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3 “Strong Buy” Dividend Stocks Yielding at Least 7%

3 “Strong Buy” Dividend Stocks Yielding at Least 7%

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Volatility is the name of the game right now. Last week, markets had their worst close since March, despite a Friday rally. The S&P 500 lost 6% on Thursday, the index’s worst trading day in three months, and finished the week down 4.8%.

Worries about a new spike in coronavirus cases, along with racially charged urban rioting, have put investors in a selling mood. But remember the old cliché, that the Chinese word for crisis is composed of the symbols for ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity?’ The market’s gyrations these last few trading sessions have given income-minded investors an opportunity, if they are willing to shoulder some risk.

The question for investors, of course, is where will the market head next? Are the gains returning, or is this just the next hill of the roller coaster? Uncertainty is the only certainty, making defensive moves, toward dividend stocks, a smart play for investors.

Using the TipRanks database, we’ve pulled up three Strong Buy stocks that show a combination of dividend yields from 7% to 11% and considerable upside potential. While buying into stocks during a downturn is inherently risky, the upside on these three – and their high-yielding dividends – makes the risk worthwhile.

Brookfield Property Partners (BPY)

We’ll start in the real estate business, where Brookfield holds one of the world’s largest portfolios in office, retail, multifamily dwellings, industrial parks, hospitality, student housing – there is hardly  a sector that Brookfield does not have a finger in. The company owns high-end office space in New York and Los Angeles, as well as London, Sydney, and Toronto. The student housing portfolio includes 5,700 beds in the UK university system. The retail segment includes Saks Fifth Avenue in downtown Manhattan.

So, Brookfield is not an ordinary real estate company. Its highly diversified portfolio provided some insulation from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the company reported $309 million in total Funds From Operations (FFO) in Q1 – in line with the year-ago results. General depreciation in the real estate market pushed the net income into negative territory, and BPY showed a loss of 49 cents per share for the quarter.

At the same time, Brookfield has maintained its dividend payment. Even facing a severe net loss, management remains committed, for the time being, to its shareholder return policy. The current dividend, at 33.25 cents per share quarterly, gives an annualized payment of $1.33 and an impressive yield of 11.9%. Compare this to the 2.2% average yield among financial sector peer companies, or the 2% average yield found on the S&P 500, and the attraction is clear.

CIBC analyst Dean Wilkinson acknowledges Brookfield’s tough business landscape during the pandemic – but points out that “April rent collections in the office and multifamily portfolios averaged above 90%. While retail collections were about 20%, it is important to note that lease obligations are contractual agreements; retailers cannot simply walk away from rental payments, and we expect that a material portion of the 80% of uncollected rent to date will, in time, be honoured through payment plans that are currently in negotiation.”

Wilkinson's $18 price target on BPY stock implies a one-year upside potential of 62%, and fully supports his Buy rating on the stock. (To watch Wilkinson’s track record, click here)

Overall, Wall Street appears to agree with Wilkinson here. BPY shares have 5 recent analyst reviews, and of those 4 are Buy and only 1 a Hold – making the analyst consensus view a Strong Buy. Shares are priced at $11.13, and the average price target of $15.05 suggests the stock has room for 35% upside growth in the coming year. (See Brookfield stock analysis on TipRanks)

Brigham Minerals (MNRL)

The next stock on our list, Brigham Minerals, is mineral rights acquisition company focused on the oil and gas sector in the US. Brigham’s portfolio includes large acreage in the Bakken Shale of North Dakota, as well as the Delaware and Midland basins of Texas. These are the formations that put North American hydrocarbons on the map in the last decade, and their output has transformed the US into a major energy exporter.

MNRL saw earnings dip in Q1, mainly due to the coronavirus-inspired shutdowns, but EPS remained positive at 14 cents per share. Quarterly production rose by 8% sequentially, to 10,400 barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) per day. The company saw royalty revenue of $28.4 million, with nearly two-thirds of that total coming from Permian holdings.

Brigham has been adjusting its dividend over the past year, with the current quarterly payment set at 37 cents per share. This annualizes to $1.48, and gives the stock a dividend yield of 11.5%. Peer companies in the energy sector average a yield of just 1.9%, while Treasury bonds, the traditional ‘safe’ investment, are yielding below 1% up to 10-year terms. MNRL’s return simply blows away the alternatives.

