Category: Uncategorized (Page 45 of 342)
Sorry boys and girls, not naval gazing.
I was on two flat whites a day – which was setting me back as much as £8 – that’s £250 a month. It was only when my sister did the maths for me that I decided to call it quits and turn to instant full-time. A 90g refill pack of Nescafé Gold costs me just £3 and lasts three weeks if we’re sticking to my two-a-day habit. That’s just £51 on coffee a year, versus the £3,000 I could spend in cafés. In numbers terms, it’s a no-brainer then: my instant coffee habit saves me the equivalent of two months’ rent or a couple of weeks in Bali every year.
According to Deloitte’s study, 55 per cent of UK instant drinkers blame price hikes for ditching coffee shops – and with prices for a cup now hitting the £5 or even £6.50 mark in some parts of the country, it’s no surprise.
And instant has come a long way – banish all thoughts of cheap, burnt-tasting rubbish. Ocado, which sells more than 100 brands of instant coffee, says searches for instant are up 14 per cent, with a boom in luxury brands aiming to give the espresso machines and Aeropresses a run for their money.
TwentyFour Select Monthly Income Fund Limited
TwentyFour Select Monthly Income Fund Limited announces target beating Full Year dividend
TwentyFour Select Monthly Income Fund Limited (“SMIF” or “the Company”), the listed, closed-ended investment company that invests in a diversified portfolio of credit securities, has today announced a final dividend for the year ended 30 September 2025 of 1.302076pence per Ordinary Share, taking the total for the year to 7.302076pence per Ordinary Share, payable as follows:
Ex Dividend Date 16 October 2025
Record Date 17 October 2025
Payment Date 31 October 2025
Dividend per Share 1.302076 pence per Ordinary Share (Sterling)
Commenting on the Company’s dividend performance, Ashley Paxton, Chair of SMIF, said: “The Directors are delighted to announce a final balancing dividend of 1.302076 penceper Ordinary Share, taking the total dividends proposed for the year to 30 September 2025 to 7.302076 penceper Ordinary Share.
“The Company has beaten its target dividend every year since launch eleven years ago. It is also the third consecutive year where proposed dividends have exceeded 7.3 pence per share. This is reflective of ongoing attractive yields generally available in the market, and is testament to the expertise and active management of TwentyFour Asset Management LLP (`TwentyFour’).
“As well as its strong performance, the Company continues to trade at a premium and has grown significantly over the course of the year. Due to the availability of accretive assets for purchase, and because of shareholder demand, the Company was able to issue over 54 million new Ordinary Shares during the year, at a premium of 2% (prior to issue costs) to the NAV at issue date.
George Curtis, Portfolio Manager, TwentyFour, said: “SMIF’s portfolio is well-positioned to navigate continued market uncertainty and to take advantage of the spread tightening and attractive yields on offer. We continue to be overweight financials and Asset-Backed Securities in Europe and the UK with a bias towards shorter-term maturities, affording us flexibility in the portfolio.
“With the new issue market being very active again after the usual summer slow down, there are ample investment opportunities to take advantage of.”
FTSE 100 vs S&P 500: which offers me better value right now?
Jon Smith puts on his thinking cap when deciding whether it’s better to allocate funds to the UK or the US via the S&P 500.
Published 8 October
When investing, your capital is at risk. The value of your investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you put in.
Both the main FTSE index and the S&P 500 have hit fresh record highs within the past few weeks. This presents UK investors with an interesting dilemma. With new cash to put to work, does it make more sense to stick to the UK stock market, or is it worth buying AI high-flyers listed across the pond? Here’s where my head is at right now.
The case for the FTSE 100
The most obvious reason to root for the FTSE 100 is on the basis of the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio. It’s currently at 17.7, versus 31.3 for the US stock market. Therefore, even though both indexes are near record levels, I’d argue the FTSE 100 could rally further. This is because the ratio is less stretched than in the US. Not only that, but there’s a large difference in the average P/E ratios.
