AGNC,MFA and NLY have been added to the Watch List. All higher yield so higher risk.
You may have read that Smaller Company shares are under valued.
But just in case, you are early or late to the news, you want a dividend to re-invest in your Snowball, in case your research is wrong.
Current yield 7% but higher risk as the market cap is very modest.
Chelverton UK Dividend Trust PLC – Chelmsford, England-based investor in UK small- to mid-cap companies – Net asset value per share rises 8.4% to 144.20 pence at April 30 from 133.04p the year prior. Revenue return per share is 7.42p down 45% from 13.32p. Dividends per share paid in the financial year are 10.75p, down from 12.90p the year before. This results in a total return of 16%, the firm says, below the AIC UK Equity Income sector share price total return of 19% and a NAV total return of 17%. “Despite the uncertainties, we continue to be confident in the prospects for companies in the small and mid-cap sector, whose market rating remains historically low,” Chelverton says. “We believe the company continues to offer a compelling combination of an attractive dividend yield and the potential for capital upside from any recovery in the UK small and midcap market. The board keeps market circumstances under review and will continue to seek opportunities to reintroduce gearing into the company’s structure.”
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 The Next Boom Could Come From a Surprising Place. This 8.5% Dividend Is Ready by Michael Foster, Investment Strategist We don’t often see the European Union as a major driver of stock returns. I mean, American investors usually see the EU as stuffy and overregulated – when they think about it at all! But I urge you to reconsider, because this could be about to change. When it does, funds with exposure to the continent – including an 8.5%-yielding closed-end fund (CEF) called the Allspring Global Dividend Opportunity Fund (EOD) – could catch a lift. Let me be clear: This potential boost from Europe is only one reason to take a look at EOD. The main one is the fund’s discount to net asset value (NAV, or the value of its underlying portfolio). It’s in the “sweet spot”: cheap, at 8.3%, but moving toward par. EOD’s Discount Trend Shifts in Our Favor  I expect that to continue for two reasons. The first: EOD’s US investments, which account for about two-thirds of its portfolio, stand to gain from ongoing growth here, capped with a productivity boost from AI. Lower interest rates in the longer run would add an extra kick. That’s the foundation of our play. Then Europe comes in with a setup to boost the roughly 13% of EOD’s portfolio held on the continent and in the UK. What’s Happening Across the Pond Let me start with something most American investors don’t realize about their European cousins: They’re just not as into stocks as we are. The data, based on recent figures from the European Central Bank, tells the story: 32% of workers’ wealth is kept in cash, versus 11% in the US. And although 31% of US wealth is in stocks, just 5% of EU wealth is. The result is a lot of cash on the sidelines, and for a bloc eager to trigger new investments, it’s low-hanging fruit. About $11-trillion euros (or around $12.5 trillion) of low-hanging fruit, to be exact! To unleash that cash, the EU is considering special tax treatment for investors. New kinds of low-minimum accounts are being rolled out across the continent, too. The question then becomes: How can we grab upside (and income) as more of this cash rolls into stocks? Let me be clear that our route does not run through CEFs directly: Due to other regulations, American CEFs are difficult for Europeans to buy. So we can’t expect a wave of euros to flood into our favorite income plays. There are limitations, too. One is the well-known phenomenon of home-country bias, or the tendency for people to buy stocks in the nation in which they live. Plus, there are legal and regulatory restrictions, since European lawmakers are aiming to encourage European stock investment. That steers us back to EOD. With its European exposure (backstopped by a strong base in the US), that shrinking 8.3% discount and an 8.5% dividend yield, it’s a “one-stop shop” as more investment in America and Europe lifts stocks in the US and the EU. Beyond that, we have a history of strong performance, with EOD posting an 11.8% annualized total return, on a market-price basis, over the last decade, beating the benchmark Vanguard European Stock Index Fund ETF (VGK). And on a NAV basis, EOD has been crushing VGK, too (see the purple line in the five-year chart below): EOD’s Portfolio Outruns European Stocks  That’s not surprising for a fund whose portfolio is fronted by outperformers like NVIDIA (NVDA), Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT). The fund also boosts its income through its holdings of high-yield corporate bonds (around 20% of the portfolio). In addition, it sells covered-call options on its holdings – a strategy that generates extra income for the fund and performs best in volatile markets. That’s another key, because I do expect more volatility as we enter the last few months of 2026, with midterms in the US, ongoing uncertainty in the Middle East and rising yields on long-term government bonds, both in the US and globally. We also love the fact that the fund has been returning recent strong gains in its NAV to investors in the form of a rising dividend. As you can see below, the payout has been climbing since 2023, right around the time the fund’s NAV started to take off:  Source: Income CalendarI expect more gains, and potentially further dividend hikes, as EOD’s portfolio benefits from continued strength in the US and more stock investment from Europe. That’s just the kind of diversified setup we crave in an uncertain market like today‘s. The fact that we can get in for 92 cents on the dollar, thanks to EOD’s discount, is a bonus. Your Best Play? Mix “Unloved” Europe With AI Gains for Big Upside, 10% Payouts As contrarians, we’re always on the lookout for situations like the one brewing in Europe right now. Europe has always been overlooked in the US, where it’s (too) often seen as a bastion of regulation and slow growth. That’s changing. And CEFs like EOD give us a nice way to grab a piece of the action, with a portfolio boasting a solid position in Europe and a strong base of US stocks. |
HICL is ready for the next twenty years.
