In these unprecedented times, we must all do our utmost to work together and support the most vulnerable in society and I sincerely hope that you and your families are staying safe.
But, life will return to normal and we all still need to make a living and provide for our financial futures. The markets that we use for our investments have crashed by around 30% and that has turned up some amazing valuations for shares. So, I have a couple of questions for you:
• Can you see the long-term potential of investing in a market like this?
• And, do you want to learn the skills and strategies you need to make the most of the opportunity?
If the answer to these questions is yes, then may I humbly suggest that now would be a great time to consider educating yourself so that you are ready to strike when the time is right.
And just to be clear, I’m not suggesting you charge in right now. The markets remain volatile and further falls are quite possible. But, there is certainly opportunity ahead.
I’d like to tell you about a low-risk dividend boosting strategy that can produce returns in the mid-teens or higher, substantially reduce the risk of outright share ownership, and bring much-needed diversification to a property or debt-oriented investment portfolio.
Although I expect a substantial boost to the stock market once the crisis passes, it may surprise you to know that as long-term investors, I believe we should primarily focus on the income that our investments generate, rather than gambling on a possible increase in the value of any assets that we hold.
Why’s that?
Well, whilst you are still young enough to be working and contributing to your nest egg, you should be buying income-producing assets that can generate regular income streams. This passive income can then be reinvested into more income-producing assets, which in turn will create additional cash-flow that can itself be reinvested. And of course, that allows the wonderful power of compounding to work its magic and the size of the investment pot can grow rapidly over time, even with little movement in the price of the underlying asset.
Then, when you are lucky enough to get to retirement age, you can simply flip the switch and direct those passive income streams straight into your bank account. Any increase in the value of the underlying assets is a nice bonus, but it is not essential to your financial security – the income is.
Dividend Shares
There are several asset classes that can produce passive income and you may already be invested in some of them. But, have you considered FTSE 100 dividend producing shares?
I have been investing in – and advising on – income-producing assets for many years now and whilst I would always advocate a portfolio of diversified asset classes, blue-chip dividend producing shares are top of my list.
I’m talking about buying shares – and therefore becoming a part-owner – in such well-known companies as Aviva, BAE Systems, Barratt, GlaxoSmithKline, HSBC, Morrisons, and National Grid.
After the recent falls, these — and many other blue-chip shares — have eye-watering high dividend yields.
And, as long as the dividend is secure, a well-constructed portfolio can look forward to that payment increasing – and hopefully beating inflation – year after year. Now, that’s a great feature for anyone seeking an income from their investments.
As we have seen, the actual value of shares can go down – as well as up – so you need to be comfortable with volatility. As long-term income-focused investors we can live through the hard times knowing that historically markets have always recovered. After all, it’s the income stream we are interested in and that remains largely unaffected by the market’s current valuation of your portfolio.
If the shares do go down in price, then it’s often a great opportunity to pick up additional cheaper shares and ‘lock-in’ a higher dividend yield. And, if they do rally upwards, then you always have the opportunity to sell out and bag an additional profit. That’s the situation I believe we will be in shortly.
Of course, like all investments, there is some risk. It is quite possible that some companies will be forced to cut their dividends in the short term. But ask yourself, do you really think any of the companies I’ve listed above are likely to be going bust anytime soon? No, neither do I. And that’s the key to investing in shares.
Don’t try and find the next Tesla or Beyond Meat, that’s way too stressful. Instead, do your research to make sure there are no obvious elephant traps and then buy into the biggest most boring blue chips you can find. Expect some volatility but remember it’s the income we are interested in and you’ll sleep like a baby.
And here is the great thing. Our home stock market – the FTSE 100 – was already amongst the cheapest in the developed world. At the end of February, it was trading on a multiple of 14.4x earnings which makes it cheap compared to the developed world average of 23.1x and a positive bargain compared to the United States which was trading at 27.9x earnings. So, even without the crash, now could well be a great time to pick up a portfolio of great dividend producing UK stocks.
How to double or even treble your dividend yield
Hopefully, I’ve managed to pique your interest in adding some dividend-yielding stocks to your investments. There are plenty of stocks in the FTSE 100 that are now trading 30% or 40% lower than they were a month ago and that means that they are sporting unheard of dividend yields. You need to check that the dividend is secure, but it is relatively straightforward to build a diversified portfolio using an online broker.
But, what if I told you that there was a technique that you could use to boost that yield way up into the mid-teens or even higher? In other words, what if there was a strategy that you could use to double or even treble the dividend yield? I think you’d be interested.