SunTrust analyst Welles Fitzpatrick sees MNRL as a clear choice for investors. He writes, “MNRL turned in a 1Q beat on higher than expected lease bonuses, and in contrast to the rest of the industry paid out all its discretionary cashflow. The company's timely offering in 4Q allows the unlevered balance sheet to shine. While MNRL will see declines in rigs and production this year the company should be able to maintain a high percent of CF distributed.”

Fitzpatrick’s Buy rating on the stock is supported by his $16 price target, suggesting a solid 24% upside potential. (To watch Fitzpatrick’s track record, click here.)

The analyst consensus here, at Strong Buy rating, is based on 6 Buy and 2 Hold reviews set in recent weeks. MNRL shares are trading for $12.85; the average price target, at $14.57, indicates a 20% upside for the stock. (See Brigham Minerals stock analysis on TipRanks)

Umpqua Holdings (UMPQ)

Last on our list for today is Umpqua, a holding company based in Portland, Oregon. Umpqua’s main subsidiary is Oregon’s Umpqua Bank. The bank provides asset management, mortgage banking, and general financial services in commercial and retail banking for corporate, institutional, and individual customers. The bank has locations across Oregon, as well as Washington State, Idaho, Nevada, and California.

The first quarter – the coronavirus quarter – was hard on Umpqua. The company reported a net loss of $28.3 million, or 13 cents per share. Management laid the loss – the company’s worst report after a two-year run of profitable quarters – squarely on the COVID-19 pandemic and crisis. The company has been able to switch many non-customer-facing employees to remote work, while keeping over 95% bank branches open. Looking ahead, UMPQ is expected to show a 17-cent EPS profit in Q2.

Through the coronavirus crisis, UMPQ has kept up its dividend. The company has a 7-year history of reliable dividend growth, and announced its most recent dividend payment back in March. They payment, made in April, was 21 cents per share. At 84 cents annualized, this gives UMPQ shares a dividend yield of 7.15%. This is more than 3.5x the average found among S&P listed companies, and also significantly higher than most peer companies’ payments.

Reviewing the stock for SunTrust Robinson was analyst Michael Young. He backed his Buy rating on the stock with a $13 price target, showing confidence in a 11% upside potential. (To watch Young’s track record, click here)

Backing his stance, Young looked closely at the bank’s loan portfolio, writing, “Very granular portfolio, average loan size is under $1 million. The loan portfolio consists of very low leverage clients relative to competitors according to management... We do note that UMPQ has a larger multifamily loan concentration, but this is also likely one of the best performing CRE asset classes through a recession.”

Overall, Wall Street analysts are thoroughly impressed with UMPQ. It boasts 100% Street support, or 3 Buy ratings in the last three months, making the consensus a Strong Buy. Meanwhile, the $13.67 average price target implies that shares could surge nearly 22% in the next twelve months. (See Umpqua stock-price forecast on TipRanks)

To find good ideas for dividend stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights.

The post 3 “Strong Buy” Dividend Stocks Yielding at Least 7% appeared first on TipRanks Financial Blog.

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Who Can You Trust?

Who Can You Trust?

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

“I’m sick and tired of hearing Democrats whining about Joe Biden’s…

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Who Can You Trust?

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

“I’m sick and tired of hearing Democrats whining about Joe Biden’s age. The man knows how to govern. Just shut up and vote to save Democracy.”

- Rob Reiner, Hollywood savant

Perhaps you’re aware that the World Health Organization (WHO) is cooking up a plan to impose its will over all the sovereign nations on this planet in the event of future pandemics.

That means, for instance, that the WHO would issue orders to the USA about lockdowns, vaccines, and vaccine passports and we US citizens supposedly would be compelled to follow them.

Why the “Joe Biden” regime would go along with this globalist fuckery is one of the abiding mysteries of our time - except that they go along with everything else that the cabal of Geneva cooks up, such as attacks on farmers, and on oil production, and on relations between men and women, and on personal privacy, and on economic liberty throughout Western Civ, as if they’re working overtime to kill it off. And all of us with it.

