Suppose you were a job hunter presented with two options: a position offering a flat $50,000 per year with no pay hikes or one starting at $40,000 with a guaranteed 10% raise each year. If you were only a year away from retirement, the first option would make more sense. But for those with a bit longer to go, option number two would be the better deal. Not only will your paycheck grow each year, but it will do so by an increasing amount — $4,000 after the first 12 months, $4,400 after the next 12, and so on. After… Read More

Suppose you were a job hunter presented with two options: a position offering a flat $50,000 per year with no pay hikes or one starting at $40,000 with a guaranteed 10% raise each year. If you were only a year away from retirement, the first option would make more sense. But for those with a bit longer to go, option number two would be the better deal. Not only will your paycheck grow each year, but it will do so by an increasing amount — $4,000 after the first 12 months, $4,400 after the next 12, and so on. After just five years, you would be pulling down about $64,000 per year. And if the base compensation alone didn’t sway you, what if I also mentioned that the second job offer was from a prosperous, growing company that also offered nice incentives such as generous 401(K) matching? I’m guessing that would only reinforce your decision. If this simple analogy makes sense, congratulations — you’re already a step ahead of the yield-hungry crowd and that much closer to financial independence. —Recommended Link— Ground-Breaking interview unveils secret to success with pot trading On September 24 at 1… Read More

This might be the most unpopular thing I tell people about investing. It doesn’t win me a lot of friends by saying it, but it’s true. A good stock pick really isn’t that hard to find. In fact, sometimes it’s stupidly simple. You heard me right… —Recommended Link— What to Do Before Stocks Sink 57% With the stock market hitting record highs, most people think we must be in pretty good shape. But hold on a minute. According to Yale professor Robert Shiller, stocks are 57% too high. That’s 14,000+ points on the… Read More

This might be the most unpopular thing I tell people about investing. It doesn’t win me a lot of friends by saying it, but it’s true. A good stock pick really isn’t that hard to find. In fact, sometimes it’s stupidly simple. You heard me right… —Recommended Link— What to Do Before Stocks Sink 57% With the stock market hitting record highs, most people think we must be in pretty good shape. But hold on a minute. According to Yale professor Robert Shiller, stocks are 57% too high. That’s 14,000+ points on the Dow. Shiller won a Nobel Prize for his work on stock prices. And if he’s right, millions of investors could be about to see their investment accounts crushed. Don’t let that happen to you. Click here to see how you can avoid the same fate. The fact of the matter is we just tend to make investing too damn complicated. We overthink. We overanalyze. We worry too much over what we can’t control. We try to time everything just perfectly. Therein lies the rub. We’re our own worst enemy. If we can just manage to… Read More

Some of you may remember back in June, I wrote about Hoegh LNG Partners (Nasdaq: HMLP), saying it was one of the rare 10%-yielders that was actually worth buying. I didn’t say that lightly. After all, as I frequently tell my High-Yield Investing subscribers, if a stock is yielding double digits, it’s for a reason.  After all, yields go up as prices go down. Logically, if a company were on truly healthy long-term footing, in most cases enough investors would be interested in buying shares to snatch up a healthy yield as the stock sold off on whatever short-term missteps… Read More

Some of you may remember back in June, I wrote about Hoegh LNG Partners (Nasdaq: HMLP), saying it was one of the rare 10%-yielders that was actually worth buying. I didn’t say that lightly. After all, as I frequently tell my High-Yield Investing subscribers, if a stock is yielding double digits, it’s for a reason.  After all, yields go up as prices go down. Logically, if a company were on truly healthy long-term footing, in most cases enough investors would be interested in buying shares to snatch up a healthy yield as the stock sold off on whatever short-term missteps occurred before things get too out of hand. So with this in mind, I thought it would be prudent to check in on HMLP to see where things stand today. HMLP Recap For those of you who missed my previous discussion on HMLP, let’s briefly go over the business model…  Hoegh owns floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs). Basically, these are ships anchored off the coast that have been mounted with regasification equipment. In the simplest terms, they turn liquefied natural gas (LNG) back into a usable product, which is then pumped via pipeline to the shore where it… Read More

For the past few weeks, I’ve been closely monitoring sentiment. Sentiment indicators measure what investors think about the markets. This class of indicators includes the weekly survey conducted by the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII). I’ve noted several times recently that this survey dates back to 1987. For an average week, 38% of investors are bullish, 30% are bearish and 32% are neutral. I believe it’s important to consider those long-term averages when looking at the current readings. Last week, just 28.6% were bullish, almost 40% were bearish and 32% were neutral. —Recommended Link— $5… Read More

