a few of the sector’s less traveled names look downright generous.… Read more

The media has been abuzz with fresh fears that the AI “bubble” is finally popping.

These worries, of course, have been around for almost as long as AI itself!

At the heart of the latest panic: semiconductor stocks, which have fallen hard, with the benchmark ETF for the sector, the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH), plunging from an all-time high in late June to a level 11% lower today.

Yikes.

But here’s what we need to keep in mind: At CEF Insider, we’re mainly interested in collecting dividends in the long run. When these short-term panics arrive, we take advantage of them, and set ourselves up for extra upside as we do.… Read more

Riddle me this, my fellow contrarian. This company’s dividend grew 160% in three years. Yet, its stock went nowhere!

Dead money?

Or a dividend grower that was due for a pop?

Let’s discuss the special stocks with the exact same setup today. You may even own one! Is it time to sell? Or back up the truck?

Wall Street suits would take one look at this comatose stock and say it’s “dead money.” That’s how they played it in March 2025 when this “dirty” dividend grower was hiking its payout on deaf ears.

ConocoPhillips (COP) boasted 3-year dividend growth of 160% and 3-year stock growth of -1.7%.… Read more

Here’s something we never hear about: The wonderful things that can happen when a stock “pays us back” in dividends.

It’s a shame more dividend investors don’t consider this, because it really is the “holy grail” for us contrarian income players!

What do I mean by “pays us back”? One way to think about dividends is as a small slice of corporate cash flows handed over to us as cash. Eventually, that cash will exceed, on a per-share basis, the amount we paid for the stock in the first place.

Once that happens, everything else is, well, gravy.

I bring this up now because one of our long-time Contrarian Income Report holdings is about to hit this mark.… Read more

I’m sure you’ve heard about the worries around private credit. They really hit the wall when Blue Owl Capital, a major private lender, put redemption limits on one of its funds earlier this year.

As investors, we must take note when such things happen. But we also need to remember that breathless media coverage of such events creates opportunities. That’s especially true in situations like this, involving a corner of the financial world many people simply don’t understand.

These are just the kind of setups we love to exploit at my CEF Insider service. And this one is handing us an opportunity in regional banks—and in particular, a closed-end fund (CEF) holding such banks, and turning their profits into a growing 6.4% dividend.… Read more

500 out of 500.

Do you know what that is? That, amazingly, is the number of stocks in the S&P 500 that the consensus says should be bought or held today. A perfect 500 out of 500.

Wow, so let’s do some “back of the envelope math.” There are 500 stocks in the index. And, let’s see, 500 should be bought or held. Which leaves…let’s see…zero sells.

Zero!

Meanwhile we have unprecedented business model disruption from the massive AI rollout. Biggest thing since the Internet or maybe even the railroads. Fortunes are being minted and vaporized with equal speed right before our very eyes.… Read more

I’ll cut right to the chase: I think the stock market—and our 8.8%+ yielding closed-end funds (CEFs)—could be on the brink of another spike.

If I’m right, we’ll have last week’s “disappointing” jobs report—which showed a loss of 23,000 positions in July—to thank. (And that 8.8% yield, by the way, isn’t made up: It’s the average payout on all CEFs.)

The stock market’s surprising reaction to that jobs report—it rose in response—also positions one of our CEF Insider tech funds very well indeed, with a deep discount to NAV (around 10.7% as I write this) that’s stair-stepping toward par.

That suggests even more gains are ahead for this powerhouse 7.3%-yielding fund, on top of the 37% total return it’s posted this year.… Read more