One option is to buy an IT and hold forever and use the dividends either to re-invest in the Trust or another Trust and then when you retire use those dividends to pay your bills.
You can research the SNOWBALL for
Rule of 7/2
Dividends have been 80% of stock market returns
Warren Buffett and the 60% yield from Coca Cola
The SNOWBALL current investment criteria is a yield of 7% or above.
If you look at CTY for 3 specific news driven chart events, there could be a way of improving the yield.
A share has three phases, up, sideways, down. As you want to earn the dividends for re-investment, you need to hold whilst the share is going up and sideways but not when it’s falling. Now shares go up and down all the time, otherwise there would be no markets, you need to sit thru the market noise but be ready to act on news driven events.
You need to be careful when the share is trading below the cloud but it’s not a reason to sell. If you wanted to hold CTY for it’s long term dividend history, Mr. Market gives you the chance.
The orange candle is an inside day and is ignored for trading, so you wait for two positive candles. You can only buy at the bottom, with luck but you could have bought the yield or the second white candle.
When the market falls out of bed, you cannot wait for the price to trade above the cloud as you forfeit too much profit.
The price still traded around 300p in November but you would have banked two dividends.
PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust is a specialty finance company that invests mainly in residential mortgage loans and mortgage-related assets. The company’s operations include activities such as the production and servicing of financial securities based on residential loans and the pooling and reselling of high-credit-quality mortgages. The company operates through three segments: correspondent production, credit-sensitive strategies, interest-rate-sensitive strategies. The Credit sensitive strategies segment generates income via investments in CRT arrangements, subordinate MBS, distressed loans, and real estate.
You want to invest your hard earned in your Snowball, as you know in the long run markets go up but not in a straight line.
You want to sleep soundly in your bed, you also know most stock market returns in the long run are returned dividends.
You are interested in CTY because having done your research you know they have a very long history of gently increasing their dividends and you also know that CTY have reserves to add to their income to maintain their dividend record.
Remember, if you are a long term holder, those reserves have been paid for by you.
That’s the TR chart, which includes earned dividends.
That’s the chart, where you simply do nothing and re-invest the dividends back into the share, until you want to use those dividends to pay your bills.
Using good ole hindsight, 5k invested would know be worth 80k.
The current yield is 3.7% so income of £2,960 a buying yield of around 60%
Some platforms allow you to re-invest, at zero charge.
Nearer to the end of a bull market than the start, now might not be the best time to start a new position. Money market accounts pay a similar yield, so you could accrue some cash and wait for a better entry/yield point.
One obstacle, you may set a target of say 4.5% and CTY gets close to the yield but never trades that low.
One way of trading would be to buy, after a fall, when the price trades back above the cloud, high risk in the current markets.
This “All-American” 11.6% Dividend Hasn’t Been This Cheap Since 2017
by Michael Foster, Investment Strategist
As America celebrates its 250th, there’s something happening inside its economy that’s not getting enough attention.
A quiet boom.
It’s one more thing worth celebrating this month – and we’re going to do that. We’re also going to get set for the next leg of America’s low-key growth run with a closed-end fund (CEF) yielding north 11.6%.
The chart below, which The Economist published two years ago, nicely sums up the wealth-building power of the US economy over the long haul.
The key piece of info here is on the left side of this chart. Here, we can see that over the last century, each generation of Americans has started its working career earning more than previous ones. And, yes, this data is inflation-adjusted.
No matter how you slice it, America is getting wealthier, generation by generation.
I know that this kind of optimism feels a bit, well, off these days, going by the negativity we read in the press. But the facts are clear. And we can bring this up to the present day by looking at Americans’ disposable income: It’s done nothing but march higher.
Here we see the amount of inflation-adjusted disposable income each worker has, on average. Right now, it’s around $11,072 per person per year, or double what it was 40 years ago.
That’s striking. And despite the gloom hanging over the job market these days, the average person’s employment prospects still look good, with the jobless rate at 4.2%.
