Is Brett Owens’ Contrarian Income Report Really Worth It?

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Is Brett Owens’ Contrarian Income Report really good?

How have Brett Owens’ stock picks performed so far?

Could it actually help you achieve better investment results?

Are there any better alternatives?

After trying out Brett Owens’ Contrarian Income Report, I want to share with you everything that I find out and help you make an informed decision.

Who is Brett Owens, Expert Behind Contrarian Income Report?

After Brett Owens graduated from Cornell University, he joined General Electric’s Entry Level Corporate Leadership Program in 2003 and stayed for about a year.

Then, he joined Planisware (a software provider) and did sales and marketing for about 3 years there.

After that, he joined Palm Beach Research Group as a managing editor for about a year, helping edit investment newsletters.

Between 2006 and 2017, Brett Owens started blogging about contrarian investment opportunities such as commodity investing and selling covered calls against blue chip stocks.

Also, during this time, he co-founded and later sold two software-as-a-service companies. One is time-tracking software, and the other is affiliate program management software.

Then in 2019, he started another software-as-a-service company called Afluencer Inc to help social media influencers find brands to work with.

Also, in 2015, he started “ContraryOutlook”, an investment research publishing company that sells various investment newsletters:

• Contrarian Income Report: ($99/year)
• Hidden Yield: ($179/year)
• CEF Insider (by Michael Foster): ($799/year)
• Dividend Swing Trader: ($1499/year)

In 2019, Brett Owens and Tom Jacobs co-authored the book called “How To Retire On Dividends”.

By the way, there are also good reviews on this book.

But, as a natural skeptic, I always like to read the 1-star or 2-star reviews first.

I also think that the more specific the review, the more authentic it could be because they most likely talked about their real experience.

By the way, it’s a very well-known marketing tactic to publish books to help sell their products or services because being an author gives you the appearance of authority and expertise.

However, it’s now very easy and simple for ANYONE to self-publish a book.

Personally, I find books of more substance if the author is not trying to use them to promote his or her services or products.

Contrarian Income Report Investment Strategy

According to Brett Owens, he launched the Contrarian Income Report to “deliver his members 7%, 8%(and higher) dividends they need to retire on dividends alone, without having to watch the market’s daily gyrations and worry about their nest egg and income.”

This sounded quite good when the interest rate was super low and people get almost zero return on their bank deposits.

Right now, banks are paying up to 5% on savings accounts or money-market accounts.

The question now becomes, is it worth the risk of investing in bond funds, bank loan funds, dividend stocks, REITs, and infrastructure holdings to get the extra 2% or 3%?

Also, If I were a retiree, whether or not the investment is safe or risky matters more to me than how high a return they could get.

Furthermore, If I were a retiree, I wouldn’t want to get in and out of my dividend stocks or investments very frequently and would prefer to hold for as long as possible.

So, can Brett Owens and his Contrarian Income Report really live up to their “so-called promise”?

To get 7%, 8%(and higher) dividends, Brett Owens recommends bond funds, bank loan funds, dividend stocks, REITs, infrastructure holdings and etc, as shown from all the past recommendations.

Are Brett Owens’ recommended investments in the Contrarian Income Report safe or risky?

Although Brett Owens advocates holding good dividend-paying securities for as long as possible, you would soon discover that many of Brett Owens’ stock recommendations have a holding period of just a few months with some losing almost 50% of their value in a few short months.

Stock Recommendations	Buy Price	Sell Price	Total Return (including dividends)	Holding Period
Cohen & Steers Quality Income Realty Price Fund	$13.30	$8.58	-35%	10 Days
GEO Group	$33.87	$19.51	-40%	1.5 Months
Six Flags Entertainment	$58.05	$35.56	-37%	4 Months
Hercules Capital	$18.57	$13.45	-22%	5 Months
Chimera Investment Corporation	$19.49	$12.22	-32%	7 Months
Colony Northstar	$14.38	$5.70	-54%	9 Months
PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust	$21.41	$8.70	-52%	10 Months

This is very puzzling because Brett Owens’ goal for the “Contrarian Income Report” is that his members don’t have to watch the market’s daily gyrations and worry about their nest egg and income.”

However, as you can see, some of his stock recommendations are very volatile and could lose up to 50% in a short period of time.

If I were a retiree, I would not want to see so much volatility in my retirement portfolio.

Would you see better results if we look at Brett Owens’ stock recommendations with a longer holding period (one year and above)?

As you can see, these stock recommendations either lose money or just broke even after years.

