In 2025, Safety Net was once again an excellent resource for evaluating the safety of a company’s dividend.

During the year, 10 stocks were rated “A” for dividend safety. None of them cut their dividends. In fact, since 2023, not one of the 29 “A”-rated stocks has lowered its payout within a year after we evaluated it.

Even more impressive, 50% of 2025’s “A”-rated stocks boosted their dividends during the year, including Iron Mountain (NYSE: IRM), which raised its dividend by 10% six months after my “A” rating was released, Delek Logistics Partners (NYSE: DKL), which raised its distribution each quarter, and MPLX (NYSE: MPLX), which hiked its payout by 12% less than a week after I gave it an “A” rating.

I only gave four stocks a “B” for dividend safety in 2025, but two of them boosted their dividends, while the other two kept them the same. There were no cuts.

Energy Transfer (NYSE: ET) was rated “B” in April and raised its distribution every quarter in 2025.

There were seven stocks whose dividends were considered to have a moderate risk of being cut, receiving a “C” rating. Two raised their dividends; two cut them. The average change to the dividend of those seven stocks was -10.6%.

There were a handful of cuts among the “D” and “F”-rated stocks as well. We gave 12 stocks a “D” grade, and 17 others were rated “F.” Two out of the 12 “D”s lowered their dividends, while three out of the 17 “F”s did so.

“D”-rated stocks had the biggest average drop at 12.4%. “F”-rated stocks only saw a 6.4% average decline, but that number is skewed a bit by one variable dividend that saw a sizable – yet likely temporary – increase.

Back in February, Stellantis (NYSE: STLA) slashed its dividend by more than 50% a week after I issued a “D” rating on the stock.

Advanced Flower Capital’s (Nasdaq: AFCG) dividend wilted in 2025. After I gave it a “D” rating, management proved me right by cutting the dividend twice and then skipping it altogether in the fourth quarter.

In June, Research Analyst John Oravec said there was a strong likelihood that OFS Capital (Nasdaq: OFS) would “have a repeat of 2020 with a cut coming down the line” before slapping the stock with an “F” rating. The dividend was cut in half in December.

All in all, it was another terrific year for Safety Net.

Thanks to all of you who submitted requests for stocks to be evaluated in the Safety Net column. Keep them coming! Leave the ticker symbols in the comments section below.

You can also check to see if I’ve rated your favorite dividend payer recently. Just type the company name in the search box in the upper-right corner of this page, and hit “enter.”

The post Safety Net: The Great Dividend Predictor appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

That’s what happened to me when I took a graduate-level class with one of my mentors in technical analysis, Dr. Hank Pruden.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term “technical analysis,” it refers to analyzing a market or an individual asset using charts.

I was expecting to learn about trend lines, bullish and bearish patterns, cycle analysis, etc., in this class. But instead, we dove deep into the psychology of the markets, trying to understand what motivates investors and traders to act the way they do.

Today, there are many institutions that teach behavioral finance, but at the time, it was groundbreaking stuff.

One of the most important concepts is that investors’ behaviors repeat time and time again. There are no guarantees, of course, and every situation will be a little different, but humans can be fairly predictable.

We typically fear the worst just before things get better… and we expect things will always be this good just before they get worse.

This course taught me a number of key ideas that I still use nearly three decades later. Here are a few of the most impactful ones.

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias occurs when you focus only on the information that confirms your beliefs. People do this with their political beliefs all the time, and the media plays into it by exclusively giving them information that aligns with their point of view.

In the markets, an investor may believe that a stock is a great buy because they see the company’s products everywhere… which may cause them to ignore the fact that the stock has been in a downtrend all year. Despite the market signaling that things are not great for the company, the investor buys the stock anyway.

Overconfidence

I’d bet almost everyone reading this believes they’re a better-than-average driver. In college, I had an argument with a friend about what a horrible driver he was. “How many cars have you totaled?” I asked. (The number was three in the previous four years.) “Yeah, but they were all somebody else’s fault!” he exclaimed.