Overview
Since its pioneering IPO two decades ago, HICL Infrastructure (HICL) has established itself as the leading core infrastructure trust, generating an NAV total return of 8.5% p.a. through different cycles, from both income and capital growth. A recent period of static dividends ended in the financial year ending 31/03/2026, and HICL’s board expects Dividends to 31/03/2028 to grow at an annualised 1.8%, while maintaining dividend cover at 1.1x.
Since HICL’s IPO, the infrastructure landscape has evolved and so has HICL, adding more diversified sources of return through different types of infrastructure across several geographies, alongside projects in different sectors and, selectively, at an earlier stage. Active management has also played a role, through project optimisation and judging when investments are ready for disposal. Increasingly, HICL’s investments, such as New Zealand’s FortySouth mobile towers business, are operating companies with capacity to grow, while retaining the key infrastructure characteristic of long-term stable and contracted revenues. HICL has therefore come a long way since its beginnings as a predominantly UK PFI investor.
In July 2026, the HICL team set out a detailed plan that, at a headline level, will gradually increase target medium-term returns from the 7–8% range set at IPO in 2006 to 10%. This builds on their record and is expected to be achieved while maintaining dividend growth and cover. Disposals of maturing assets and excess cashflows will be partly used to increase exposure to the new class of ‘enhancer’ assets, while c.80% of HICL’s portfolio is expected to remain in the familiar ‘yielder’ and ‘grower’ categories that have powered its long-term performance. This carefully thought-out plan reflects today’s long-term infrastructure opportunity landscape and, in the Portfolio section, we look at how HICL’s long-term performance includes significant contributions from both higher-returning investments and active management. The revised strategy could, therefore, be seen as a natural evolution of the team’s existing strengths and track record in a higher-rate environment.
Analyst’s View
One of the most striking numbers in HICL’s long-term performance is the comparison between its 20-year annualised NAV total return of 8.5% and the weighted average discount rate of 7.9% over the same period. In simple terms, discount rates give an indication of expected returns before fees. If the HICL team had achieved only what was modelled, the returns would have been less than 7% rather than the 8.5% actually achieved. The gap is explained by the team pulling the active management levers discussed above. As the revised strategy plays out, it seems very likely that HICL’s portfolio will come to include more of the types of investments that play to those strengths.
While the precise details of HICL’s plan for the next twenty years were revealed in July 2026, the direction has been clear for a while. The market has rewarded HICL with a significant share price rise this year as it starts to move past the end of the ‘bond proxy’ era that so heavily influenced HICL’s and peers’ share prices from 2022. That upward trajectory has continued since the announcement and puts HICL on a discount of under 15%. By the standards of the last twenty years that remains wide, but in a more recent context, it shows the success of HICL’s capital allocation policy, including share buybacks, and greater appreciation of HICL’s growth prospects. And, of course, a welcome return to dividend growth. If delivered, HICL’s plan for the next twenty years has the potential to reinforce its position as one of the UK’s leading listed infrastructure investment companies, while continuing to provide long-term income and capital growth for shareholders.