Nonetheless, the disconnect between these bullish numbers and consumers’ dour mood is real. You can clearly see it below:
The blue line shows disposable income steadily rising, with things going temporarily haywire during the pandemic, when disposable income suddenly skyrocketed.
Disposable income has since retreated to the normal upward trendline, but no matter. Consumer sentiment (the green line) has slumped, and remains in the dumps years after the last lockdowns ended. Perhaps the memory of all that extra money during COVID is at play here.
In any case, one thing that certainly is true is that inflation is higher than it was in the 2010s – so much so that economists have accepted that we’re probably going to have 3% inflation on average instead of 2% for the long haul. But the fact remains: Americans are still earning more and have more to spend, and this trend has moved steadily along for a hundred years.
An 11.6% Dividend With a Buy American Kicker
What America has accomplished over the last 250 years is incredible, especially since we’ve now seen an entire century of growing wealth as a result.
Which is where the Liberty All-Star Equity Fund (USA) comes in – and not only for its patriotic ticker. In one go, the CEF gives us exposure to leading US firms like NVIDIA (NVDA), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL) and Amazon (AMZN).
But it’s not all about tech: Capital One Financial (COF), Visa (V) and health insurer Humana (HUM) show up among its top-10 holdings, too. USA takes its gains on this portfolio and “converts” them into that 11.6% dividend. And as you’d expect in a rising market, that payout has been growing.
USA’s Big – and Rising – Payout
The fund fuels its dividend by aiming to return 10% of its net asset value (NAV, or the value of its underlying portfolio) as payouts every year. That’s why the line above tends to fluctuate over time.
That upward trend in the dividend is, as a result, tied to the fund’s performance: Over the last decade, USA’s market pricebased total return has more than tripled (in purple below), with its total-return NAV (in orange) not far behind.
USA Marches Higher (No Matter How You Measure It)
At the right side of the chart above, you’ll see that the fund’s total NAV return is starting to reel in its market price-based return. That’s resulted in a discount to NAV (the main valuation indicator among CEFs) of 12.9%.
That’s a level not seen since 2017. And it’s completely out of step with the strength of this fund’s performance over time – not to mention its rising payout:
USA’s Back-to-2017 Sale
The power of USA’s high dividend, over time, should not be underestimated, either. The chart below tells the tale of two hypothetical investors: one who bought $100K of USA a decade ago and reinvested their payouts (in orange) and one who used the fund’s dividends to pay their bills, relying solely on USA’s price gains for growth.
Both tales are happy ones:
USA Is a Long-Term Winner, No Matter What You Do With the Dividends
As you can see, an investor who bought USA a decade ago and used the fund’s dividend to pay for living expenses would have still seen their $100,000 initial investment rise to $116,230. Not bad! And our investor who reinvested their payouts would now have a holding worth $317,610.
It just goes to show that a CEF like USA is a smart way to ride along with America’s long-term growth – whether we need the income generated by that growth or not.
4 More “Star-Spangled” 10%+ Dividends as America Turns 250
This quiet boom isn’t just about the American economy as a whole. It’s fueled by several “mini-booms” happening in specific sectors.
Like pharma, where AI is slashing drug-development times, setting up billions more in sales for drugmakers.
Or on the factory floor, where AI-powered robots can make their own decisions, in real time, slashing costs and boosting product quality.
The best news for us is that CEFs give us a way to tap these “mini-booms” while grabbing big income streams at the same time.
Income to date £8,013.00. Although the SNOWBALL is ahead of this year’s target, do not scale to reach a year end figure, as the total contains a special dividend that may not be repeated next year.