Enough said.

When things are going well in the markets, investors often confuse a bull market with their own genius and think they’ll know when to get out. Of course, it doesn’t work out that way.

The Herd Effect

How many times have you been looking for a place to eat and walked past an empty restaurant to wait at a crowded one?

We’ve seen this time and again in investing, like when people piled into dot-com stocks, crypto, cannabis stocks, and meme stocks because that’s what everyone else was doing.

Being aware of these concepts can help you question your own decision making and ensure that you’re thinking critically about each buy and sell.

You can also use stock charts to test your opinion.

For example, in early 2021, AMC Entertainment Holdings (NYSE: AMC), the poster child for meme stocks, took off. The stock moved from the $20s (split-adjusted) to over $600 in a few months.

And keep in mind, this was not some new tech company or a biotech that had a cure for cancer. AMC is a movie theater chain. And you’ll recall that in 2021, no one was going to the movies. So it made no sense that everyone was piling into the stock.

Let’s say you were on Reddit or some other message board reading about AMC and all the reasons it should go higher. One look at the parabolic move on the chart would tell you to be very careful… because when the stock stopped going higher, it was likely going to reverse quickly.

Technical analysis is simply the visual representation of investors’ emotions. The more aware you are of those emotions and behaviors and how to interpret them, the better a trader and investor you’re going to be.

The post 3 Lessons Every Investor Should Know appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

The most important element to investing success is not stock-picking ability – it’s time. The longer you’re invested, the more money you will make.

Consider this…

A $10,000 investment in dividend growth stocks with a starting yield of 4%, dividend growth of 8% per year, and price appreciation that rises in line with the historical average of the S&P 500 is worth $17,757 after five years.

After 10 years, it’s worth $31,572.

After 15 years, you’re sitting on $56,208.

At year 20, your $10,000 has turned into $100,195.

Hold for another 10 years, and you’ve got $319,613.

And if you stayed invested for 40 years, you’d have $1,024,893.

That’s the power of compounding and time.

Legendary investor and trader Jesse Livermore once remarked, “It was never my thinking that made the big money for me. It was always my sitting.”

In fact, a Fidelity study commissioned years ago looked at its accounts to see if it could identify common traits among its most successful investors. What it found was remarkable.

The best-performing accounts belonged to investors who either were dead or had forgotten they had accounts.

Among the thousands of accounts that Fidelity looked at, the ones that just sat there – that weren’t touched – had the best results.

The biggest favor you can do for yourself as an investor is to put money into stocks and then do nothing (or very little) for as long as possible.

And if you want to leave a legacy for your children or grandchildren, do the same for them.

Can you imagine how you’ll be remembered if your grandchild has an account that you set up 40 years prior, and that money – which may not have been much when you funded it – can now help them buy a house, fund their child’s education, or even set up the next generation the way you did?

They say that in life, timing is everything.

But in the market, what’s more important is time. Regardless of how tough the markets might be, give yourself and your family the gift of time for your investments to grow.

The post How to Make Millions by Doing Nothing appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

And with more interest rate cuts likely coming and higher tariffs still on the table, I expect inflation to accelerate.

Fortunately, there’s an asset class that has absolutely crushed inflation every decade for nearly a century. And I bet you’ll be surprised when you find out what it is.

It is not gold.

Gold has kept up with inflation over the very long term, but that’s about it. An ounce of gold essentially buys the same amount of goods and services today as it did a millennium or two ago.

The big inflation beater is small cap stocks.

You can see from the chart above that small caps strongly outpaced inflation in every decade. The smallest margin was 4.7% in the 1980s.

On average, small caps returned 13% annually, while inflation averaged 3.2% – meaning small caps increased an investor’s buying power by an astounding 10% per year.

That doesn’t just mean you could have had 10% more money each year. It means you could have bought 10% more goods and services each year – no matter how high prices rose during that year.