Instead of giving your steady income and maintaining (or increasing) your purchasing power,  your purchasing power would become less and less as the years go by if you bought these stocks or funds.

Stock Recommendations	Buy Price	Sell Price	Total Return (including dividends)	Holding Period
Park Hotels & Resorts	$34.01	$22.21	-25%	1 Year 5 Months
Western Assets Emerging Markets Debt Fund	$14.52	$9.76	-16%	2 Years 2 Months
Macquarie Infrastructure	$80.54	$39.91	-34%	2 Years 7 Months
Arbor Realty Trust	$10.85	$5.81	-27%	3 Years 6 Months
Ladder Capital Corp	$13.74	$6.28	-17%	3 Years 6 Months
Blackstone Mortgage Trust	$31.10	$21.84	-6%	3 Years 1 Month
Omega Healthcare Investors	$35.86	$17.91	-18%	4 Years 7 Months

Of course, this is not to say that Brett Owen’s stock recommendations have no winners.

There are a few big winners (closed trades) such as Comerica (52% in 18 months), Sinovus Financial (139% in 25 months), and Exxon Mobile (105% in 20 months).

For Comerica Incorporated and Sinovus Financial Corp, the gains would either be wiped out or significantly reduced if Brett Owen didn’t issue a Sell Alert in May 2022.

However, his market timing was not always right.

The hard truth is no one can predict (i.e. time) the market with 100% certainty.

To make money from investing, I think the only way is to follow a proven time-tested investment strategy such as Warren Buffett’s value investing strategy.

So far, from what I see, Brett Owens likes to time the market.

Brett Owens recommended Medical Properties Trust in Nov 2015 with a buy-price of $11.13 and issued a Sell Alert in March 2019 with a sell-price of $18.08.

Then, he re-recommended this stock in March 2021 with a buy price of $21.24.

And the current share price is $7.68.

Contrarian Income Report Stock Picks & Performance

So, how have Brett Owens’ stock picks performed recently as well as in the past few years?

Below is the performance of Brett Owens’ stock picks for the year 2015.

Brett Owens’ Stock Picks 2015	Performance (Dividend included)
Aug 2015 (Income Fund)	34%
Aug 2015 (Municipal Bond Fund)	9%
Aug 2015	-18%
Sep 2015 (REIT)	-1.7%
Oct 2015	51%
Nov 2015 (REIT)	90%
Dec 2015 (Income Strategies Fund)	7.9%

Below is the performance of Brett Owens’ stock picks for the year 2016.

Brett Owens’ Stock Picks 2016	Performance (Dividend included)
Jan 2016	18%
Feb 2016	79%
Mar 2016	40%
April 2016	26%
May 2016	81%
June 2016	N.A
July 2016	-40%
Aug 2016	-34%
Sep 2016	-17%
Oct 2016	10%
Nov 2016	N.A
Dec 2016	22%

Below is the performance of Brett Owens’ stock picks for the year 2017.

Brett Owens’ Stock Picks 2017	Performance (Dividend included) As of 19 May 2023 unless trade was closed
Jan 2017	40%
Feb 2017	-5.8%
Mar 2017	N.A
April 2017	51%
May 2017	N.A
June 2017	-54%
July 2017	N.A
Aug 2017	-1.1%
Sep 2017	N.A
Oct 2017	N.A
Nov 2017	N.A
Dec 2017	10%

Below is the performance of Brett Owens’ stock picks for the year 2018.

Brett Owens’ Stock Picks 2018	Performance (Dividend included) As of 19 May 2023 unless trade was closed
Jan 2018	N.A
Feb 2018	N.A
Mar 2018	-6.4%
April 2018	-5.2%
May 2018	N.A
June 2018	N.A
July 2018	-27%
Aug 2018	N.A
Sep 2018	-25%
Oct 2018	N.A
Nov 2018	-6.3%
Dec 2018	N.A

Below is the performance of Brett Owens’ stock picks for the year 2019.

Brett Owens’ Stock Picks 2019	Performance (Dividend included) As of 19 May 2023 unless trade was closed
Jan 2019	27%
Feb 2019	-3.3%
Mar 2019	N.A
April 2019	N.A
May 2019	0.4%
June 2019	-52%
July 2019	N.A
Aug 2019	-32%
Sep 2019	-37%
Oct 2019	N.A
Nov 2019	N.A
Dec 2019	N.A

Below is the performance of Brett Owens’ stock picks for the year 2020.