I think they are working overtime at that because the sore-beset citizens of Western Civ are onto their game, and getting restless about it. So, the Geneva cabal is in a race against time before the center pole of their circus tent collapses and the nations of the world are compelled to follow the zeitgeist in the direction of de-centralizing, foiling all their grand plans.

The “Joe Biden” regime is pretending to ignore the reality that this WHO deal is actually a treaty that would require ratification by a two-thirds vote in the senate, an unlikely outcome. In any case, handing over authority to the WHO — in effect, to its chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus — to push around American citizens like a giant herd of cattle would be patently unlawful.

That center pole of the circus tent is the wobbling global economy. It’s barely holding up the canvas over the three rings of the circus. In the center ring, the death-defying spectacle of the Biden Family crime case is playing out before a huge audience (us). This week, a gun went off at the FBI and smoke is curling out of the barrel. FBI Director Christopher Wray was forced to verify that he’s been sitting on an incriminating document for three years from a “trusted” confidential human source, i.e., an informant, stating that the Biden Family received a $5-million bribe from a foreign entity when “JB” was vice-president.

That’s only one bribe of many others, of course, as documented in the Hunter Biden laptop, and it must be obvious it represents treasonous behavior that will demand resignation or impeachment. As this spools out in the weeks and months ahead, do you think Americans will be in the mood to accept further insults such as “Joe Biden” surrendering our national sovereignty to the WHO?

Anyway, you must ask yourself: why on earth should I trust the WHO about anything? Did they not participate in laying a trip on the world with Covid-19? How did those lockdowns work out? Do you think they destroyed enough businesses and ruined enough households? How’s the vaccination program doing? Effective? Safe? Yeah, maybe not so much. Maybe killing a lot of people, wrecking immune systems, sterilizing reproductive organs, causing gross disabilities, shattering lives.

Of course, in over three years neither the WHO nor the US medical authorities showed the slightest interest in helping to figure out how the Covid-19 virus was made in a lab, and exactly how it got loose in the world. Lately, Dr. Ghebreyesus has warned the world about much worse future pandemics supposedly coming down at us. Oh? Really? What does he know that we don’t? That possibly new efforts to concoct chimeric diseases are ongoing in labs around the world? (You know that dozens of such labs were discovered in Ukraine as the war got underway there in 2022.) What’s Dr. Ghebreyesus doing to stop that?

If US orgs and citizens are involved in this “research,” why doesn’t the WHO alert our government leaders so they can stop it? (Would they? I’m not so sure.) And, who is behind it this time? The Eco-Health Alliance again, like with Covid-19? By the way, that outfit got another whopping grant last fall from the NIH to “study” bat viruses — right after the NIH terminated a previous grant on account of The Eco-Health Alliance failing to turn over notebooks and other records.

No, you cannot trust the WHO about anything. The “trust horizon” (a concept introduced by the great Nicole Foss, late of The Automatic Earth dot com) is shrinking. You can no longer trust any distant authorities. You also cannot trust the US federal government (especially the executive branch behind “Joe Biden”). And notice: the trust horizon is shrinking just as the world is de-centralizing. This, you see, is the main contradiction behind all the Globalists’ twisted ambitions to control everything, including you. They are working against the current tide of human history which is pushing everything toward down-scaling, re-localization, and re-assertion of the sovereign individual person.

That trend will become increasingly evident as things organized at the giant scale start to implode — giant retail chains, medical behemoths, hedge funds, big banks, you name it. The world no longer has the mojo for globalism. There’s reason to wonder these days whether the USA has the mojo to remain a unified national polity of states. Our federal government is not only financially bankrupt beyond any coherent reckoning, it is also morally bankrupt, and it has decided to make war against its own people. None of this is satisfactory and none of this is working. It’s time to figure out who and what you can trust and act accordingly.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/04/2023 - 09:20

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Removing antimicrobial resistance from the WHO’s ‘pandemic treaty’ will leave humanity extremely vulnerable to future pandemics

Drug-resistant microbes are a serious threat for future pandemics, but the new draft of the WHO’s international pandemic agreement may not include provisions…

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Antimicrobial resistance is now a leading cause of death worldwide due to drug-resistant infections, including drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis, pneumonia and Staph infections like the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus shown here. (NIAID, cropped from original), CC BY

In late May, the latest version of the draft Pandemic Instrument, also referred to as the “pandemic treaty,” was shared with Member States at the World Health Assembly. The text was made available online via Health Policy Watch and it quickly became apparent that all mentions of addressing antimicrobial resistance in the Pandemic Instrument were at risk of removal.