To make it clear just how profound this is, let me give you an example. Let’s say you’re a golfer and the average round of golf costs you $100. You have a budget of $1,000 per year for golf (not including equipment). That means you can play 10 times per year.

Now imagine that, due to inflation, a round of golf will cost you $105 next year. If your budget doesn’t increase, you’re down to playing nine times per year. And in a few years, if inflation remains constant, that will decline to eight times.

But now suppose that you added the average yearly return (13%) that small caps have delivered to your golf budget, increasing it from $1,000 to $1,130. Not only would you be able to afford the annual bump in greens fees, but you’d also be able to increase the number of times you can hit the links to 11 per year. You’d be able to play 12 times the following year… and so on.

Small caps get a bad rap. Many investors think they’re super risky. And certain ones are. There are plenty of garbage companies out there.

But as an asset class, small caps have a fantastic track record that goes back decades. And surprisingly, they help investors increase their buying power even during periods of high inflation.

Going forward, it will be important to have small caps in your portfolio. With large caps trading at historically high valuations (and with more rate cuts by the Fed on the horizon), they are likely to be the top performers in the near term.

Many people think of small caps as speculative investments. But they have proven over nearly 100 years to play a vital role in allowing investors to beat inflation and increase their buying power.

The post The Big Inflation Beater appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

Gladstone is a real estate investment trust that owns and rents out 151 industrial and office properties in 27 states.

For example…

• It leases 241,000 square feet to Berry Global in Jackson, Tennessee
• It leases 115,000 square feet to Eastern Metal Supply Holdings in Charlotte, North Carolina
• It leases 120,000 square feet to Corning in Horseheads, New York.

Last year, funds from operations (FFO), a measure of cash flow used by REITs, grew by 0.8% to $59.2 million. This year, the growth rate is expected to be nearly identical, as FFO is forecast to rise to $59.7 million. However, that is still lower than 2022’s $60.6 million.

Safety Net wants to see cash flow growth over both one- and three-year periods.

The numbers are close, though, so if FFO comes in a little over expectations, it could show positive growth over three years.

The bigger problem is Gladstone Commercial pays out more in dividends than it takes in.

Last year, the company paid shareholders $62.8 million while generating $59.2 million in FFO. In other words, it paid $1.06 in dividends for every $1 in FFO.

This year, that’s forecast to dip to $1.04.

We always want dividends paid to be below cash flow. Otherwise the company has to dip into cash, borrow money, or sell stock to afford the difference.

Gladstone Commercial pays a $0.10 monthly dividend, which comes out to an impressive 11% yield.

However, there was a cut recently. At the beginning of 2023, management lowered the dividend to the current rate from $0.1254 per share.

So the company can’t afford its dividend, and management showed a willingness to cut the payout less than three years ago.

Until FFO exceeds what the company is paying out, Gladstone Commercial’s dividend is not safe.

Dividend Safety Rating: F

What stock’s dividend safety would you like me to analyze next? Leave the ticker in the comments section.

You can also take a look to see whether we’ve written about your favorite stock recently. Just click on the word “Search” at the top right part of the Wealthy Retirementhomepage, type in the company name, and hit “Enter.”

Also, keep in mind that Safety Net can analyze only individual stocks, not exchange-traded funds, mutual funds, or closed-end funds.

The post Is This Company’s Dividend as “GOOD” as Its Ticker? appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

The breakfast staple’s sky-high prices may have even shifted the presidential election in 2024. By the time voters went to the polls, egg prices were up 46% since the beginning of the year.

Rising prices caused Cal-Maine Foods‘ (Nasdaq: CALM) cash flow to blow the roof off of the hen house. That enabled the company to pay shareholders $8.72 in dividends in 2025, which comes out to a 10.2% yield.

But can the company continue to pay such an eggcellent yield?

Cal-Maine Foods is the largest producer of eggs in the United States, with a 14% market share.