Brett Owens’ Stock Picks 2020	Performance (Dividend included) As of 19 May 2023 unless trade was closed
Jan 2020	-16%
Feb 2020	N.A
Mar 2020	-35.4%
April 2020	132%
May 2020	139%
June 2020	88.7%
July 2020	N.A
Aug 2020	11%
Sep 2020	63%
Oct 2020 (Dividend & Income Trust)	43%
Oct 2020 (Diversified Equity Fund)	41%
Nov 2020	7.3%
Dec 2020	N.A

Below is the performance of Brett Owens’ stock picks for the year 2021.

Brett Owens’ Stock Picks 2021	Performance (Dividend included) As of 19 May 2023 unless trade was closed
Jan 2021 (closed trade)	52.8%
Feb 2021	N.A
Mar 2021	-51.7%
April 2021 (closed trade)	105%
May 2021	N.A
June 2021	-0.26%
July 2021	-4.7%
Aug 2021	N.A
Sep 2021	7.5%
Oct 2021	-17%
Nov 2021	N.A
Dec 2021 (closed trade)	-2.1%

Below is the performance of Brett Owens’ stock picks for the year 2022.

Brett Owens’ Stock Picks 2022	Performance (Dividend included) As of 19 May 2023 unless trade was closed
Jan 2022	N.A
Feb 2022	N.A
Mar 2022	N.A
April 2022	-22%
May 2022	N.A
June 2022	N.A
July 2022	N.A
Aug 2022	N.A
Sep 2022	5.80%
Oct 2022 (Income Fund)	1.30%
Oct 2022 (Muni Fund)	0.50%
Oct 2022 (Bond ETF)	5.83%
Nov 2022	10%
Dec 2022	N.A

Below is the performance of Brett Owens’ stock picks for the year 2023 so far.

Brett Owens’ Stock Picks 2023	Performance (Dividend included)
Jan 2023	N.A
Feb 2023	N.A
Mar 2023	2%
April 2023 (Muni Bond)	-1.3%

As you can see, his best-performing year is 2020 with a lot of big winners because it was a very bullish year and everyone who bought stocks in 2020 has made money.

2019 is probably his worst-performing year with almost all stock picks being losers.

For other years, Brett Owens’ performance records are not so impressive.

What I also don’t like is the huge volatility in the dividend stocks /funds that he recommends.

This just goes to show that “high yield” comes with “high volatility”.

If you had invested your money in S&P 500 index ETF, you would have made much higher returns with much less volatility.

Contrarian Income Report Pricing

So, how much does the “Contrarian Income Report” subscription cost?

What do you actually get as a member?

Here’s what you get:

• 12 monthly issues with one stock recommendation every month
• Model Portfolio
• Weekly Articles
• Quarterly Webinars

The usual price for an annual subscription is $99, but new members get a discounted price of $39 for the first year.

It’s a very low entry price because this is the lowest-end product in their sales funnel.

Once you are inside their sales funnel, they will start marketing to you the other high-end products.

Personally, I think that is how they get rich but I am not so sure if that is how you could get rich.

Alternatives To Contrarian Income Report

There are a lot of good stock research and analysis platforms that help you find high-quality dividend stocks or ETFs.

For example, Seeking Alpha gives you a lot of helpful tools to find, research, and analyze dividend stocks.

For each stock, you get ratings (i.e. with “A+” being the highest and “C-” being the lowest) on the following:

• Dividend safety
• Dividend growth
• Dividend yield
• Dividend consistency

On top of that, you get its dividend history as well as future dividend estimates from analysts.

There’s more.

Seeking Alpha not only helps you evaluate this stock in terms of dividend payouts but also helps you evaluate the stock in terms of “Value”, “Growth”, “Profitability”, “Momentum” and “Estimated Earnings Revisions”.

So, how much does Seeking Alpha Premium cost?

Currently, there are three types of pricing plans:

• Basic: Free
• Seeking Alpha Premium: $239/year $214/year
• Seeking Alpha Pro: $2,400 per year (mostly for hedge fund managers)

With the basic free version, you can only get very limited access to Seeking Alpha stock in-depth news and analysis.

You also won’t get access to Seeking Alpha Author Rating and Quant Rating, Top-rated stocks, and all the premium stock analyses.

So, is it worth paying for Seeking Alpha Premium?

$189/year works out to be about $15.75/month (i.e. $0.53/day).

A cup of Starbucks coffee costs about $2.75.

Personally, I have been using Seeking Alpha Premium for my own stock research and analysis.

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