Bull
- HICL has evolved to embrace the wider opportunity set of today’s infrastructure market and higher interest rates
- Return to dividend growth
- Discount has narrowed to a more sustainable level, although there is still work to be done
Bear
- A higher return target has the potential to require more risk
- Many of HICL’s investments are leveraged, which can amplify losses as well as gains
- Rising interest rates and government bond yields could be a headwind
Current yield 6.2%, neither fish or fowl.
Point Break
If big institutions are coming back to the sector, which trusts will benefit first?
Thomas McMahon
Updated 02 Sep
Disclaimer
This is not substantive investment research or a research recommendation, as it does not constitute substantive research or analysis. This material should be considered as general market commentary.
KTI readers will be ‘experienced’ and ‘distinguished’ enough to remember the 1991 film Point Break. Skating over the fact it is now 35 years’ old, some readers might not know a point break is a surfing term for a piece of land which produces long, straight and predictable waves – perfect for surfing and analogously perfect for investing. Sadly, rocks are more predictable than stock market fundamentals, so the waves of momentum that pass over markets are always obvious in retrospect but very hard to see in advance. However, we think the conditions are just about right to see a wave of institutional money gathering to sweep through the investment trust sector.
To be clear, we can’t see it happening yet, although we may be seeing some early signs. This year we have noted some institutional investors adding to specialist equity trusts and to alternative assets trusts, both of which are arguably best accessed through the closed-ended structure. We also hear of pension funds and family offices researching, or adding to, alts and PE trusts. There is still some selling going on, perhaps around benchmark changes and other specific factors, but it is certainly not one-way traffic like it was a couple of years ago, and our ears to the ground may possibly be picking up some slight trembling. It may take some time, but we think that good medium to long-term returns might be achievable by getting the board lined up now (there may still be time to learn to surf). Here we consider which trusts are most likely to benefit if institutional investors start to return.
Cost disclosure
Costs have been one of the pressure points for professional investors for well over a decade. Regulators and analysts have focused on the all-in cost of investment services, spurred in part by the growing availability of low-cost tracker funds. This attention produced some perverse requirements which were particularly significant for institutional investors. The KID RIY figures which had to be reported until recently had a very liberal interpretation of costs which produced some very high numbers for certain business models. Particularly questionable, in our view, was the incorporation of the cost of debt facilities. Gearing is an essential part of the business model for some investment companies and a key advantage of the structure. Gearing gives the potential for much higher returns, and while there are also risks, this is a separate issue from cost. By incorporating gearing within the figure that institutions have to report in clients’ portfolios, regulation made any that included geared investment trusts look particularly expensive. This was a massive disincentive for institutions to invest.
Compounding this was the decision to treat the costs of investment companies like the charges of funds rather than the internal costs of other listed companies. This issue comes out most clearly when considering REITs. An AIC REIT would have to report an OCF and any institutional investor would have to report this as the cost of the investment in the portfolio reported to clients. However, if they bought a non-AIC REIT, like LondonMetric, there would be no OCF and therefore absolutely no cost to report. In that light, it is hardly surprising that LondonMetric has hoovered up so many AIC REITs in recent years and gone from strength to strength. Compounding the injury, stamp duty has to be paid on investment company shares but not on purchases of open-ended funds. So, investment companies were treated like open-ended funds when it hurt them, and shares when it hurt them. Ultimately, this has to stem from the fact the AIFM Directive (2013), which set out many of the rules, was a response to the GFC and was motivated by fear of alternative investment funds, some of which had blown up in the crisis.
The upshot of the old regulation was to disincentivise using investment companies over open-ended funds, and to disincentivise using those which have geared business models at all. These tend to be those investing in asset classes where the closed-ended fund structure enjoys the greatest advantages: infrastructure, renewables and private equity. In this light, the fact that fund of funds managers and other institutional investors no longer have to include the OCFs of investment companies when they calculate their costs makes investment companies much more attractive.
It isn’t just costs that have kept institutions out of the market. Successive governments have recognised underinvestment in the relevant asset classes of infrastructure and unlisted equity by large UK investors such as pension funds. Since 2023, chancellors have unveiled successive measures aimed at boosting allocations to UK infrastructure and private markets by pension funds and other institutions, with July 2025’s Mansion House Accord seeing 17 major workplace pension providers commit to invest at least 10% of their DC funds in private markets by 2030, of which half of that should be in the UK. The expectation is for these numbers to rise over time.