(a non-cellular company limited by shares incorporated in the Island of Guernsey under the Companies (Guernsey) Law 2008)
Re: Dividend Announcement
The Directors of TwentyFour Select Monthly Income Fund Limited (“SMIF”), the listed, closed-ended investment company that invests in a diversified portfolio of credit securities, have declared that a dividend of 0.5 pence per share will be paid, in line with the Prospectus, representing the regular monthly targeted dividend for the financial period ended 30 June 2026 as follows:
Ex-Dividend Date 16 July 2026 Record Date 17 July 2026 Payment Date 31 July 2026 Dividend per Share 0.50 pence (Sterling)
Given the ongoing interest rate environment and volatility in the global markets, the Directors have given careful consideration to the Company’s projected income for the year against their assessment of risks currently affecting the markets and those inherent in achieving its target dividend payment of 6 pence per share per annum. Based on this analysis the Directors believe that dividends payable in respect of the year ending 30 September 2026 are likely to be in excess of 6.5 pence per share.
Pair trading is where you split your capital between two Trusts, both that pay a dividend but the first Trust where you hope to make a capital gain and the second Trust where the income is given priority but still with the chance of a modest capital gain. The blended yield remains at 7% or above.
You still receive dividends for re-investment as you wait to see if your stock picking was correct.
Pairing Bird Construction (TSX:BDT) and RioCan (TSX:REI.UN) creates a monthly cash‑flow engine that mixes Bird’s capital‑growth potential with RioCan’s predictable income.
Bird (≈$64.85, YTD +129.7%, 1.3% dividend) offers total‑return upside backed by a record ~$5.4B backlog, rising Q1 revenue/net income and a focused 2025–27 strategy.
RioCan (≈$22.86, ~5.07% yield) supplies steady dividends via a grocery‑anchored portfolio (≈86% with grocery), ~98% occupancy and strong leasing spreads driving durable NOI growth.
Dividend stocks are tangible passive-income assets thanks to the stock market. Many retirees fund their living and other expenses with dividend income, while keeping the capital intact. Most publicly listed Canadian companies pay quarterly dividends, although a select few distribute payouts monthly.
My “buy now” monthly dividend stocks for steady cash flow are Bird Construction (TSX:BDT) and RioCan (TSX:REI.UN). There are compelling reasons why these dividend payers are buying opportunities and worthy of consideration.
Source: Getty Images
Total return package
Yield chasers will not pick Bird Construction for its monthly payouts. However, this industrial stock offers a total return package in 2026, not to mention a long growth runway. At $64.85 per share, current investors delight in the market-crushing 129.7% year-to-date gain on top of the modest 1.3% dividend.
Had you invested $7,000 at year-end 2025 ($28.24 per share), your money would be worth nearly $16,074 today. Note that BDT is a 2025 TSX30 winner, the flagship program highlighting Canada’s 30 top-performing stocks. It ranked 17th and is likely to join the prestigious list again this year. The total three-year return is plus-753.5%, representing a 104.4% compound annual growth rate (CAGR).
This $3.7 billion construction and maintenance company has become a dominant player in the country’s infrastructure and industrial landscape. It serves all major markets, providing comprehensive construction services and innovative solutions.
One Bird platform was launched as the centrepiece of its 2025–2027 strategic plan. Bird uses its own workforce and equipment to have direct control over project schedules and quality. It also promotes collaboration among internal teams to mitigate against industry-wide labour shortages.
In Q1 2026, construction revenue and net income grew 9% and 21% year-over-year to $783.4 million and $11.4 million, respectively. Notably, the backlog of contracted work rose 5.8% to over $5.4 billion versus Q1 2025. Teri McKibbon, President and CEO of Bird, said, “Record contracted backlog and a sizable pending backlog provide clear visibility into future activity.”
Predictable income, durable growth
RioCan offers predictable income delivery to investors. The retail-focused real estate investment trust (REIT) boasts highly stable rent collection from resilient, necessity-based tenants such as grocery chains, value retailers, and pharmacies. Also, at $22.86 per share, REI.UN outpaces the TSX, up 25.7% year-to-date versus plus-11%. If you invest today, the dividend yield is 5.1%.