Another factor is the dividend yield. The average yield of the FTSE 100 is over double the S&P 500. So let’s say that we do get a correction in global stocks before the end of the year. If an investor has a good portion of UK holdings, the income payments from dividends can help to cushion any potential unrealised losses from the share price movements. This might not seem like a big deal, but it can certainly be a helpful element when thinking about where the real value is.
Don’t forget the S&P 500
Despite the value appeal of the FTSE 100, there are reasons to like the US. The S&P 500 offers exposure to the global leaders in AI, tech, and healthcare, areas that have generated sustained compounding returns in recent years. Investors simply can’t replicate this in the UK.
The US economy has proven far more resilient than the UK’s, with lower recession risk and higher productivity growth. That’s another appeal to diversify a portfolio away from the UK.
Overall, I think the UK is better value right now, but investors can look to build a portfolio with some exposure to both, getting almost the best of both worlds.
This way, that way or both ?
£10k in savings? Don’t let it gather dust — target a £4k annual second income
Our writer outlines a few simple methods of securing a second income by investing in dividend shares with just £10,000 in savings to start with.
Posted by
Mark Hartley
Published 9 October
When investing, your capital is at risk. The value of your investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you put in.
If an investor has £10k of idle savings and wants to put that money to work, dividend shares are one way to aim for a second income. The idea is that certain companies pay a slice of profits to shareholders each year and, over time, they can deliver a steady flow of cash.
Of course, not all companies are equal, so the right shares must be chosen and the risks weighed. When I hunt for dividend shares, I take time to consider the type of products or services that the company offers and whether they will still be relevant in 10 years time.
Beyond that, it’s important to assess the short-term viability of a company’s balance sheet, debt situation and cash flow.
Let’s take a look at what £10k invested in dividends could potential achieve.
How lucrative can it be?
Suppose £10,000’s invested for 20 years and the total return (price appreciation plus dividends reinvested) averages 8% a year. Over that time period, the pot would reach a point that an 8% dividend yield would equate to an annual income worth nearly £4,000.
Sure, it’s not house-buying money — but it’s a decent chunk of spare cash each year for holidays or retirement savings. Keeping in mind though, that dividends are never guaranteed and share prices can fall, so the total return could vary.
That’s why diversification matters — spreading money over several stocks rather than putting it all in one.
Aiming high — is an 8% return realistic?
An 8% average return’s ambitious but not beyond reach. Many dividend stocks yield 6% or 7%. With moderate growth added, total return might land in the 8%-9% zone.
One firm an investor might check out is Rio Tinto (LSE: RIO), the FTSE 100 mining heavyweight. Historically, it has offered yields of around 6% to 7% in good periods, though it recently trimmed its interim dividend so now its current yield’s closer to 5.7%
Over the past decade, the mining giant’s total return has been roughly 227% — that’s about 12.9% annualised. Yet that figure hides the bumps: mining is cyclical, and Rio’s earnings swing with commodity prices. As mentioned, weak iron-ore prices and rising tariffs hit profits and prompted a dividend cut.
Other risks include the heavily regulated mining industry, past reputational controversies, and currency fluctuations. Since most of its operations are global, exchange rates can erode dividend value in GBP terms.
Weighing risk vs return
While a stock like Rio offers an intriguing mix of yield and growth, investors must weigh up risks and spread exposure. Putting £10k into dividend shares isn’t a magic trick. But it can form a credible route toward a regular second income. When compounded over decades with shares offering both yield and growth, an 8% return’s within the realm of possibility.
Still, dividends are never certain, and sectors like mining carry extra volatility. An investor should always think about balance, diversify across companies and industries, and monitor the financial and regulatory environment.
This approach offers a pathway — not a promise — to turning spare savings into a meaningful second income.
£1,000 buys 1,259 shares in this dividend stock with a 7.75% yield
When stocks have high dividend yields, it’s worth trying to figure out why. So what’s worrying investors about Supermarket Income REIT?
Posted by
Stephen Wright
Motley Fool
When investing, your capital is at risk. The value of your investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you put in.