One of the key aims of the governments’ actions is to see more UK capital, more British savings, invested in the UK, in the interest of spurring growth, promoting entrepreneurship, and keeping control of UK-originated businesses at home. This is part of a global retrenchment from globalisation which seems likely to continue for years, if not decades, and we think further measures in this direction may follow.
The Mansion House Accord represents an opportunity for those closed-ended funds which have sufficient size to be investable by large institutions. However, the government is pushing to consolidate multi-employer private sector and local government pension funds, arguing that ‘mega-funds’ will be better placed to provide funding to the UK’s essential infrastructure. This means ‘sufficient size’ will be higher in future for many institutional investors.
Which investment trusts will benefit the most?
We think that regulatory and cultural change is laying the groundwork for institutions to invest more in the investment trust sector. The main beneficiaries, in our view, will be companies in the real assets and alternative sectors, including private equity and growth capital. Investment trusts offer a way to get a liquid and diversified investment in these sectors.
Turning to private equity, we think HarbourVest Global Private Equity (HVPE) looks well-placed to be a beneficiary. It has a large market capitalisation, meaning large investors could take meaningful positions. It also has quite a high OCF, and so the removal of the obligation to report these in look-through cost figures could weigh more heavily on the investment decision. Pantheon International (PIN) has the size, and cost disclosure changes work to its advantage. Neither of these have substantial UK exposure, however, so for investors looking for that, CT Private Equity (CTPE) would fit the bill better. On the other hand, its much smaller market cap will limit its appeal to the larger institutions, at least while the sector trades at a discount. If the trust’s shares get back to par, there would always be the possibility of raising fresh capital.
PRIVATE EQUITY AND GROWTH CAPITAL
The growth capital sector includes venture capital and investing in pre-IPO businesses, typically as a minority investor and usually without the level of influence of the private equity model. Providing growth capital to UK businesses is an explicit goal of the Mansion House Accord and regulation on consolidating pension funds. Molten Ventures (GROW) has the scale to offer meaningful exposure to a diversified portfolio of UK and European growth capital businesses. An interesting dynamic with GROW is that the Molten team also manage external funds and earn fees which benefit Molten Ventures plc. This means shareholders stand to benefit second hand from any segregated mandates or new funds the management team are involved in.
Within the infrastructure sector, we think HICL Infrastructure (HICL) and International Public Partnerships (INPP) stand out both for their size and their majority allocations to the UK. This sector has re-rated significantly over the past year and both trusts are on single digit NAVs, and buying by institutions may have played a role. Being on a narrow discount may also be an advantage: rather than seeing an opportunity, some investors may see wide discounts as a feature to be feared, while they may read a narrow discount as validation. 3i Infrastructure (3IN) also has the size to appeal, and the narrowest discount in the sector. On the other hand, it has much less invested in the UK, while its model of buying operating companies may not fit the bill.
INFRASTRUCTURE AND RENEWABLES
In the renewables sector, Greencoat UK Wind (UKW) really stands out. Not only does it have the largest market cap in the sector, but it is 100% invested in the UK, so it can make the biggest hit towards hitting the target allocation of 5% in UK private assets. The Renewables Infrastructure Group (TRIG) should also appeal, with 60% invested in the UK and a market cap approaching £2bn. OCFs are lower in these two sectors, but KID RIYs would have to carry the cost of the high gearing levels essential to these business models, so the changing legislation on cost disclosure should be impactful across the board.
Conclusion
Media narratives usually trail the facts because received wisdom is slow to change. As we have written elsewhere, the equity trusts are more or less back to ‘normal’ discount levels, while even over the past year the alternative assets space has started to see discounts move in. Equity trusts moved due to some basic technical factors in our view: lower rates are good for risk appetite, while consolidation meant there were fewer vehicles to take the inflows when they returned. We think some basic technical factors should see growing institutional interest in the sector over the coming months and years: regulation has reduced some of the disadvantages in how trusts had to be treated while encouraged investment in precisely those assets they are best designed to hold. While there is a new rival in town in the form of the LTAF, we don’t think it is clear this new structure’s advantages outweigh the disadvantages. So while it may divert some of the flows which could head for investment companies, we don’t think it can hold back the wave entirely. It’s always possible these dynamics could lead to the next cycle of expansion for the sector which history tells us should eventually follow, even if it is hard to imagine at the moment. But that is how investor psychology works in all markets!