In fiscal 2025, which ended in May, the company’s free cash flow exploded like a hard-boiled egg left on the stove all day, growing 250% from $304 million the prior year to $1.06 billion.

This fiscal year, however, free cash flow is eggspected to be sliced in half to $512 million. That’s not only lower than last year’s total, but it’s significantly lower than 2023’s number.

In the last fiscal year, Cal-Maine paid shareholders $330 million in dividends for a low 31% payout ratio. But this year could be a problem. Wall Street forecasts $789 million in dividends, which is 1 1/2 times the expected amount of cash flow.

So the company’s free cash flow is shrinking, and this year it won’t support the projected dividend payment.

But the biggest threat to the company’s payout is its dividend policy.

Cal-Maine has a variable policy. It pays one-third of its quarterly profits to shareholders in dividends.

On an earnings per share basis, profits are forecast to drop 60% this year.

Any company with a variable dividend policy is going to see fluctuations in its dividend. Cal-Maine’s payout has already been cut in each of the past two quarters, falling from $3.50 in May to $1.38 in November.

Now that the price of eggs has come down, bringing Cal-Maine’s earnings and cash flow with it, the company’s dividend is sure to follow.

Dividend Safety Rating: F

What stock’s dividend safety would you like me to analyze next? Leave the ticker in the comments section.

You can also take a look to see whether we’ve written about your favorite stock recently. Just click on the word “Search” at the top right part of the Wealthy Retirement homepage, type in the company name, and hit “Enter.”

Also, keep in mind that Safety Net can analyze only individual stocks, not exchange-traded funds, mutual funds, or closed-end funds.

The post Is Cal-Maine’s 10% Yield About to Go Splat? appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

It’s the kind of result everyone who’s ever been involved in a startup dreams of.

I’m happy for him. He’s worked incredibly hard over the past 10 years and spent a lot of time on the road away from his family.

But he could have done even better.

Let me explain.

When he started, he was given a small percentage of the company. But he also invested his own money in the business in order to hold a larger stake.

He invested $250,000 and will just about double his money.

However, had he simply put that money into the S&P 500, it would now be worth $723,750.

My buddy put a decent amount of his net worth into one new and speculative company. If he’d invested in the S&P, he’d be betting on hundreds of America’s best businesses.

Perhaps he wouldn’t have known to select Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA) as a stock to buy 10 years ago. But by owning the S&P 500, he would have had exposure to it as it became one of America’s hottest companies and stocks. He’d also have owned huge winners like Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY), Costco (Nasdaq: COST), and many others.

He would’ve experienced the power of compounding dividends as well. Over the last 10 years, dividend income was responsible for 23% of the market’s total return. That’s consistent with the 24% of the S&P 500’s average monthly total return that dividends have accounted for since 1957.

By betting $250,000 on that one company, he missed out on roughly 23% more returns by the simple fact that he wasn’t paid a dividend like he would’ve received from the broad index.

I see investors make similar mistakes all the time as they try to pick the right stocks. Sure, owning top-performing stocks can be lucrative (and I’ll admit that it’s fun owning individual stocks). For most people, however, owning a diversified group of index funds or ETFs is the best way to go.

Markets go up over the long term, and if you own the broad indexes, you’ll participate in those gains. But if your focus is too narrow, you have a good chance of missing out.

Make sure you’re receiving some dividends too. They will substantially boost your return over the long term, and they make bear markets easier to handle when they occur.

If my friend had asked me what I thought before he committed that cash a decade ago, he’d be sitting on about a quarter of a million dollars more – and he would’ve had a lot less stress about whether he was ever going to get his money out.

Investing doesn’t have to be complicated. Own the broad indexes and collect dividends. Over the long term, your returns will be strong and your stress will be lowered.

The post My Friend’s $250,000 Mistake appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

To read the first one (which came out on Tuesday), click here.

– James Ogletree, Senior Managing Editor

In the 1990s, my wife and I went on a weeklong summer trip to the Canadian Rockies.

