Carla Pasternak is a leading income investing expert, serving as Director of Income Research for High-Yield Investing and Dividend Opportunities. Together, these newsletters put her expertise in the hands of more than 200,000 subscribers each month.
A highly successful income investment analyst, Carla has excelled in the industry for almost three decades. In addition to her work as a writer for several nationally recognized financial publishers, her previous experience includes a position as the Investment Relations Manager of Aberford Resources (now Talisman Energy), where she produced prize-winning annual reports and shareholder communications. It was this in-depth experience in the high-yield Canadian energy sector that began to attract Dr. Pasternak to income investing.
Later, Carla founded Canada Corporate Communications, which was responsible for writing, designing, and producing shareholder reports for companies in Canada. The company handled upwards of 50 clients per year at its peak, including many of the most popular Canadian trusts.
For over 20 years Dr. Pasternak also taught several courses in the Bissett School of Business at Mount Royal University in Calgary.
On the educational front, Carla holds an MBA from the University of Calgary and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. When not watching the market, she enjoys outdoors activities, including hiking, kayaking, and horseback riding.
Carla Pasternakon
Analyst Articles
It’s the most frequent question readers have asked me lately. Is there a buying opportunity thanks to the sell-off in municipal bonds and muni bond funds? Municipal bonds are issued by states and municipalities to fund public works. Generally they are considered safe, but in November many muni funds saw their biggest one-day price drop since the financial crisis. Investors withdrew a record $5.4 billion from municipal bond funds within two weeks last month, according to Lipper FMI. Some funds fell by 5% or more, and… Read More
It’s the most frequent question readers have asked me lately. Is there a buying opportunity thanks to the sell-off in municipal bonds and muni bond funds? Municipal bonds are issued by states and municipalities to fund public works. Generally they are considered safe, but in November many muni funds saw their biggest one-day price drop since the financial crisis. Investors withdrew a record $5.4 billion from municipal bond funds within two weeks last month, according to Lipper FMI. Some funds fell by 5% or more, and many hit 52-week lows. So what exactly is going on, and more importantly, is this a chance to buy municipal bond funds for cheap and lock in attractive yields on some of the safest securities available? Believe it or not, this sell-off wasn’t entirely unexpected. The pattern of a sell-off at year-end and a rebound in January is well-documented. It occurs when some investors sell before the end of the year to lock in their gains or losses for tax purposes. Then, they buy back the same shares in January. Read More
On average, they’re yielding 7.5%. That’s more than three times the yield of the S&P 500. Try getting that amount from a money market or savings account. But that’s not the half of it. In tandem with those high yields, the capital gains have… Read More
As the Director of Income Research behind High-Yield International, it’s my duty to find the best income investments all over the world. And what I’m finding is that few places can compare to the yields and growth we’re seeing in South America right now. One country I’ve… Read More
Right now a little fewer than 40 million Americans — that’s almost 15% of the country — has reached retirement age. But that’s the tip of the iceberg. Every day, almost 8,000 Americans turn 65. In just a decade, seniors in the United States will number 55 million. That’s a… Read More
Interest rates near zero and record-low U.S. Treasury yields make finding good income investments a bit harder these days. Don’t get me wrong — it’s still possible to find attractive yields, but you need… Read More
Canada has been an income investor’s playscape for decades. That reputation is mainly thanks to Canadian trusts, which aren’t taxed at the corporate level as long as they pay out the bulk of earnings as dividends. That’s allowed them to… Read More
My guess is you haven’t brought the Restoring American Financial Stability Act (the official name of the just-passed financial reform act) to the lake with you this summer. At 2,300 pages and filled with 100-word sentences written in complex legalese, the bill — signed into law with… Read More
As income investors, we can get caught up in yields… almost to a fault. But there is something else you should be studying that could make just as big a difference to your long-term returns: dividend growth. That’s because dividend… Read More
I don’t want my readers being caught off guard. January 1, 2011 could be one of the most important dates in a long time for income investors. As I discussed last week, if Congress doesn’t act by that date, dividend… Read More
In 2003, former President Bush signed into law the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act. One major provision of this law was to reduce the tax rates on certain dividends from nearly 40% for the highest income earners down to 15%. The dividend tax rate for the lowest tax brackets even reached as low as 0%! For us income investors, this tax break was a welcome sight. But the cuts were passed with the provision that they expire at the end of 2010. With the nation… Read More
In 2003, former President Bush signed into law the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act. One major provision of this law was to reduce the tax rates on certain dividends from nearly 40% for the highest income earners down to 15%. The dividend tax rate for the lowest tax brackets even reached as low as 0%! For us income investors, this tax break was a welcome sight. But the cuts were passed with the provision that they expire at the end of 2010. With the nation heavily in debt and having run large deficits for the past several years, it’s a foregone conclusion among the investment community that these dividend tax rates will have to rise. Just to be clear, I’m not taking sides. I’m simply trying to prepare you for what could lie ahead. President Obama has proposed only increasing the dividend tax rate to 20% for families making over $250,000. However, the recent healthcare package already tacks a 3.8% tax on investment income for this group starting in 2013. In other words, the highest earners… Read More
