LIVING OFF DIVIDENDS & PASSIVE INCOME

In my last post, I hinted at using QE2 to your advantage by investing in companies that benefit from a steepening yield curve. But I didn’t have time to get in to specifics. Which is what I’ll do right now, seeing that I have a couple of hours to spare at the Fort Lauderdale airport.

The Federal Reserve let the market know that it plans to keep short term interest rates at extremely low rates for the next few quarters (if not longer). Companies that can borrow short term, can do so at very low rates. So long as you have AA-rated collateral, you can borrow money at about 0.30% on a 30 day basis. If you plan to borrow for a longer term, you just need to keep “rolling” your loan every 30 days or so.  Read more... (645 words, 8 images, estimated 2:35 mins reading time)

A UK-based chocolate manufacturer, Hotel Chocolat, has come up with a novel way to raise capital for expansion. Instead of borrowing money from banks or issuing regular corporate debt, it has decided to raise about $7.5 million USD by issuing “chocolate bonds“. Instead of a regular dividend payment (well technically it’s a coupon payment and not a dividend), these bonds will pay dividends in chocolates!

In order to be eligible, you need to be a member of their “Tasting Club”, which already has 100,000 members. For an investment of $2,890 USD or $5,760 USD, you can get a juicy annual dividend of 6.72% or 7.29% delivered to your doorstep every other month.

If you’ve ever been to high-end confectionery, you’ll know they charge a couple of dollars for each piece of candy.  So spending a few thousand quid might not be such a bad investment. Especially since bank yields aren’t very impressive right now. At least it guarantees you won’t have to spring for chocolate for three years, even if the rest of your portfolio tanks!  Read more... (235 words, 9 images, estimated 56 secs reading time)

One of my favorite investors, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, founder of Empirica investment management funds and author of Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets, was recently quoted on Bloomberg advising every single human being to short the US Treasury bonds. While this news is about a week old, I thought I’d still comment on it given the fact that it’s a pretty strong statement and that I recently exited a similar paired-trade.

Taleb said investors should bet on a rise in long-term U.S. Treasury yields, which move inversely to prices, as long as Bernanke and White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers are in office, without being more specific. Nouriel Roubini, the New York University professor who predicted the credit crisis, also said at the conference that the U.S. dollar will weaken against Asian and “commodity” currencies such as the Brazilian real over the next two or three years.  Read more... (555 words, 9 images, estimated 2:13 mins reading time)

Almost exactly a year ago, I mentioned a paired-trade investment between the long-term Bond ETF (TLT) and short-term corporate/sovereign bond ETF (AWF).  I went long AWF and shorted an equal dollar amount of TLT. Last week, I closed the position after holding it for just over a year.

When I entered the trade, AWF was trading for $8.29 and had a yield of 13.4%, while my short position in TLT was trading at $112.10 and had a yield of 3.5%.  When I close out my position a year later, AWF had a price of $13.10 and a yield of 8.6%, while TLT was going for $91.65 and yielding 3.9%.

I made about 63% on the long AWF position and 18% on the short TLT position. Coupled with the 9.9% net dividend yield, that trade made me ~91%. Not a bad return for a year and 4 days.  Bond yields don’t usually move 500 basis points in a year. No point being greedy. Time to bank some profit!  Read more... (238 words, 9 images, estimated 57 secs reading time)