A commodity switch took place this month.
1st September 2026
by Dave Baxter from interactive investor
Two commodity funds have traded place in our monthly investment trust bestseller list, with CQS Natural Resources G&I Ord CYN
entering while BlackRock World Mining Trust Ord BRWM slips out.
CYN, which holds shares and bonds of companies across the mining and resources sectors, moves into the list in seventh place.
- Our Services: SIPP Account | Stocks & Shares ISA | See all Investment Accounts
The fund has had an eventful year, both via the substantial ups and downs seen in the commodities sector and via a change of investment manager.
The trust’s portfolio managers Keith Watson and Robert Crayfourd left their employer earlier this year and the board has since opted to reinstate them now that they have moved to Tufton Investment Management. The pair will be in post from 14 September.
The fund has quite the range of different exposures, with precious metals accounting for around 39% of the portfolio, and oil and gas almost 30%. It also has exposures to uranium, shipping and base metals among other areas. Performance has been choppy although the trust’s shares have still returned around 27% so far in 2026.
Rising yield
Beyond that, we see the same names in the list, with a combination of high-yielding trusts and more growth-oriented offerings. But it’s a trust from the first camp rising to the top of the list.
which moves into the top spot, is a popular name from a troubled sector. Its shares have recovered aggressively so far in 2026, in part thanks to renewables getting more of the limelight amid the conflict in the Middle East.
And it still stands out on some of the fronts that bargain hunters and income investors value, from a 17% share price discount to net asset value (NAV) to a share price dividend yield of nearly 10%.
One other renewables fund sits in the list, in the form of Renewables Infrastructure Grp TRIG
It yields roughly the same and has produced pretty much the same share price return so far in 2026, but does have a slightly more diversified portfolio. Onshore wind accounts for 47% of the fund, with offshore wind on 32%, solar on 13% and battery storage on 8%.
Sticking with the dividend focus, either two or three equity income funds sit in the list, depending on how one defines them.
There’s Henderson Far East Income Ord HFEL
whose yield currently stands at 9.5%. As the performance table indicates, the fund has benefited handsomely from a rally for its market of choice, although it has tended to lag rival Asian equity income trusts.
HFEL’s manager did speak to us a few weeks ago, making the argument that the portfolio was lagging thanks to a more defensive approach than the competition. That, in theory, might protect it if an artificial intelligence (AI)-led rally in the region were suddenly to go sideways.
August’s bestseller list, which focuses on real-time buys and thus gives a sense of investors’ more tactical and timely choices, also contains the UK income favourite City of London Ord CTY
The fund, which holds UK large-cap shares, has tended to please investors with its now 60-year record of increasing its dividend.
The shares do still offer a yield of 3.8%, even as this has been squeezed by strong returns, although investors might note that the shares trade on a modest premium to NAV.
Another equity income fund in the list, if an unconventional one, is JPMorgan Global Growth & Income Ord JGGI
It has a so-called enhanced dividend policy, where it pays out around 4% of its NAV a year and funds this from capital rather than having to buy stocks with high yields.
The fund has tended to take a flexible approach when it comes to investment style although its top 10 holdings list does include plenty of “growth” stalwarts, from NVIDIA Corp NVDAto Amazon.com Inc AMZN Microsoft Corp MSFT, Alphabet Inc Class A and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd ADR TSM.
Growth plays
Investors are going more obviously out for growth via other names in the list. Take F&C Investment Trust Ord FCIT
which doesn’t deviate too much from its FTSE All-World benchmark index bar an 11.2% allocation to private equity. It has generated very respectable returns, even if it is slightly behind the FTSE All-World so far in 2026.
Investors are meanwhile sticking with some punchier names, too. Scottish Mortgage Ord SMT
which has ridden high this year thanks to its early exposure to Space Exploration Technologies Corp Class A SPCX
but will most likely be looking to reduce its now sizeable allocation to the company, sits in second place. SpaceX accounted for 18.1% of the fund at the end of July, with TSMC on 6.9% and Nvidia on 5.5%. Private companies ByteDance and Anthropic also sit in its top holdings list.
