To understand our top 10 lists that we provide, read on. To jump straight to this week’s list –> click here
There are tons of top stock lists out there, but I’ve found that most don’t provide me much value since they don’t line up with my investing strategy.
You see lists that just focus on high yields, which we all know can be risky if you aren’t qualifying those companies in other ways.
And the “best” dividend lists only seem to focus on well-known Dividend Aristocrats. Yes, it’s great when companies consistently raise their dividends, but the issue with these is they’re often overvalued and therefore have low current yields.
Popularity and low yield tend to go hand in hand
Better Investment Options
And now, here are my top 10 lists. Each chart is posted before the upcoming week.
You can also jump back to past charts to look for patterns or repeat tickers. I definitely do.
January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December
November Portfolio Updates
November 15th to 22nd
Just a freaking awesome list this week. Meowww You should make mad bread in any of these 10, nuff said.
We hold TRMD, KRP and EQNR. I’m seriously contemplating starting a position in PTMN, RWAY and UPS though.
November 8th to 14th
Selling
IEP cut their dividend, something we talked about happening a couple months ago. Not the end of the world as it still yields 15%, but you never like to see it.
2nd cut in a little over a year. The 1st cut was from $2 to $1 because of the short seller report that caused the share price to go from like $80 to $20 so that cut made sense.
The 2nd cut went from $1 to $0.50 and that was to buy shares of CVI that just suspended it’s dividends because of financial problems. So they basically punished IEP shareholders so they could buy CVI at a an undervalued price and that’s not in the best interest of the share holders. We held through all that.
That being said, this is the second cut in a little over a year and that is when we seriously consider selling. We are selling all shares in the retirement account at a 20% loss and selling half our shares in the vanning portfolio at a 50% loss. I still believe in IEP so I will hold half my shares, but we can make a high yield elsewhere with a company that doesn’t tank their stock every quarter.
We originally got in this at $77 and it’s now trading around $12 a share. During that time we sold some losses and got back in. Plus we reinvested a lot of dividends to bring our cost basis down to $31 a share. So things could have been worse.
We have sold half of our NBXG position as it is getting overvalued and only yielding 9%. We can put this money to better use elsewhere. We’re up like 50% in NBXG so it’s time to take some profits. Van Life Portfolio. I could have turned the drip off but it was only yeilding $31 a month with ~380 shares. I can do better than that, so we took profits.
Speaking of taking some profits, we have sold all of our YYY positions. We’ll take our 30% return on a boring bond fund that isn’t as awesome as PDI. Overvalued and not as good as PDI. So i had to choose between the two and PDI is a far superior bond fund, so YYY got the snip. This is the 2nd bond fund we liquidated. Cuz bonds are getting popular which means it’s time to take profits and find the next undervalued sector, investment, idea, etc.
Buying
With IEP proceeds, we put more into TRMD in the retirement account and the rest into our BulletShares. In the vanning portfolio, we initiated a position in SRV, a kick ass midstream fund.
Reason for TRMD is because it is ridiculously undervalued. if you look at the Ex-dividend chart, TRMD first one. it has a 25% yield with a 44% profit margin and 4 P/E wich is ridiculously below it’s peers at 18.
SRV midstream has a lot of exposure to American companies and because of trump trade is focusing on american companies. fair valued close ended fund that pays 12% dividend. $42.78 Purchase price.
We took all our profits from NBXG and YYY and initiated positions into PTMN, RWAY and UPS (told you I was going to get into some of this week’s list hahaha).
PTMN & RWAY got because over 15% yield with about 20% profit margins with under 7 P/E.
UPS I’ve been looking at for probably a year, but didn’t pull the trigger until now because I let it hit it’s 52 week low bounced off in August and then had an earnings report where it did really well. Shot up and then went down to where it was. So got it at a steal. ~40% undervalued at current prices. $132.58
November 4th to 8th
There’s a whole lot of splaining to do with this one, ha.
- NVDY doesn’t report its dividend until 11/06, so we used October’s which was the lowest dividend in 4 months. We talk about this one all the time on our podcast. It’s holding up very well. The negative is you get limited upside on NVDA, but you do collect some absurd diveez you otherwise wouldn’t get.
- CAPL has a forward P/E between 14.75 and 38.67. So, there is a chance it’s very undervalued compared to its peers. Or, it could be vastly overvalued compared to its peers. This is why it’s in slot 10.
- LPG doesn’t pay out a “regular” dividend. Instead, when it has the cash, it drops special diveez. Last year there were 4; this year they’ve paid out 3 so far. I really like LPG, but I need consistent income that it doesn’t offer. If that doesn’t bother you, you could make a haul on LPG.