We stayed in a small town on a gorgeous lake. One day, strolling by a local real estate office, we looked at the listings in the window and were shocked by how inexpensive the homes were.

The American dollar was very strong against the Canadian dollar at the time. A modest home could be had for around $50,000. We started to dream of escaping the rat race and settling down in this charming Canadian town.

And then I found out it gets down to minus 30 degrees “only a few times a year.”

Dealbreaker.

But ever since then, when we travel, if we really love a location, we’ll look at real estate listings and sometimes go out with a realtor. And we’ve even bought a couple of places.

We recently had another one of those experiences in Costa Rica.

I’d been there before – once for an Oxford Club conference many years ago and then again in 2024 on vacation. It’s simply one of my favorite countries I’ve ever visited.

The natural beauty is stunning, and we love that it is very protected.

While there is development going on, there are strict rules in order to preserve the environment, wildlife, and scenery. That’s also good from an investment perspective, as it won’t ever get overdeveloped.

Costa Rica is also known for its people.

Nearly everyone I met spoke English. They are among the warmest and friendliest in the world. I’m not just talking about the waiter at the luxury hotel. I mean the construction worker in the street and the locals watching soccer at the neighborhood field.

Speaking of waiters, though, the food is outrageously good. You can get gourmet meals at incredibly beautiful restaurants – or very tasty (but cheap) eats at local establishments called “sodas.”

A friend took this picture of my wife and I toasting as we watched the sunset from an amazing restaurant in Las Catalinas…

We like to be outside, so Costa Rica is perfect for us. The hiking, the beaches, the water… it’s all there to enjoy.

This was us after a morning hike where the trail ended on the beach.

You can probably tell that I’ve fallen in love with Costa Rica. But when it comes to money, I use my head, not my heart.

That’s another reason why Costa Rica is so attractive to me.

I’m looking to buy a place in Guanacaste, which is on the Pacific side of the country. I plan on renting it out when I’m not using it.

I also expect prices to rise significantly there.

Costa Rica is a democracy and one of the most stable governments in Latin America.

Luxury hotels and homes are being built, more flights are being added to Liberia airport, and the area is attracting more tourists.

There’s a definite buzz about Costa Rica these days, and while it’s hardly undiscovered, it still feels like I’ll be on the early side of things.

My hope is that in the near future, in addition to my family having more vacations down there, you’ll be reading a column that I wrote while eating fish tacos at the local “soda” – after which I’ll take a stroll on the beach, go for a quick swim, and return home to watch the sunset from my balcony.

Pura vida!

The post My Keys to Real Estate Investing… and Where I’m Buying Next appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

But can investors rely on the hefty yield while they wait for the stock price to recover?

In fiscal 2024, which ended in February, free cash flow actually increased due to a sharp reduction in capital expenditures (or “capex”) despite declining revenue and profits.

Cash flow from operations fell from $8.6 billion to $7.4 billion in fiscal 2024, but a 40% cut in capex boosted free cash flow by 17% from $3.8 billion to $4.5 billion.

In fiscal 2025, which ends this coming February, capex is forecast to rise by more than $1 billion, which will reduce free cash flow to $2.5 billion.

In fiscal 2024, Target paid $2 billion in dividends for a very comfortable payout ratio of 46%. This year, the retail giant is forecast to pay a little over $2.1 billion. With drastically falling free cash flow, the payout ratio jumps to an uncomfortable 87%.

However, Target has an incredible dividend-paying history. It has raised its dividend every year since 1972. I was still watching Sesame Street back then.

Since the company is a member of the S&P 500 and has raised its dividend for more than 25 years in a row, it is considered a Dividend Aristocrat, which is a prestigious label that attracts income investors.

Target’s numbers are all going in the wrong direction. Free cash flow is down over the past three years and is expected to fall sharply this fiscal year. As a result, the payout ratio in fiscal 2025 is now projected to be above my 75% threshold.