The content of this article is provided for information purposes only and is not intended to be, nor does it constitute, any form of personal advice. Investments in a currency other than sterling are exposed to currency exchange risk. Currency exchange rates are constantly changing, which may affect the value of the investment in sterling terms. You could lose money in sterling even if the stock price rises in the currency of origin. Stocks listed on overseas exchanges may be subject to additional dealing and exchange rate charges, and may have other tax implications, and may not provide the same, or any, regulatory protection as in the UK.
Supermarket Income REIT (LSE:SUPR) has a 7.75% dividend yield. That means a £1,000 investment is set to return £77 in cash in the next 12 months.
A high dividend yield and a share price below £1 make the stock look cheap and there’s a lot to like about the business. But can passive income investors do better?
Should you buy Supermarket Income REIT plc shares today?
Please note that tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in future. The content in this article is provided for information purposes only. It is not intended to be, neither does it constitute, any form of tax advice.
First impressions
A high dividend yield can mean investors are concerned about something. But at first sight, it’s not easy to see what that might be in the case of Supermarket Income REIT.
The firm has a fully occupied portfolio of 73 properties with all the major supermarkets as tenants. This has led to reliable rent collection in recent years.
With the average lease having over 10 years to expiry, it’s likely to stay that way for some time. And for investors worried about inflation, uplifts are built into most of its contracts.
There’s always uncertainty, but a 7.75% return from a durable source of passive income looks like a nice opportunity. But a closer examination reveals what investors might be concerned about.
Debt
Those long leases definitely help remove a lot of uncertainty, but there’s also a downside to them. It means Supermarket Income REIT has limited scope to increase rents above inflation.
By contrast, the firm’s loans have an average time to maturity of less than four years and it’s likely to have to refinance its debts when they come due. There’s a real risk this could involve higher interest payments. But with tenancies still having years to run, Supermarket Income REIT might not be able to increase rents to offset this.
With the company’s profits currently below its dividend, higher costs aren’t something the firm needs. And this might be a serious concern over the viability of the dividend.
Growth
Another potential issue is growth. That can be a real challenge for REITs that are required to distribute 90% of their taxable income to shareholders.
That means the firm has to use debt to expand its portfolio. And with initial yields just over 7% compared to a cost of debt that’s just above 5% makes margins relatively tight.
But the company has been working to bring down its costs through a series of organisational changes. And this could also provide a valuable boost to profits.
Risks and rewards
With Supermarket Income REIT, loans that mature before leases expire are a potential risk. And the firm’s cost of debt isn’t far below the rental yields it has been achieving recently.
There is, however, something that could change this quite dramatically. Falling interest rates could boost the value of the company’s portfolio while lowering its debt costs.
That’s been the direction the Bank of England has been heading in recently and I think it could well continue. So a fully-occupied portfolio with reliable tenants means an investor with a spare £1,000 might consider 1,259 shares in Supermarket Income REIT.
You had LWDB in your watch list but wanted a higher yield than 2%.
The covid crash gave you the opportunity, you had no way of knowing where the bottom of the market would be but when the price fell to 400p the dividend was 26p a yield of 6.5%, having already done your research you buy.
The dividend has risen to 33.5p, a yield on the buying price of 8.25%
You plan was to simply re-invest the dividends back into the share.
The current yield is 3.15% so you could take out all your profit and leave your seed capital and re-invest part in a higher yielder and part in a safer fund so you had funds for the next market downturn, whenever that occurs.
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AI Economy’s Quiet Winners Yield Up to 11.7%
Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: October 8, 2025
The manic market just dumped business development companies (BDCs), again. These three dividend stocks paying up to 11.7% are poised to bounce back when sanity returns.
BDCs, which lend money to small businesses, are on the “outs” with the Wall Street suits after multiple soft jobs reports. The spreadsheet jockeys fret about an unemployment-induced economic slowdown and miss the real story: small businesses are making more money than ever thanks to AI.
Here is what’s actually happening in the Main Street economy:
- Employers—especially nimble small business owners—are implementing AI to streamline and even run their operations.