For the past few weeks, I’ve been closely monitoring sentiment. Sentiment indicators measure what investors think about the markets. This class of indicators includes the weekly survey conducted by the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII). I’ve noted several times recently that this survey dates back to 1987. For an average week, 38% of investors are bullish, 30% are bearish and 32% are neutral. I believe it’s important to consider those long-term averages when looking at the current readings. Last week, just 28.6% were bullish, almost 40% were bearish and 32% were neutral. —Recommended Link— $5 Stock To Rake In $4.6 Million A DAY In 5G Patent Royalties Apple, Samsung, LG, and others will owe one under-the-radar company up to $6.65 billion in 5G licensing fees. potentially sending this $5 stock to Google levels or higher. Early investors could see $5,000 turn into $117,385 in the next 12 months. Stake your claim before this company’s name hits the evening news. Click here for full details. Source: AAII.com Currently, the number of bulls remains unusually low. More than 70% of… Read More

There aren’t too many investments in existence that are truly recession-proof. And even fewer are market-proof. U.S. government bonds, especially Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS) and zero-coupon bonds — the hedges I discussed in this article — come quite close to being both. #-ad_banner-#Utilities, despite their reputation for being recession-resistant investments, are not quite there in terms of their portfolio-protection abilities. For one, demand for energy isn’t always steady. Because much of it comes from industrial uses, when a recession hits, overall energy demand usually declines. Furthermore, even a regulated-utility business model — while making these stocks safer — hardly guarantees… Read More

There aren’t too many investments in existence that are truly recession-proof. And even fewer are market-proof. U.S. government bonds, especially Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS) and zero-coupon bonds — the hedges I discussed in this article — come quite close to being both. #-ad_banner-#Utilities, despite their reputation for being recession-resistant investments, are not quite there in terms of their portfolio-protection abilities. For one, demand for energy isn’t always steady. Because much of it comes from industrial uses, when a recession hits, overall energy demand usually declines. Furthermore, even a regulated-utility business model — while making these stocks safer — hardly guarantees growth. Power companies have to contend with regulation, capital expenditures, the costs of maintaining and upgrading our aging infrastructure, the advent of renewable energy, and the additional costs of providing enhanced cybersecurity. But they are indeed safer than much of the rest of the market. Society needs these businesses to always operate, and so the government strives to guarantee that regulated utilities have at least some certainty in their businesses. This is achieved via setting up a regulated return on investment for a regulated utility. Because utilities are largely domestic businesses, their results don’t depend on currency fluctuations. This domestic… Read More

Next time you’re walking on the beach, think about the sand beneath your feet, and how much it’s changed our world. The most common constituent of sand is silica, which is an oxide of silicon, and silicon is a crucial component in microelectronics and computer chips. Hence the name “Silicon Valley.” Before silicon, components of computer chips were made from germanium, an element from the carbon group that is chemically akin to tin. But then along came Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and a former CEO of Intel (Nasdaq: INTC).  —Recommended Link— One Teacher… Read More

Next time you’re walking on the beach, think about the sand beneath your feet, and how much it’s changed our world. The most common constituent of sand is silica, which is an oxide of silicon, and silicon is a crucial component in microelectronics and computer chips. Hence the name “Silicon Valley.” Before silicon, components of computer chips were made from germanium, an element from the carbon group that is chemically akin to tin. But then along came Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and a former CEO of Intel (Nasdaq: INTC).  —Recommended Link— One Teacher In South Carolina Just Collected a $4,416 Check It was even approved by the government. And no, he’s not on disability, and he’s not collecting Social Security. Instead, He’s using this 1 weird trick to collect easy payouts with little to no risk. The good news is that you can use it too. Get the details on this safe, easy method for collecting extra cash right here. Moore, who in 1965 famously described a doubling every year in the number of components per integrated circuit (“Moore’s Law”), believed there was a better material, one that… Read More

Most self-storage renters intend their units to be a short-term solution. But more often than not, three months turns into six, and then six turns into twelve. Nationwide, the average lease term is approximately 15 months. #-ad_banner-#I’m getting close to that mark myself. When we put our home up for sale, the first move was to de-clutter. So, spare furniture, books, sporting goods and other seldom-used items were crammed into a nearby storage unit. A year later, there is still a “for sale” sign in the front yard – and I’m still writing a check to the storage company each… Read More

Most self-storage renters intend their units to be a short-term solution. But more often than not, three months turns into six, and then six turns into twelve. Nationwide, the average lease term is approximately 15 months. #-ad_banner-#I’m getting close to that mark myself. When we put our home up for sale, the first move was to de-clutter. So, spare furniture, books, sporting goods and other seldom-used items were crammed into a nearby storage unit. A year later, there is still a “for sale” sign in the front yard – and I’m still writing a check to the storage company each month. With 516 storage facilities containing 26 million square feet, CubeSmart (Nasdaq: CUBE) has tens of thousands of renters just like me. And all those rental checks add up. Net income last quarter jumped 28% to $49 million, although a good chunk of that increase came from gains on real estate sales. On an adjusted basis, funds from operation (FFO) climbed 7% to $81 million, or $0.42 per share. CubeSmart opened several new properties during the period, and it usually doesn’t take too long to find renters – occupancy rates continue to hover around 92%. And with monthly rental rates… Read More