It’s becoming more difficult for Target to afford its dividend.

I suspect that the five-and-a-half-decade run of annual dividend increases is pretty important to management and they’re going to do what it takes to continue to boost the payout to shareholders.

But if free cash flow continues to deteriorate, Target may have a tough decision to make regarding that very long and impressive dividend-hiking track record.

I don’t suspect a dividend cut is imminent, but given the company’s cash flow situation, the payout can’t be considered safe – even for a Dividend Aristocrat.

Dividend Safety Rating: D

What stock’s dividend safety would you like me to analyze next? Leave the ticker in the comments section.

You can also take a look to see whether we’ve written about your favorite stock recently. Just click on the word “Search” at the top right part of the Wealthy Retirement homepage, type in the company name, and hit “Enter.”

Also, keep in mind that Safety Net can analyze only individual stocks, not exchange-traded funds, mutual funds, or closed-end funds.

The post Is This Dividend Aristocrat’s Payout in Jeopardy? appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

I didn’t want Wealthy Retirement readers to miss out, so today, we’re kicking off a two-part series on international real estate investing.

Part 1 is below – stay tuned for Part 2 on Saturday morning.

– James Ogletree, Senior Managing Editor

I didn’t buy a home until I was 36 years old. And that was just as the real estate bubble was inflating – so not the best timing.

But over the following seven years, I bought three real estate investments: two condo units and some vacant land in different parts of the country.

I’ve since sold the condos. We did OK on one. The other was a home run. We still own the vacant land. My wife and I (half) joke that our kids can deal with it someday.

Now that I’m a little older and (hopefully) a little wiser, I’m exploring investing in overseas real estate for the first time.

Other than some international stock index funds, nearly all of my assets are U.S.-based. I need to diversify.

It’s smart to have investments in different geographies. For most people, that will mean funds, like the ones I mentioned above. There are a variety of index funds that are focused on international markets like Europe and Asia, and there are even country-specific ETFs.

You don’t have to be a real estate economist to know that housing prices in the U.S. have gone bonkers. With mortgage rates around 6% and sky-high prices, it’s very challenging for potential homebuyers and real estate investors.

For the first time in my life, I’m looking at real estate outside the U.S.

In some places in Europe and many in Latin America, you can find beautiful new-construction homes in the $300,000s to $400,000s. If you’re willing to spend more, the home will probably be exquisite.

I love the idea of having a place that my family can use anytime for vacation, but also rent out to defray the costs when we’re not there.

So often, when we travel, it’s like the scene in the Chevy Chase movie Vacation where they pull up to the Grand Canyon, stand there for a minute, and jump in the car to the next destination. I relish the idea of getting to know a place and the people on a relaxed schedule.

Besides making sense financially, here’s what I’m looking for in foreign real estate:

• Quality health care. I want to know that if there’s an emergency or just a simple illness, there are doctors and pharmacies that can help me out.
• Good food. I don’t necessarily need fancy restaurants, but fresh food cooked well is important. I also want access to a good market. I know I won’t have Publix or Trader Joe’s, and that’s fine. Fortunately, most of these towns that cater to expats have great markets with fresh local produce.
• Not too far from the airport. Some folks may want a place far removed from civilization. I know that I don’t want to drive three or four hours after getting off an airplane. For me, that would be a disincentive to visit my place.

And perhaps most importantly, I need an expert who knows the area that can guide me. It can be a local real estate agent who has been referred by someone I trust… or a person/company that specializes in helping expats find their dream home or just an investment overseas.

When it comes to investing in a foreign country, I’m certainly not familiar with the laws and customs of each location, so having that expert who can tell you what to expect – not only in the transaction, but also after you own the property – is essential.

There’s no way I would do this without that person helping me.

I’m hopeful that within the next year or so, we will start enjoying new family traditions in another country – and getting paid when other families do the same.

The post Why I’m Considering Investing Overseas appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.