- NEP just reported meh earnings this week, so there are no reliable sources to give me its margins. Everything else is cool. They raised the dividend again making it 20 consecutive QUARTERS with a dividend increase. Although, I expect a dividend cut at some point, or at the very least, a quarter where they don’t raise the dividend.
- CDR/PRC is a preferred share that’s 42% undervalued, so it’s fairly safe. Plus REITs are out of favor with everyone, so this makes me think it might be a good time to pick up your favorite REITs.
With all that out of the way, I will say this week’s list is top heavy. You can make some mad loot from any of the 10 will make you some mad loot, but AB and BSM are far and away the better investments.
We do hold NVDY, BSM, and NEP. And we have held GLP, CAPL, and SPH previously.
October Weekly Ex-Dividend Picks
October 28th to November 1st
Not to toot my own horn, but DAMN. Any of these 10 will make you some bread.
A couple odd ones though. OZKAP is a preferred share that’s 21% undervalued and is a very good bank stock, Ozark Bank. SO getting almost 6% on this is too sweet when the regular stock OZK yields less than 4%.
Second, WHF normally goes ex-dividend in March, June, September and December, BUT they’re throwing off an 8% special dividend. That makes NOW a perfect time to start a position. You’ll get a special and be one month closer to its regular dividend.
Finally, DPG is a utility and infrastructure CEF that’s 15% undervalued. Buying it will get you 8% yield while riding price appreciation back to it’s normal level. NICE!
We hold AGNC, PSEC and EPD, but have held SCM and EFC previously. Like I said, you can make money on any of these 10. You’re welcome haha.
October 21st to 25th
Wowsers in the trousers, this week’s list is amazeballs!
First, LANDP is a preferred that kicks off $0.13 a share every month and is currently 15% undervalued. So yummy.
Second, USOI is an exchange traded note (ETN); it’s paper only, there is no stock or bond or anything. I’ve held USOI many times and never had an issue with it. But the price of crude, which the ETN follows, is volatile meaning the dividends being kicked off are juicy.
Third, the closed-ended funds (CEFs) SPE and PCF are both trading well below NAV price and are undervalued compared to historical NAV price discount.
Remember, with CEFs you want to look at the historical discount to NAV compared to the current discount to NAV. You do this because there are times when a CEF will look amazing with a 10-20% discount to NAV, but when you look at historical data, you find that 10-20% discount to NAV is actually way higher (overvalued) than the historical 30-40% discount to NAV.
We don’t currently own any of these investments, but we have held LTC, USOI, GLAD and GAIN at some point in the past 5 years. I actually really like the Gladstone products (LANDP, GLAD, GAIN and GOOD) and will pop into them when I like where their yields are. GLAD kicking off over 8% is nice, very nice.
October 14th to 18th
We have a lot of Close-Ended Funds this week. CEFs get a bad rap, but I’ve found them to be both very good yielding as well as safer investments. The only thing you have to do is make sure you’re paying less than the historical price. Generally they deviate back to the mean for the most part.
SPMC and PDCC are both new so there is no data as of yet to compare to. The RITM preferred share is safer than investing in RITM in my opinion. But if none of these are to your liking, keep your cash in BulletShares since we should have some awesome options for you next week.
We hold none of these, but have held OXSQ, RITH and CLM in the past.
October 7th to 11th
Let’s applaud this list shall we? Ha. We have a very conservative list this week, making most of these perfect for a retirement account.
MAIN is da bomb, but its yield is low. The only “risky” ones on the list are PMT (which has good metrics but is volatile) and VZ (which is overvalued compared to it’s peers). I don’t see that, but using the numbers, it appears to be overvalued.
CIO/PRA has a weak profit margin, but as a preferred shareholder that number doesn’t matter.
We hold MAIN and VZ, but LOAN, NEWT, UVV and AIO are on my radar. I’m hoping to have some money available soon to initiate positions.
September 30th to October 4th
BANG! Check out this beautiful sexy chart. This list is tight, yo!
We only hold STWD from this list, and to be honest, I’m kinda jealous that you can pick up 9 better investments and make some serious yields this week. I don’t have any free cash right now, or I’d be all over these.
September Weekly Ex-Dividend Picks
September 23rd to 27th
What’s the opposite of bangers? Whatever it is, this week is a prime example of it. Boring, but still should make you money. Or you can save your cash and wait for better prospects next week.
We hold exactly ZERO of these and only PSEC has ever been held by us. The preferred is nicely discounted and yields a good amount while you wait for it to get back up to par value.
