Time to revisit my 5 -year strategy in light of all that’s happened in the last month or so. I’m going to start that revision with what’s changed, and what’s going to happen, and then 10 bullet points on changes to my strategy.
You might expect this list to be dominated by oil and natural gas producers. You might expect that–but you’d be wrong. Stocks like Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD) and Devon Energy (DVN) certainly pay dividends now high enough t qualify for this list, at 9.86% and 7.50% for the trailing 12 months, respectively, but I don’t think it’s possible to project that level of dividend payout for the 10-year period that I’ve focused on for this strategy. (Which doesn’t mean stocks like these aren’t worth owning on their dividends for the shorter term. In fact, I’m putting together a list of what I’d call current dividend outliers as an extra for this Special Report. These outlier stocks pay very attractive (better than 6% again and sometimes way better than 6%) dividends but the companies don’t have a track record or corporate culture that makes me feel certain about the longevity of this level of payout. Pioneer, for example, pays a 2-part dividend with a core rate and a variable rate depending on revenue and profits. That to me speaks to a company that doesn’t feel able to commit to the current high payout for very long. For a dividend stock with a high payout and a predictably long duration of that level of payout in the energy sector, I’m going to look at pipeline companies, especially those with big exposure to natural gas exports (specifically LNG exports) and the growing CO2 sector.
This is what I wrote yesterday in my Special Report. (You can find all the picks (so far 2) and the strategy I’m using if you go to the full Special Report.) I think Verizon provides a very useful checklist of what to look for in long-term safe picks that yield 6% or more. Which is why I’m putting it in the leadoff position on this list. Verizon isn’t anyone’s favorite stock right now. And it’s pretty clear why.
It’s time to use this Bear Market to give any long-term dividend income strategy a big boost. This Special Report will tell you why and how and give you five stock picks that you can use to deliver that extra income.
I don’t get stuck in writer’s block often. But it does happen upon occasion. And this Special Report: 5 Safe Dividend Stocks Paying 6% or More is just such an occasion. The good news is that I finally cracked the block today
I just added Move #4 to this Special Report today, November 1. I’ve added it to the full report that you can find in the Special Reports section of the site. Move #4: Change your Bear Market rally selling strategy now that the rally has moved to a new stage with industrial stocks leading the way and technology shares lagging. To me, it looks like leadership has shifted in this rally in the last week or so of October.
What now? I’ve been working to play defense in this Bear Market before there was even a Bear Market. Back in December, I added a drug stock, Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY) to my Jubak Picks Portfolio because it looked like Big Pharma was getting dollars from investors and traders looking for safe havens.
In February I added oil and natural gas, ahead of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And since then I’ve added ETFs that track agricultural commodities. An ETF based on the U.S. dollar. And inverse ETFs that are designed to go up when prices in emerging markets or the small-cap sector of the U.S.market do down. And, of course, I’ve been selling: early on consumer stocks that looked vulnerable to inflation and recession and more recently technology stocks with exposure to China and the U.S./China trade war. But WHAT NOW? Here’s where I see investors and the market to be right now.
I expect the current Bear Market to go on for a while. To be clear, I’m looking for a bottom in late 2023 or 2024. Either of those dates is still a long way of. And I’m expecting that the bottom, whenever it arrives, will be significantly lower than the 3600 level on the Stanard & Poor’s 500 that has prevailed recently. I hear speculation about 3,000 on the S&P 500. That’s another 20% below the 3600 level. But I don’t expect that we’ll hit that bottom in a straight line. We’ll have significant Bear Market rallies that suck money off the sidelines just in time to catch another leg lower in the market, for example.
Bear Markets seem determined to inflict maximum pain. So it’s extremely important to play good defense. Sell your riskier positions. Take profits, when you have them, when you see signs that a portfolio favorite, even a long-term favorite, is seeing important negative trends in its business. Make sure that the stocks that you’ve decided to hold through the carnage are stocks you really, really believe in: it can be punishing to hold on and hold on, only to lose faith and sell near a low. Build up cash on the sidelines. Find low-risk cash-like positions to use as safe havens as the Bear continues to prowl. But as important as playing defense is in a Bear Market, there’s no reason to abandon altogether the search for profits. Even in a Bear Market, there will be narrow–and probably fleeting–opportunities to make a profit. And that’s what this Special Report is about–finding ways to make money–9 of them in this take–even in THIS Bear Market.
I’ve decided to hold my Special Report: 9 Picks to Make Money in This Bear Market until after tomorrow’s CPI inflation report.
Is there such a thing as a perfect stock? Depends. Not a chance, if you mean a stock that will be perfect in every market for every time period. No way, if you mean a stock that will go up steadily from the day you buy it. Nah, if you mean a “Buy and Hold Forever Stock.” But there are stocks that are “perfect” for a specific kind of market. And there are stocks that are “perfect” for a specific holding period. And there are stocks that are “perfect” for investors with a specific portfolio goal. And in this Special Report, I’m going to give you 10 of those Perfect Picks.
Today, October 1, I’ve gone back through this Special Report to update any parts of my calendar in light of what we’ve learned about the economy, about Federal Reserve interest rate policy, and about the global economy in the last few weeks. This update includes my take on the August jobs report and the September 21 meeting of the Fed. (It’s a complete revision of the original so changes are in the body of the original text.) It is different this time. And it’s likely to “be different this time” for the next five years or so. And you need an investment strategy for that period.
Luminar Technologies (LAZR) has pretty much all the characteristics the Bear Market hates most right now. The company went public via a SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company), once the hottest “invention” on the stock market and currently one of the most scorned. The company has tiny revenue–just $37.11 million for the trailing 12 months. And big losses: the operating loss for the trailing 12 months is $327.88 million. (The company had $605 million in cash on hand on June 30, 2022.) No wonder the stock is down 56.4% for 2022 as of the close on September 23. The stock traded at $7.49 a share as of 3 p.m. New York time on September 26. But what puts Luminar on my list of Penny Stocks to Buy the Future is that this company is likely to be the largest pure-play supplier of LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging–think of it as radar that uses lasers and light instead of radio waves) for self-driving cars and for enhanced safety and driver assist technologies on more conventional cars.