According to this $4.7 billion REIT, its productive retail core assets and future-focused platform will drive durable growth and lasting value to shareholders. The densely populated, supply-constrained urban markets also provide structural market advantages. Around 86% of RioCan’s 167 properties have a grocery component.
The committed commercial and retail occupancy rates at the end of Q1 2026 were 97.9% and 98.6%, respectively. RioCan reported a blended leasing spread of 25.8%, the highest to date, compared to 17.5% in Q1 2025. Meanwhile, portfolio investments and development spending are ongoing. RioCan expects cash NOI to grow by at least 3% annually after 2027, primarily supported by contractual rent steps and positive leasing spreads.
Best of both worlds
The pairing of Bird Construction and RioCan REIT creates a formidable monthly cash-flow engine. You get total-return power, too – the best of both worlds – with capital growth alongside the dividends.
The Monthly Dividend Lie—and the Elite 8.4% Payout That’s True
Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist Updated: July 8, 2026
In the working world, paychecks show up every two weeks. Or at least, every month. Which keeps up with the pace of monthly bills, charges, and expenses.
In the stock market world, payouts (dividends!) arrive every quarter. That’s 30 days in between bills, but a full 90 days spanning divvies.
Hence the appeal of monthly dividends. These management teams know that the investors who hold their stock are here for the payment. It’d better show up every 30 days, and it’d better be the same amount. No cuts allowed.
Problem is, some of these monthly payers are writing checks their business can’t cash. So let’s “audit” the last decade of receipts from the six biggest monthly payers in America. We’re asking two questions:
Did the monthly check arrive on time and in full?
And were investors able to cash their checks without taking down the price of the stock?
Here’s the list, along with a spoiler: half of these monthly dividend companies couldn’t keep the checks coming for a full decade.
The 6 Biggest Monthly Dividend Payers
Why the focus on 10-year total return when we are here for the dividends? Because we’re not interested in a melting share price! When we retire on dividends we want our principal to stay intact (or, even better, to appreciate).
As you can see this is not a “close your eyes and buy” shopping list. We have some problem children. To name names, landlord EPR Properties (EPR) was a compelling buy for retirees. It collects rent checks from “experience venues” focused on activities like Topgolf and ski resorts. Younger generations spend their money on experiences versus collecting “things” so, perfect, right?
Kind of—until 2020 came along! The world shut down in March and by May, EPR had suspended its monthly payout. The “temporary freeze” ended up lasting fourteen months because it took a while for the world to reopen.
Then we have the “other Apple,” Apple Hospitality (APLE), a hotel landlord whose roughly 220 old properties fly the Marriott and Hilton flags. Business travel is a big driver of APLE’s business and that came to a halt in March 2020. And likewise, its monthly payout skidded to a stop!
When APLE resumed payments in March 2021, they were not every month. They were quarterly, and even then, only a penny per share. The monthly check didn’t return until March 2022—two full years after it vanished.
Agree Realty (ADC) delivered the second-best total return in our audit, 135% over the 10-year period. More than a double, through rents from the Walmarts and Tractor Supplys of the world.
Agree is new to the monthly game, though. It paid a quarterly dividend until January 2021, when its marketing team flipped to a monthly payout, which Agree has paid on time ever since. Five of the ten years it’s been paying the monthly—but hey, let’s note it’s a recent convert to Monthly Land.
Realty Income (O) deserves its own line. It literally trademarked “The Monthly Dividend Company,” and to its credit, it has dished checks every 30 days for decades. Problem is, a 48% total return over an entire decade is sort of terrible!
AGNC Investment Corp (AGNC) is quietly another dog, even though it always pays a generous headline yield. And monthly, too! So what’s not to like?
The not-so-great total returns, that’s what.
The company is a mortgage REIT, which means it buys mortgages. These are relatively safe mortgage-backed securities from government agencies like Fannie and Freddie, so there’s not a big problem there. The issue is that these mortgage bonds don’t pay a lot of money, so AGNC “levers up”—it borrows to buy more to increase its income. Then money is too expensive and this eats into AGNC’s profitability.