Work on the Pandemic Instrument began in December 2021 after the World Health Assembly agreed to a global process to draft and negotiate an international instrument — under the Constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) — to protect nations and communities from future pandemic emergencies.


Read more: Drug-resistant superbugs: A global threat intensified by the fight against coronavirus


Since the beginning of negotiations on the Pandemic Instrument, there have been calls from civil society and leading experts, including the Global Leaders Group on Antimicrobial Resistance, to include the so-called “silent” pandemic of antimicrobial resistance in the instrument.

Just three years after the onset of a global pandemic, it is understandable why Member States negotiating the Pandemic Instrument have focused on preventing pandemics that resemble COVID-19. But not all pandemics in the past have been caused by viruses and not all pandemics in the future will be caused by viruses. Devastating past pandemics of bacterial diseases have included plague and cholera. The next pandemic could be caused by bacteria or other microbes.

Antimicrobial resistance

Yellow particles on purple spikes
Microscopic view of Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that cause bubonic plague, on a flea. Plague is an example of previous devastating pandemics of bacterial disease. (NIAID), CC BY

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the process by which infections caused by microbes become resistant to the medicines developed to treat them. Microbes include bacteria, fungi, viruses and parasites. Bacterial infections alone cause one in eight deaths globally.

AMR is fueling the rise of drug-resistant infections, including drug-resistant tuberculosis, drug-resistant pneumonia and drug-resistant Staph infections such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). These infections are killing and debilitating millions of people annually, and AMR is now a leading cause of death worldwide.

Without knowing what the next pandemic will be, the “pandemic treaty” must plan, prepare and develop effective tools to respond to a wider range of pandemic threats, not solely viruses.

Even if the world faces another viral pandemic, secondary bacterial infections will be a serious issue. During the COVID-19 pandemic for instance, large percentages of those hospitalized with COVID-19 required treatment for secondary bacterial infections.

New research from Northwestern University suggests that many of the deaths among hospitalized COVID-19 patients were associated with pneumonia — a secondary bacterial infection that must be treated with antibiotics.

An illustrative diagram that shows the difference between a drug resistant bacteria and a non-resistant bacteria.
Antimicrobial resistance means infections that were once treatable are much more difficult to treat. (NIAID), CC BY

Treating these bacterial infections requires effective antibiotics, and with AMR increasing, effective antibiotics are becoming a scarce resource. Essentially, safeguarding the remaining effective antibiotics we have is critical to responding to any pandemic.

That’s why the potential removal of measures that would help mitigate AMR and better safeguard antimicrobial effectiveness is so concerning. Sections of the text which may be removed include measures to prevent infections (caused by bacteria, viruses and other microbes), such as:

  • better access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene;
  • higher standards of infection prevention and control;
  • integrated surveillance of infectious disease threats from human, animals and the environment; and
  • strengthening antimicrobial stewardship efforts to optimize how antimicrobial drugs are used and prevent the development of AMR.

The exclusion of these measures would hinder efforts to protect people from future pandemics, and appears to be part of a broader shift to water-down the language in the Pandemic Instrument, making it easier for countries to opt-out of taking recommended actions to prevent future pandemics.

Making the ‘pandemic treaty’ more robust

Measures to address AMR could be easily included and addressed in the “pandemic treaty.”

In September 2022, I was part of a group of civil society and research organizations that specialize in mitigating AMR who were invited the WHO’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) to provide an analysis on how AMR should be addressed, within the then-draft text.

They outlined that including bacterial pathogens in the definition of “pandemics” was critical. They also identified specific provisions that should be tweaked to track and address both viral and bacterial threats. These included AMR and recommended harmonizing national AMR stewardship rules.