And then, if I told you that adding this technique could take up as little as a day a month and that it reduced the risk of holding these already low-risk stocks even further? I think you would be very interested.
Well, such a strategy does exist. I have been using it for a decade or so to boost the returns on my own investments as well as advising thousands of subscribers – via regulated newsletters – about specific opportunities.
Nowadays, I teach small groups of regular folks exactly how to implement the techniques so that they are fully equipped to repeatedly pull cash out of the markets with little regard for the performance of the underlying shares.
The strategy is well known to the financial elite, investment banks, and hedge funds. And, if you were living in the US, as a private investor you would no doubt be familiar with the approach.
Indeed, it is considered conservative enough to be allowed in a 401K – the US equivalent of a personal pension. But, it has largely flown under the radar for retail investors here in the UK. I think that’s a real shame as the approach is perfect for those that want to take back control of their own financial futures.
How does it work?
First of all, we identify a good quality dividend-yielding stock that we’d be happy to own long-term for the income it produces. But, instead of buying it at its current price, we implement an approach that gives us the opportunity to pick the shares up for cheaper than they are currently trading at. A ‘buy low’ strategy if you like.
And as well as giving us the opportunity to buy the shares ‘on the cheap’, the approach has one other great advantage: We instantly get paid for implementing it. That’s right, we are paid a premium for initiating a ‘buy low’ strategy on a stock that we want to own.
How much? Well, that varies, but it is quite possible to be paid around 1%, or higher, of the shares price every month. To be honest, at the moment it is substantially higher, but we are living through unusual times.
Now, it’s not definite that we will actually end up buying the shares and that’s absolutely fine. We simply keep the premium and initiate the strategy all over again. But, it’s likely that after a few attempts we will pick up the shares at the lower price we have specified. Again, the original premium is ours to keep but we now also own the shares we originally wanted and can start to collect dividends on them as additional income.
It’s at this stage that we implement the second part of the technique. It’s a similar strategy to the ‘buy low’ approach but we now utilise a ‘sell high’ approach that gives us the opportunity to sell our shares at a price of our choosing. And again, we get paid a similar premium for initiating this investment.
If the shares do not rise to the level we have selected within a specified time frame, then that is no problem, we simply keep the premium and try again. And, if the price does move upwards sufficiently, we are obligated to sell them at our chosen price whilst still retaining the premium. Happy days.
It does take a little time and effort to learn this approach, but with a good tutor, any financially literate person can soon master the techniques and be merrily running their own stock-powered income machine with just a few hours of input a week.
How much can you make?
I appreciate that I have rather skimmed over the mechanics of the approach and that is purely to keep things simple. There is nothing opaque, sneaky, or underhand in any way about this approach and at FIRE Revolution we teach small groups of investors exactly how to implement it using online learning and weekly video conference calls.
Over a 13-week programme we teach investment novices the exact real-world techniques they need to understand to implement the strategy and become masters of their own investments. We then follow up with a further three months of personal support and weekly meetups to ensure that our clients have everything they need to be successful.
But the obvious question is: How much can you make?
As with all investments, it is important to understand that risk and reward go hand in hand. So, as a general rule, the more risk you take, the more reward you can potentially receive. The FIRE Revolution strategy is firmly at the low-risk end of the equity spectrum and that’s what makes it such a good fit for long-term income focused investors.
Having said that, it is still possible to make returns in the mid-teens, or even higher. That’s approximately 2x or 3x the average forecast dividend yield of 6.8% for the FTSE 100.
The other point to make is that we group our investments for a given share together so that the transactions are collated to give an overall profit (or loss) for each campaign.
Since the summer of 2018, we have been running a model portfolio based on actual investments we made using these techniques. Of the thirteen campaigns that have completed, we have a 100% success rate with an average annualised profit of 14.4%.
In addition, we have twelve campaigns that are still open. After the recent falls, in most of these the underlying shares are showing an unrealised loss. But, in every case, we are still able to generate substantial income using the strategy and it is likely – given sufficient time – that we will eventually close them all for a profit.
Want to know more?
If I’ve managed to whet your appetite for this style of income investing and you want to know more, then please jump on the website where you can learn all about the strategy and the group coaching, schedule a webinar, download a free report, check out our track record, or book a chat with me to discuss it further.
I truly believe that this style of risk-controlled income investing utilising big boring blue-chip shares and overlaying the FIRE Revolution ‘buy low, sell high’ strategy is an ideal fit for any long-term income focused investor. And once the dust settles after the recent market turmoil, we could be looking at a once in a decade investment opportunity.
If you agree, then I’d love to have a chat. You can find all the details on the website.