Polar Capital Technology Ord PCT
which has done well versus rivals this year in part thanks to its emerging markets exposure, slips from the top spot to third place. And an especially punchy name, Seraphim Space Investment Trust Ord SSIT slides down to 10th place.
Top 10 most-popular investment trusts in August
| Ranking | Investment trust | Change from July | One-year total return (%) to 31 August | Three-year total return (%) |
| 1 | Greencoat UK Wind UKW0 | Up 3 | 12 | 1.5 |
| 2 | Scottish Mortgage Ord SMT0.0 | Unchanged | 39 | 124.7 |
| 3 | Polar Capital Technology Ord PCT0.4 | Down 2 | 64.8 | 190.3 |
| 4 | Henderson Far East Income Ord HFEL0. | Down 1 | 26.4 | 67.3 |
| 5 | City of London Ord CTY0.5 | Up 1 | 22.2 | 68.8 |
| 6 | Renewables Infrastructure Grp TRIG0. | Up 2 | 10.6 | -7.6 |
| 7 | CQS Natural Resources G&I Ord CYN0.2 | New | 95.4 | 182.6 |
| 8 | F&C Investment Trust Ord FCIT0.2 | Down 3 | 19.8 | 65.9 |
| 9 | JPMorgan Global Growth & Income Ord JGGI0. | Unchanged | 14.4 | 50.3 |
| 10 | Seraphim Space Investment Trust Ord SSIT0.7 | Down 3 | 161.5 | 308.7 |
Source: FE. Top 10 is based on the number of buys in August. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.
The four most-bought funds on Fidelity during August were all global tracker funds, with Lazard Emerging Markets Fund the highest-ranking fund that reflected anything other than a global equity strategy.
Investment trust exposure was more varied, with some of the top picks pointing towards strategic exposure to regions like Japan, asset classes like private equity, or renewable energy.
| Funds | Investment Trusts |
|---|---|
| Fidelity Index World Fund | Schroder Japan Trust (LON:SJG) |
| Legal & General Global Equity Index Fund | City of London Investment Trust (LON:CTY) |
| Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap Index Fund | JPMorgan Global Growth & Income (LON:JGGI) |
| HSBC FTSE All World Index Fund | Personal Assets Trust (LON:PNL) |
| Lazard Emerging Markets Fund | Patria Private Equity Trust (LON:PPET) |
| Fidelity Multi Asset Allocator Growth Fund | Temple Bar Investment Trust (LON:TMPL) |
| Legal & General S&P 500 US Equal Weight Index Fund | Greencoat UK Wind (LON:UKW) |
| UBS S&P 500 Index | JPMorgan European Growth & Income (LON:JEGI) |
| Fidelity Special Situations Fund | BlackRock American Income Trust (LON:BRAI) |
| Artemis SmartGARP Global Equity Fund | TwentyFour Income Fund (LON:TFIF) |
Senior Writer Dan McEvoy
MoneyWeek is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher.
You only have limited funds, so you cannot buy a diversified portfolio.
If you bought CMPI, when markets gyrate you could lose some of your capital but the share and the yield appears to be ‘Safe’.
The portfolio is an income portfolio but tilted more to a growth strategy rather than a high yield portfolio.
If after you buy the price falls and the yield rises you could re-invest the dividends back into CMPI, if not re-invest into a higher yielder where in time you will achieve a balanced yield of plus 7%.
Tariffs, Midterms, Soaring Bond Yields: This 8.8% Dividend Thrives on Chaos
Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: September 1, 2026
It’s September—traditionally the weakest month for stocks—and we contrarians are responding.
We’ve got the (ugh!) midterms coming up. Tariff unpredictability has returned. And scorching long-term bond yields have (so far) resisted Treasury Secretary Bessent’s efforts to rein them in.
Let’s be honest: Things are going to get volatile.
Our plan? Go on offense and defense at the same time.
Of course, income is at the center of our strategy. We’re tapping market choppiness with an 8.8%-paying fund that loves volatility and sports a payout that gets stronger the longer the chaos lasts.
In fact, this fund—the Nuveen S&P 500 Dynamic Overwrite Fund (SPXX)—is already hiking payouts, to the tune of 25% with the July payment.
Source: Income Calendar
SPXX, which we’ll get back to in a second, is our defensive play here, though with the discount it’s sporting (more on that in a sec), I see upside to go along with that high payout.
