Michael Foster

Michael Foster is the Senior Analyst at Contrarian Outlook.

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Michael Foster's Latest Posts

Bargain Or Trap? 3 Cheap Funds Yielding Up To 8.7%

| December 10, 2024
Bargain Or Trap? 3 Cheap Funds Yielding Up To 8.7%

This has been a great year for stocks—and a great year for our 8%+ yielding closed-end funds (CEFs), too. That makes sense: Many CEFs invest in stocks, and many more hold bonds issued by publicly traded firms, so what’s good for stocks tends to be good for CEFs. CEFs March Higher in ’24 When we […]

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3 Funds To Beat Post-Election Volatility, Deliver 8%+ Dividends

| November 5, 2024
3 Funds To Beat Post-Election Volatility, Deliver 8%+ Dividends

With more volatility likely as we move past the election and into late 2024, retirement planning might not be top of mind for you right now. I get it. But with investing—income investing, especially—it’s critical to keep the long term in focus. And over the long term, the direction of the markets is up. When […]

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How To Play China’s New Stimulus Package (At A 17% Discount)

| October 15, 2024
How To Play China’s New Stimulus Package (At A 17% Discount)

When I show you a chart like the one below, your first thought might be that we’re looking at, say, the recent stock performance of NVIDIA (NVDA)—or maybe a biopharma firm that just dropped a breakthrough treatment: Not a Tech Stock—Just a “Boring” Index Fund But you’d be wrong. What we’re looking at here is the iShares MSCI China […]

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Here’s What To Buy (For Big Dividends) After Last Week’s Market Plunge

| August 13, 2024
Here’s What To Buy (For Big Dividends) After Last Week’s Market Plunge

What the heck happened last Monday? I know I don’t have to tell you that the market dropped off a cliff, only to float back higher as the week continued. The media has been saying that it was all about the latest jobs report in the US, which came out on Friday and simply wasn’t […]

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Inside The US Economy’s “Stealth” Boom (And An 11.4% Dividend To Play It)

| July 2, 2024
Inside The US Economy’s “Stealth” Boom (And An 11.4% Dividend To Play It)

There are three very clear signs the stock-market bull will keep stampeding. Let’s dive into them, then talk about two discounted funds set to ride those gains (and pay us rich dividends up to 11.4% in the process). Bullish Signal #1: The US Worker is Strong There’s a lot of pessimism about the US economy out there, […]

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2 Tech Funds With Huge Dividends (1 Is A Buy, 1 Is A “Wait And See”)

| February 8, 2024
2 Tech Funds With Huge Dividends (1 Is A Buy, 1 Is A “Wait And See”)

You probably know the Don Henley song “Dirty Laundry.” It was one of my favorite tunes in the 1980s. A criticism of media sensationalism, the repetitive chorus rang in my ears when I was much younger than I am today: “Kick ’em when they’re up,Kick ’em when they’re down.” This aptly describes the nightly news […]

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This Lame Stock Advice Could Cost You 8% Dividends (And Millions In Gains)

| December 7, 2023
This Lame Stock Advice Could Cost You 8% Dividends (And Millions In Gains)

When I see people touting the 60/40 portfolio, I kind of feel like Haley Joel Osment’s character in the Sixth Sense. But instead of seeing dead people, I see dead ideas. You likely know what I’m talking about: a portfolio that seeks to automatically balance risk by holding 60% in stocks and 40% in bonds. It […]

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How We’re Locking In 10%+ “Forever” Yields Now

| October 17, 2023
How We’re Locking In 10%+ “Forever” Yields Now

Today, more than 18 months after the press started ringing the recession alarm, they’re still at it! And we contrarian income seekers are still happy to take the other side of that argument. After all, this overdone fear mongering has handed us an opportunity to “lock in” bigger dividend yields than we’ve been able to grab in years. Our […]

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Why Stocks Will Crush All-Time Highs (And The 8%+ Dividends To Buy)

| August 8, 2023
Why Stocks Will Crush All-Time Highs (And The 8%+ Dividends To Buy)

Don’t listen to the bubble worrywarts: even with the 2023 bounce, stocks are well off their late 2021 peak. In other words, they’re still cheap! Stock Rebound Still Has Room to Run We can get in even cheaper through discounted closed-end funds. Consider two leading equity CEFs, the Liberty All-Star Growth Fund (ASG) and the Eaton Vance Tax-Managed Diversified […]

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Retire Early With This Dividend-Paying “Compound Interest Machine”

| May 16, 2023
Retire Early With This Dividend-Paying “Compound Interest Machine”

We need to talk about “financial independence” for a second. It’s one of those catch-all terms you see a lot in financial-industry marketing, for good reason: it means completely different things to different people. Maybe your idea of financial independence is having a bit of extra income on the side, to go with a regular job you […]

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