In March 2023, I joined other leading academic researchers and experts from various fields in publishing a special edition of the Journal of Medicine, Law and Ethics, outlining why the Pandemic Instrument must address AMR.

The researchers of this special issue argued that the Pandemic Instrument was overly focused on viral threats and ignored AMR and bacterial threats, including the need to manage antibiotics as a common-pool resource and revitalize research and development of novel antimicrobial drugs.

Next steps

While earlier drafts of the Pandemic Instrument drew on guidance from AMR policy researchers and civil society organizations, after the first round of closed-door negotiations by Member States, all of these insertions, are now at risk for removal.

The Pandemic Instrument is the best option to mitigate AMR and safeguard lifesaving antimicrobials to treat secondary infections in pandemics. AMR exceeds the capacity of any single country or sector to solve. Global political action is needed to ensure the international community works together to collectively mitigate AMR and support the conservation, development and equitable distribution of safe and effective antimicrobials.

By missing this opportunity to address AMR and safeguard antimicrobials in the Pandemic Instrument, we severely undermine the broader goals of the instrument: to protect nations and communities from future pandemic emergencies.

It is important going forward that Member States recognize the core infrastructural role that antimicrobials play in pandemic response and strengthen, rather than weaken, measures meant to safeguard antimicrobials.

Antimicrobials are an essential resource for responding to pandemic emergencies that must be protected. If governments are serious about pandemic preparedness, they must support bold measures to conserve the effectiveness of antimicrobials within the Pandemic Instrument.

Susan Rogers Van Katwyk is a member of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Global Governance of Antimicrobial Resistance at York University. She receives funding from the Wellcome Trust and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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Repeated COVID-19 Vaccination Weakens Immune System: Study

Repeated COVID-19 Vaccination Weakens Immune System: Study

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Repeated COVID-19…

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Repeated COVID-19 Vaccination Weakens Immune System: Study

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Repeated COVID-19 vaccination weakens the immune system, potentially making people susceptible to life-threatening conditions such as cancer, according to a new study.

A man is given a COVID-19 vaccine in Chelsea, Mass., on Feb. 16, 2021. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images)

Multiple doses of the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines lead to higher levels of antibodies called IgG4, which can provide a protective effect. But a growing body of evidence indicates that the “abnormally high levels” of the immunoglobulin subclass actually make the immune system more susceptible to the COVID-19 spike protein in the vaccines, researchers said in the paper.

They pointed to experiments performed on mice that found multiple boosters on top of the initial COVID-19 vaccination “significantly decreased” protection against both the Delta and Omicron virus variants and testing that found a spike in IgG4 levels after repeat Pfizer vaccination, suggesting immune exhaustion.

Studies have detected higher levels of IgG4 in people who died with COVID-19 when compared to those who recovered and linked the levels with another known determinant of COVID-19-related mortality, the researchers also noted.

A review of the literature also showed that vaccines against HIV, malaria, and pertussis also induce the production of IgG4.

“In sum, COVID-19 epidemiological studies cited in our work plus the failure of HIV, Malaria, and Pertussis vaccines constitute irrefutable evidence demonstrating that an increase in IgG4 levels impairs immune responses,” Alberto Rubio Casillas, a researcher with the biology laboratory at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico and one of the authors of the new paper, told The Epoch Times via email.

The paper was published by the journal Vaccines in May.

Pfizer and Moderna officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Both companies utilize messenger RNA (mRNA) technology in their vaccines.

Dr. Robert Malone, who helped invent the technology, said the paper illustrates why he’s been warning about the negative effects of repeated vaccination.

“I warned that more jabs can result in what’s called high zone tolerance, of which the switch to IgG4 is one of the mechanisms. And now we have data that clearly demonstrate that’s occurring in the case of this as well as some other vaccines,” Malone, who wasn’t involved with the study, told The Epoch Times.

So it’s basically validating that this rush to administer and re-administer without having solid data to back those decisions was highly counterproductive and appears to have resulted in a cohort of people that are actually more susceptible to the disease.”

Possible Problems

The weakened immune systems brought about by repeated vaccination could lead to serious problems, including cancer, the researchers said.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/03/2023 - 22:30

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