The CEFs are not super undervalued, but they are both preferred funds so there is limited volatility while you collect over 6%. So they are not stinkers this week, but nothing flashy like you all are accustomed to, HAHAHAHA
September 16th to 20th
I must pat myself on the back, AGAIN. Ha Seriously folks, any of these 10 will make you some bread in capital appreciation as well as a pretty healthy and safe dividend. You’re welcome!
We only own MO on this list, but have held LTC and FDUS previously. The one that surprises me is UGI, I have been waffling back and forth about possibly buying this one for quite some time. We’ll see.
September 9th to 13th
Didn’t we just talk about FSK and ARCC on the podcast? Ha The top 5 are all BDCs and awesome sauce to boot. Looks like its the BDCs attack of the month. Pretty much any of the ten this week will make you some bread.
CTO/PRA appears to be overvalued, but because it’s a preferred we don’t really care if the company is overvalued since preferreds get paid out before common stock. It’s $25 trading at an 8% discount, so it’s all good.
BWLP is a variable dividend, so if you need consistency for income, best to avoid that one.
We currently hold FSK, ARCC and CSWC. We have held SLRC, SAR and SPG previously.
September 2nd to 6th
It’s an interesting assortment this week. 4 of these stocks are preferred shares — SLMBP, CIM/PRC, IVR/PRC and FTAIM. SLMBP is head and shoulders above the other 3.
Because the markets have the potential for crazy volatility the rest of the year with interest rate cuts, having some money in preferred could be a smart move.
We only hold MAIN from this list. I know the yield is low, but margins and financials are outstanding on this stock which means plenty of room for growth.
CION and BBDC have great margins as well and a much higher yield. Plus both CION and BBDC appear to have better valuation than MAIN. These 2 intrigue me.
August Weekly Ex-Dividend Picks
August 26th to 30th
I really like the list of stocks for this week. They’re mainly BDCs, which is cool because I expect BDCs to perform quite nicely over the next 12-18 months. If you can get them vastly undervalued and get an amazing yield, even better.
We currently hold SBLK and AGNC, but have held PSEC, EFC and EARN previously.
Regarding AY, I couldn’t find a reliable P/E for the renewable energy sector, but I do know that as a whole the P/E tends to be quite high.
FRHLF is a royalty paying investment, so be warned at some point they will run out of money as they’re not actively trying to explore new geography and fund new oil wells.
August 19th to 23rd
Some straight up bangers this week. Any of these 10 will be good additions to your portfolio. We currently hold EQNR and BKH. We have held GAIN and LTC previously. The one that really interests me and I must do more research on is AOMR. I have never heard of this company, but with a yield and a profit margin such as that, I must look into it. I have been waiting for UPS to drop in price, it is like $160 a share, before I buy it. It is going into my retirement portfolio once I get a price I like to buy it. You get the same yield for BKH which is a monopoly and is like only $54 a share. That is why we are waiting. Same reason applies to waiting for CVX, very expensive for a similar yield to BKH. The only word of caution on this list is for GSL, it is a shipping stock so its dividend and P/E are always all over the place, but GSL is a well run shipping company.
August 12th to 16th
Some bangers this week since you could select any of the 10, or all 10 and have capital appreciation while collecting some juicy dividends.
We hold HTGC and UAN, but have held OXSQ, ECC and OPP previously. ECC and HTGC both have additional dividends (ECC $0.02 and HTGC $0.08) being paid out with their normal dividends.
SOR might just be one of the best CEF we research here. The preferred for UMH is enticing as since UMH pays out 4.8% and the preferred pays out 7%. To me it is a way to hold a CEF that deals with mobile homes and get paid much more for my troubles.
Then we have everyone’s favorite CEF, ECC. It is trading at a discount compared to historical data, BUT it is trading at a 9% premium to its NAV price, just something to consider if you’re buying it.
August 5th to 9th
A nice bundle of funness this week. We currently hold MAIN and NEP, and have held FATBP, CDR/PRC, GLP and CALM previously. You can close your eyes and pick any of the 10 and be in good shape.
July Weekly Ex-Dividend Picks
July 29th to August 2nd
The list is very promising.
We believe any of the first 9 will give you decent price appreciation as well as a nifty dividend yield while you wait.
The only one that I’d probably avoid is ATLO as we can’t find a credible source to determine the P/E. To Tim’s eye it looks overvalued, so we’d avoid this. Other than that the list is tight yo.
OZKAP is a preferred of OZK which is a kick ass bank. Like we can’t believe that Tim found this one. 7% yield on a bank preferred and a good bank at that. YUM!
July 22nd to 26th
We currently only own PFE, but have owned LTC, ETO and EVT previously.