But our real offensive play begins if, as history suggests, the market throws a fit in the coming weeks. That’ll put some of our favorite dividends on sale, including a pipeline that’s gushing cash (sorry, couldn’t resist!), thanks to AI’s bottomless power demand.
Before we get to that, let’s rewind for a second.
September the Cruelest Month? Not for Contrarians!
Back to September. For whatever reason, stock markets tend to wobble during the month, with a negative 1.1% return on average since 1890, according to numbers from Morningstar.
But of course, there are exceptions: The last two Septembers, for example, were strong, up 3.6% last year and 2.1% in 2024.
This is why we never sell solely on seasonal indicators like this: We don’t want to be caught out in an outlier year! And, of course, we do not want to cut off our dividends.
Which brings me back to SPXX.
Step 1: Grab 8.8% Dividends From This “Volatility-Loving” SPY Clone
You don’t have to spend much time looking at SPXX to see that it holds mostly the same stocks as the popular S&P 500 index fund, the State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY).
That’s by design: Nuveen has set up SPXX—a closed-end fund (CEF), to be specific—so investors can buy in essentially without having to sell the blue chips they already own.
That matters because of three other things that set SPXX apart.
The first is that the fund sells call options; these give the buyer the right to buy SPXX’s stocks at a fixed future price and date. No matter what happens with these trades, the fund keeps the fee it books for setting them up.
This strategy does best in volatile markets, but there is a drawback: It can cap returns when stocks rise (which is why I don’t recommend holding SPXX for the long term). But that’s something we’re willing to trade off right now.
SPXX’s option fees help fuel that 8.8% payout—the second key difference from SPY, which pays a sad 1%.
And here’s the third thing: Unlike ETFs, CEFs can (and often do) trade at different prices in relation to their portfolio value. When the price is below that value, it’s called a discount to net asset value (NAV).
SPXX Sells Cheap, Gets Set for the Next Market Storm
Look at this chart for a moment: You can see that the fund’s discount has narrowed, and even flipped to a premium, every time volatility has flared in recent years, as it did in the 2018 rate panic, the late-2021 pullback, the 2022 dumpster fire and the “tariff tantrum” early last year.
Now, we can see that the discount—a deep 8.8% as I write this—has stopped widening and is starting to narrow again as September dawns. Perfect!
Step 2: Put This Pipeline at the Top of Your Buy List
Which brings me to the second part of our strategy: Get set to buy our favorite dividends on the dip. At the top of our list? Pipelines.
Kinder Morgan (KMI) is one of the largest energy infrastructure companies in North America, with over 80,000 miles of pipelines and 140 terminals.
The company moves 40% of the natural gas produced in the US, and it gets paid no matter the price. That puts it in the “sweet spot” for fueling (literally!) data centers’ bottomless power demand.
It’s showing up in KMI’s financials: In the second quarter, net income hit $867 million, an all-time high for Q2. Adjusted EPS soared 32%. No wonder the company is doubling down on its business: It currently sports a $9.6-billion project backlog, with nearly all of that going to natural-gas infrastructure.
Management, for its part, is hurriedly shoveling these “tolls” over to investors as dividends. That move is likely made easier by the fact that the C-suite owns 13% of the company (with Executive Chairman Richard Kinder owning the bulk of that)—and human nature being what it is.
We’re okay with that, and are more than happy to see management’s interests aligned with ours.
As I write this, the stock yields 3.7%, which is a good start. Then there’s the dividend-growth story, which has gotten a lot happier in recent years.
Kinder, you might recall, was in the “dividend doghouse” for years following a 75% payout cut in 2015. Investors were slow to forgive, but management kept trying, quietly rebuilding the payout. It’s now up 138% from right after the cut.
KMI’s Dividend Reignites
As I write this, the stock trades at 20-times earnings, around its five-year average. That’s a good multiple for a firm with lots of strengths, including that hefty backlog.
The dividend? It’s well covered at 72% of free cash flow. That is above the 50% level I look for in stocks, but a pipeline like KMI is different, as its “tolls” roll in predictably, letting management pass more of them to us.
The bottom line? KMI is attractive now, and a “September dip” would make it more so. That leaves us with a nice setup: Buy some KMI now, and some on the next dip—and “pair” it with our volatility-fueled 8.8% SPXX dividend as you do.
