Solid Dividend Stocks For Uncertain Times

by Mike Scanlin

Jeff Reeves at InvestorPlace wrote today about 9 Solid Dividend Stocks for Uncertain Times. He points out that now could be a good time to invest in companies with sustainable dividend distributions (those with conservative payout ratios) where much of the negative news has already been priced in.

Some of his 9 companies trade at bargain levels, while others have managed to hold firm during 2015 (on a total return basis), even though the broader market has lost for the year.

9 Dividend Stocks for Long-term Income Investors

Here are the stocks, in alphabetical order:

Covered Calls On Solid Dividend Stocks

You can read Jeff's article to find out more about these 9 companies and why he likes them. In the mean time, let's plug them into the Born To Sell covered call screener and see if we can increase the income while reducing the risk even further.

For the Sep 18 monthly expiration, we find 4 symbols that offer covered calls with Annualized Returns If Flat (ARIF) over 12%:

For investors with a shorter attention span, there are nine Sep 4 weekly covered calls (on 3 symbols) that offer an ARIF of 18% or more for a 5 day trade:

None of these have an ex-dividend date before option expiration, so the income derived is just from the call premium. If you were to keep the stock and roll out the options month after month then you could expect some dividend income, too.

Note: These are not trade recommendations. These are candidate trades ideas only. Do your own research, keep position sizes modest, and stay diversified.

Mike Scanlin is the founder of Born To Sell and has been writing covered calls for a long time.

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