- With AI tools, fewer humans are needed.
- So, we are seeing soft jobs reports as companies rationally prioritize automation over human hiring.
Small business profits are popping. While the unemployment numbers scream slowdown, the actual economy is booming. Check out the Atlanta Fed’s most recent GDPNow estimate—it’s up almost 4%!
Atlanta Fed Says Economy is Cookin’
We’ve been on this beat for months here at Contrarian Outlook. Automation is not slowing the economy. It is making it leaner and wildly profitable. While payrolls cool, output keeps rising. That’s no recession—it’s an efficiency boom!
This is music to BDCs’ ears. These lenders profit when Main Street’s cash flow swells.
So, we thank knee-jerk sellers for giving us a deal on FS Credit Opportunities (FSCO), which yields 11.7% today. FSCO has been around for 10+ years but only traded publicly as a closed-end fund for the last two. CEF investors loathe newness, so FSCO fetched a discount to net asset value (NAV) until recently.
Portfolio manager Andrew Beckman and his team are skilled at “layering” credit—structuring loans with different levels of protection—so that FSCO is positioned to get paid back first even if credit conditions worsen. It’s an ideal fund to own if you were worried about the economy. This cash cow keeps collecting through slowdowns.
FSCO extends high-quality loans that are not subject to the daily whims of the public markets. These are private credit vehicles held by sophisticated investors who don’t care about recent job reports—they want their yield!
As do we income investors.
The vanilla dividend chasers finally found their way to FSCO this summer, sending it to a record 3% premium to NAV. But these weak hands fled when FSCO paid its monthly dividend (uh, the price drops because you just got paid, people!) and weak employment numbers weighed on the BDC sector.
The result? FSCO slipped from a 3% premium to a nifty 9% discount last week. Investors panicked but the strength of FSCO’s loans didn’t change:
FSCO Shares Went on Sale
FSCO continues to post strong credit metrics and cover its payout comfortably. Its high loan yields led Beckman and his management team to raise the monthly dividend multiple times this year:
FSCO Pays Monthly, Raises Often
FSCO looks good here, and it’s not alone. Ares Capital (ARCC), the largest BDC in America with $22 billion in assets, is killing it.
Ares is the big bully on the block—it sees the best deals before anyone else. And it shows. Non-accruals—loans that aren’t paying—remain a mere 2% of the portfolio, a hefty 20% below the industry average of 2.5%. No wonder ARCC’s net investment income (NII) has consistently covered its quarterly dividend, now $0.48 per share, with a small surplus each quarter!
And this bully loves economic turbulence. It thrived in 2020, growing book value through the Covid panic while smaller rivals stopped lending. And we have evidence that the punier BDCs are retrenching again, leaning into existing borrowers rather than pursuing new loans.
When the smaller fish throttle back, the bully turns up the volume. ARCC yields 9.5%, a payout supported by current income. That’s a rare combo of yield and quality in this market. We’ll keep collecting the digital checks.
Last but not least, Main Street Capital (MAIN), is the steadiest grower in BDCLand. Not only has it paid monthly since 2008—hasn’t missed a beat—but it also adds quarterly “specials,” rewarding shareholders when portfolio income exceeds expectations.
MAIN invests in small, privately held businesses—between $25 million and $500 million in annual revenue—and takes both debt and equity stakes. This dual role lets it profit as a lender and as a partial owner when its companies thrive.
In the main, MAIN’s portfolio remains broad and balanced—about 190 companies across diverse industries, with no single position over 4%. That diversity keeps MAIN steady through economic cycles.
Since 2009, total annual dividends have jumped from $1.50 to more than $4 per share, a 170%+ climb that few serious dividend payers can match. The current yield sits around 6.8% today:
MAIN Regularly Raises Its Monthly Dividend
MAIN currently pays a generous 6.8%, with the majority delivered through dependable monthly payments. Check out this pretty payout picture:
MAIN pays monthly while ARCC “only” dishes its dividend quarterly.