There is a whole lot of value in this week’s chart, but nothing that screams “buy me”.
FFC is the most interesting play as it’s so severely undervalued. PFE is vastly undervalued as well, so there is a lot of room for price appreciation, but the dividend may get cut soon because of its poor margin metric.
July 15th to 19th
A lot of interesting ideas for your consumption this week. We own none of these, but have held OXSQ, GDV, BEP and OXLC in the past. The three preferreds are pretty good actually. It’s rare to see a good company paying out almost 10% for a preferred share.
SOR is very interesting in that it is over 200% lower in its NAV price discount. I’m not saying it’ll make you 200%, but it’s vastly undervalued compared to historical numbers.
Somehow I missed SRV in my previous research. MY BAD YO. It’s an ETF that holds only midstream energy companies. They operate between the upstream and downstream sectors of the oil and gas industry, connecting energy supply and demand. They provide services such as transportation, storage, processing, refining, and marketing. If you think demand will be robust, as I do, midstream companies are a needed part of your portfolio and this ETF fits the bill. Once I get some money freed up, you bet your sweet ass, I’ll be picking up shares.
I must mention, the only reason TSQ made the cut with a negative profit margin is because 64% of their shares are held by institutional investors. I plan on researching more in cased I’m missing something.
July 8th to 12th
I’ll start by saying, IF I had the money, I’d invest in 9 of these. BKE, even with it’s yearly special dividend, doesn’t yield enough for my liking.
We do currently hold MAIN and VZ, but we have also held ECC previously.
The only one that screams “I don’t belong here” is AIO, but it’s a fund that literally invests in only AI companies, and AI is the next HUGE revolution.
You literally could make money investing in any of these 10 IINvestments. SO have fun.
July 1st to 5th
HOT TRASH. That’s how I would sum up this week’s offerings.
There were like no companies going ex-dividend this holiday week. That being said, 1-3 are good investments. HASI has huge profit margins and is steeply undervalued.
BNS is a very good bank, albeit Canadian meaning you must be mindful of currency exchange rates.
KIM/PL is a preferred stock, so KIM being very overvalued has no meaning to holders of its preferred shares.
WTFC is a pretty good bank stock as well so its preferred shares seem solid as well.
If it was me, I’d use my money to increase my YieldMax holdings as they all go Ex-Div on 07/05. Just my 2 cents.
June Weekly Ex-Dividend Picks
June 24th to 28th
Long time readers can start to see, the top 10 chart each week is becoming a REIT, BDC and CEF showcase as of late. This was bound to happen as they all got their teeth kicked with higher interest rates.
The best values are almost always going to be where most investors won’t touch. For the better part of 2024 and a majority of 2023 most investors wouldn’t touch REITs, BDCs and CEFs with a ten foot pole. That makes these investments ripe for contrarian value income investors, don’t you think?
This week’s chart is 7 BDCs, 2 energy stocks and 1 paper company. All 10 are valued very low. We don’t currently own any of these, but have held SCM and PSEC previously and made money in both, probably because they are monthly dividend payers.
Monthly dividend payers are easier to make money in IMO because there’s a reliable pattern. Every month on or around the ex div date, the price goes up a little, and on the ex div date, the price drops. Then they usually trade sideways until it’s time for the price to increase on or around the ex div date again.
June 17th to 21st
We currently hold none of these, but have held FDUS, GLAD, GAIN, LTC and UTG previously.
1-4 are quality investments, like real quality. Except for UTG and SSIC, these are all deeply undervalued. I really like FDUS, but because it was doing some sideways nonsense we traded it for another BDC.
I really like FSK, which is why we took the FDUS proceeds and bought it last week, before it went ex-dividend.
June 10th to 14th
Holy Toledo Batman it’s the attack of the BDC’s this week. Everything besides MO and CIVI are BDC’s. And they all pay nicely to boot.
Seriously, any of these 10 investments would be a good addition to your income portfolio. We currently hold ARCC, FSK, CSWC and MO. In the past we have also held SLRC.
Additionally, CSWC and DVN both have special dividends coming out next week (if you wanted to get into either of them). CSWC is paying out a $0.57 special, which is an extra 22.6%. And DVN is paying out a $0.13 special, which is an extra 6.3%.
June 3rd to 7th
3 preferred shares made the cut this week. Remember with preferred shares you get paid first, so the -2.90% profit margin for IVR/PRC really doesn’t matter. What matters more is the discount to par value (much like bonds and CDs).
For the three preferreds listed all are under par value.
SLMBP 23% discount
CIM/PRB 1% discount
IVR/PRC 8% discount.