In March 2020 AGNC chopped the monthly payout from $0.16 to $0.12—and never restored it. This stock is more of a breakfast beer than a long-term holding. There’s a time and a place, but you don’t want to make a daily habit out of it. Investors who held over the past decade earned just 88%, which isn’t very good—it means AGNC compounded at only 6.5% per year. This stock dishes a monthly dividend of 12.9% and loses nearly 6% per year in price. Not ideal!
The monthly champion is a favorite of ours here at Contrarian Outlook, business development company (BDC) Main Street Capital (MAIN). Main was early on the monthly train, paying its divvie every single month (without a cut!) since its 2007 IPO.
And MAIN grew investors’ wealth, too. The shares themselves are up 59% over our decade, before a single dividend. Add the payout and you’re at 236%, the top of our audit table.
What makes MAIN the bluest of BDC blue chips? Two engines instead of one. Most of its competitors simply lend money and collect interest. MAIN lends and takes equity stakes alongside the debt.
Make no mistake: Management is bullish. It just declared its 19th consecutive quarterly “bonus” dividend—that’s on top of the regular monthly payout, which it raised 4% this year. That adds up to an 8.4% yield, including special payouts. And it teased another likely bonus for September! And for those of us paying strict attention to net asset value (NAV), there has been no blip whatsoever. MAIN’s NAV grew to a record high.
Here’s another great thing at MAIN. Insiders own 3.8% of the company, roughly 3.7 million shares. That’s unusual and high for a BDC. They run the place like they own it, because… they do!
So… should we run out and buy MAIN? Well, we need to be careful. There are private credit fears in the market that we must consider before piling into MAIN, or any monthly dividend. Let’s not buy blindly and end up with an undercover dog like AGNC!
When you start to use your Snowball to pay your bills, the only consideration is, how secure is the dividend ? Everything else is secondary to your decisions.
There’s an age-old investment adage that promotes the value of spending time in the market as opposed to trying to time the market.
Unless you’ve got a crystal ball that tells you exactly when certain markets or asset classes are going to rise or fall, you’re probably better off investing smaller amounts on a regular basis, referred to as pound cost averaging. This smooths out any highs and lows, allows you to pay less for your investments on average and can make the journey less volatile, if indeed that’s your desired experience – some investors may enjoy the thrill of trying to time market highs and lows with a lump sum.
Behavioural finance experts often suggest that as humans, we’re predisposed to certain biases, including selling our investments when performance starts to drop off, despite all the expert evidence telling us not to do that; it just crystallises any losses instead of giving your investments a chance to recover.
That said, investor confidence is at its highest in seven years despite a year defined by geopolitical instability, global trade tensions and market uncertainty.
An annual study of investor behaviour and sentiment from research and communications businesses AML Group and The Nursery Research & Planning, The Investor Index 2026, showed investor confidence reaching a new high.
“What’s particularly interesting is how normalised uncertainty appears to have become for investors,” said Nicola Wright, insights director at The Nursery Research & Planning.
“Confidence is no longer closely tied to calm market conditions. Investors seem increasingly comfortable making decisions in a world where disruption and volatility are seen as part of the backdrop rather than temporary events.”
Several reasons are likely feeding that confidence, according to Jason Hollands, managing director at investment platform Bestinvest.
These include overplayed concerns that the US was facing a recession (which has not materialised) and markets (being forward-looking) appearing to discount the risk of the Middle East conflict as temporary, despite it lasting longer than many had first expected. He believes the over-riding reason behind many investors’ optimism is around AI and the exceptional levels of capital expenditure being ploughed into the sector
Investing during uncertain times
Confidence is informed by several factors, including attitude to risk, life stage and level of experience and the amount of money you have.
The survey found 84% of investors (defined as having £10,000 or more invested) near or in retirement feel confident their savings and investments will be sufficient. Confidence is also higher among those already retired, as opposed to those in planning stages, and among those with more than £250,000 invested.
While the index showed UK investors were putting their money where their mouths were – 50% increased their investment amounts compared with last year while 40% maintained the same levels despite an uncertain backdrop.
That faith in the market is supported by a willingness to pay a premium for more likelihood of returns, a priority alongside decent track records and user-friendly products.
The choices UK investors are making also indicate optimism, favouring equity funds on the whole, with a rising demand for exchange-traded funds (ETFs). In keeping with regular savings strategies, considering a diversified, long-term approach – such as looking at reliable large caps, high-quality fixed income and some uncorrelated real asset exposure – should help many investors, whatever their time horizon, weather any storms.
Hollands said the danger of buoyant markets is the risk of overconfidence or being swayed by casual conversations with people ‘down the pub’.
“A lot of DIY investors start off enthusiastically but over time their interest wanes and they tend to forget about their portfolio,” he said.
Asset allocation – checking if any position sizes need rebalancing to bring the overall investments in line with your intended risk profile and preferences – is something many self-directed investors tend to overlook. Many get excited about fund or stock ideas rather than looking at the bigger picture, he added.
“Try not to over-react to the last thing someone told you but also make sure you’re reviewing your portfolio at least a couple of times a year, at the same cadence. Having a well thought-through asset allocation is really important, which can then anchor you to making better decisions.”
Are you thinking about investing but not convinced yet?
Intenders, perhaps unsurprisingly, are more cautious. The Nursery and AML define this cohort as those with over £10,000 in savings or over £2,000 in savings and an income over £40,000 but also likely to invest in the next two years. These people are keen to invest but still waiting for a ‘trigger’ event.
Tending to listen to banks, family and friends rather than professional advisers, they are more anxious across the board compared to investors. They see property and savings as safer bets than stocks and shares, with fear of loss and risk aversion their main barriers to getting started.
Of this group, 41% worry they will lose money and 37% say it feels too risky. Yet 44% say low-risk options or better knowledge would get them over the line.
“One of the main reasons that a lot of people who’d like to invest don’t do it is they’re nervous about putting their money in at the wrong time, and then suddenly seeing a significant drawdown in the value of their investment. That can stop them investing full stop,” explained Hollands.
He said the way to overcome that was to take the pound cost averaging approach.
“By just investing a little often regularly, it takes the emotion out of it and also means that across a year, you can expect to smooth out some of the ups and downs that you see in the short term.”
He also urges even experienced investors to consider the benefits of this approach – it’s not just for beginners.
How to start investing during uncertain times
Bestinvest is seeing novice investors increasingly choose readymade portfolios rather than trying to build their own from scratch, selecting funds themselves.
Readymade portfolios are essentially multi-asset funds designed to cater to a range of risk profiles, which have become common across most DIY investment platforms, which have evolved their offerings to serve customers of all levels of experience.
“Readymade portfolios provide inexperienced investors with effectively a ‘one-stop shop’ managed investment solution, through a diversified selection of underlying funds selected by a portfolio manager and an asset allocation approach that is periodically rebalanced to stay in line with the risk profile,” said Hollands.
He also said that passive funds had become more popular, with novice investors increasingly putting relatively small amounts via regular savings into global tracker funds.
One way to invest, is to re-invest your dividends based solely on the yield available in the market at the time.
Another is to add new capital to your SNOWBALL into short term gilts held to maturity or money market accounts, then invest those funds into your Snowball after markets have fallen. You can only get into any share at it’s low by luck or your have a De-Lorean in your garage.
You are interested to pair trade BRAI as you know the dividend is going to be reset to 6% of NAV.
I obviously have copied a good example but the rules remain the same.
Be hopeful if the price is above the cloud.
Be fearful when the price is below the cloud.
You add capital when the price moves above the cloud, whilst keeping everything crossed it’s not a market slam dunk and the hardest part do nothing.
If you are sitting on a large gain you could take out some ‘profit’ and re-invest in a higher yielder.