We currently hold MAIN, and I’ve made it clear that it’s one of my “must-haves” for an income portfolio. It’s still undervalued and still has a kickass profit margin, meaning the dividend is well covered and probably will have an increase at some point.
We’ve held BBDC and SPG previously. Of the list, all are at a good valuation for us to pick up. But, 1 through 4 are just so much more attractive than 5 through 10.
May Weekly Ex-Dividend Picks
May 27th to 31st
A few good ideas to ponder this week. Note, TSLX actually goes ex-dividend on 06/14, but it hands out a special dividend this month.
FRHLF is a royalty company so the high P/E doesn’t really matter in this case as royalties hand out cash regardless of how expensive or cheap the company is.
That being said, these are good investment ideas, not great, but still good.
May 20th to 24th
The last column is a bit more cramped because as stocks keep getting more overvalued, I decided to include some Close-Ended Funds (CEFs).
So this number here is the percent a CEF is trading below its historical NAV price discount. This means that every CEF trades at a premium or a discount compared to what the total NAV price of the CEFs holdings should be.
The historical average is just what it sounds like, since the CEFs inception, what has the premium or discount been? Since we have no desire to own CEFs that trade at a premium, we’ll focus on the discount.
For SPE, since its inception 06/1993, it’s been -11.40% discounted on average been, meaning if it was trading for what the NAV prices of its holdings were, it would be 11.40% higher in price. It’s currently trading at -15.44% lower than it’s holding NAV prices totaled. Meaning it is undervalued by 26% compared to its historical average.
I’m not saying the price will appreciate by 26% (although it could). It’s just a metric you can use to identify if a CEF is undervalued or overvalued in your research to create a margin of safety. Just trying to make things easier and more clear for you. I HOPE.
We own none of these investments, so I’m fairly unbiased in saying any of the top 5 would be good additions in an income-producing portfolio.
May 13th to 17th
Dropping some bomb ass IINvestments this week.
We own EQNR, BKH and XOM and have owned ENB, WHR, GAIN, GLAD and UMH previously.
Any of the first 8 would be ideal for your income portfolio. ENB is slightly overvalued compared to its peers, so maybe wait for a pullback.
WHR pays a nice dividend, but I don’t see much room for dividend growth with such low margins. SRV is a CEF (Close-Ended Fund) currently trading slightly below 1 year and historical NAV discount prices.
EQNR pays out special or extra dividends all of the time, so in some research, the dividend yield says 3.28% and others say 12.28%. It all depends if the source includes it’s special dividends or not. For this quarter, EQNR is paying out $0.35 as its regular dividend and $0.35 in special dividends.
May 3rd to 9th
On April 30th our 10.125% yielding Laredo bond was called back so we had extra cash this week to play with. So, a few things:
#1 This is why you always, ALWAYS buy your bonds at a discount. You never know when they’ll be called back. At the time, the bond was trading at $105.58, and the redemption price was $100.00. So we lost out on some profit, but we still closed that bond out with a 39% gain.
#2 We used some of the money to increase our shares in 9.25% yielding BSM.
#3 We used some of the money to increase our shares in 6.55% yielding PFE.
#4 We used some of the money to increase our shares in 5.38% yielding BMY.
#5 We used the rest of the money to increase our shares in 12.28% yielding EQNR.
#6 When extra money comes into the account, I like to find the best valued stock that goes Ex-Dividend and buy more shares. BSM goes ex-div on May 9th. PFE goes ex-div on the 11th. BMY went ex-div on May 1st. And EQNR goes ex-div the 15th. All these investments are undervalued compared to their peers.
April Portfolio Updates
April 19th to 25th
Sold SOLV to Buy VALE
MMM issued a spin off stock called SOLV. Nothing about this new stock intrigued me and it has no dividend. Therefore, it has no place our portfolios, so I sold all of it.
I used the SOLV proceeds to initiate a position in VALE which yields 10.5% and is undervalued by about 30-50%, depending on your metrics.
Sold NHI to Buy UHT
I sold all of our shares of NHI because I’m not liking the fundamentals in place or how it’s been performing since we bought it a year ago.
The proceeds were used to to initiate a position in UHT. This stock has better fundamentals than NHI and yields 8.5%. It’s also undervalued by about 30-40% depending on your metrics.
#5 Because of interest rate fear going on in the market currently, ABR has fallen a bit. So I sold some BulletShares and bought A LOT more shares of ABR.
#6 I sold all TSLY shares as Tesla is a trainwreck shitshow right now and put the proceeds into YMAX. Therefore keeping the YieldMax income coming in with a less volatile ETF that yields similar to what TSLY has been yielding the past few months.