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Ripple Effect

The Income Effect

Loading ...Addison Wiggin

September 11, 2025 • 1 minute, 44 second read


DividendsIncome

The Income Effect

Your investment returns come from just two sources.

The first is capital gains. As the AI bubble blows higher, that’s the big focus for investors.

That means the second source of returns is being overlooked.

What’s the second source? Income.

The dividend yield on the S&P 500 is a paltry 1.18% today, almost touching its 1999 low:

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Investors ignore income stocks at their own peril (Source: Multpl)

Dividend-paying stocks have a lot to offer investors. A company can restate its earnings – but they can’t restate a cash dividend.

Plus, dividend growth companies tend to offer lower beta, or volatility relative to the market itself.

Finally, as Jeremy Siegel has documented in Stocks for the Long Run, over an investor’s lifetime, reinvesting dividends can account for over half of an investor’s total returns.

With the growing likelihood of a terrifying bull market in stocks kicking off, investors can get a relative safe-haven with dividend-paying stocks.

With the Fed about to slash interest rates, dividends may soon be the best game in town for income investors.

Even with overall yields looking low, there are plenty of companies that still offer decent yields and the potential to grow their dividend over time. We have plenty of such holdings in our Model Portfolio.

~ Addison

P.S.: Grey Swan Live! this afternoon at 2 pm ET: Mark Jeftovic joins us for “Shadow Fed & the American Dream” — how a September rate cut could hit the dollar’s purchasing power, where the money-market flood might go next, and why “control of money” is migrating from central banks to code, corporates, and courts.

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No doubt, we’ll touch on the claims made by Anton Kobyakov, senior adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, that the U.S. is using stablecoins to devalue its debt. Paid members, join us at 2 p.m. ET today.

If you’re not a paid member of the Grey Swan Investment Fraternity, you can review the benefits of becoming one here.

If you have any questions for us about the market, send them our way now to: feedback@greyswanfraternity.com.


Porter Stansberry: Anatomy of an Asymmetric Bet

September 11, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

It’s one of those rare situations Warren Buffett would describe as “raining gold”… when all you have to do is step outside if you want to get rich. And it’s the type of setup Erez has built his entire investing career around. 

The type of opportunity with the potential to make you a small fortune.

Porter Stansberry: Anatomy of an Asymmetric Bet
American Pathology

September 11, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

Twenty-four years ago, today, nearly 3,000 people died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But the toll hasn’t stopped. The FDNY has now lost more members to 9/11-related illnesses than it did on the day itself. This week, the department added 39 names to its Memorial Wall, bringing the total to 402.

Mayor Eric Adams spoke plainly: “We need to humanize what happened those 24 years ago and not allow time to erode how significant it was. The countless number of men and women ran towards danger, and we’re still losing their lives every day.”

America’s story, from Lincoln to JFK to 9/11 to now, is scarred by episodes of violence that rupture legitimacy. Each event has reshaped institutions, politics, and markets.

And in the age of hyper-partisan politics, global debt, and technological acceleration.

American Pathology
What If the “Scaling Cliff” Pops the AI Bubble?

September 10, 2025 • John Rubino

In just the past five years, nearly a trillion dollars have been thrown at AI data centers, chip plants, and model training. And the spending curve continues to steepen, as pretty much every tech firm and most governments enter the AI arms race.

Early AIs improved in line with the amount of computing power and new data they were fed. This led to the assumption that AI investment had a predictable rate of return (which investors absolutely love).

But with the most recent iterations of name-brand AI, that relationship has broken down. They’re not improving in line with the money being spent on them, leading a growing number of analysts to voice doubt about whether the return on this investment can be predicted going forward. This is known as the “scaling cliff.”

What If the “Scaling Cliff” Pops the AI Bubble?
No, We Can’t Time A Crisis

September 10, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

the BLS claims the healthcare and social assistance sector added +58,000 jobs per month over the past three months.

Meanwhile, ADP shows the same sector losing an average of -33,300 jobs per month. That’s a 91,300 job gap — after years when the two data services have tracked closely.

Worse, the Labor Department just revised down -911,000 jobs from the past 12 months — the largest revision in U.S. history, bigger even than 2009.

Private hiring was overstated by -880,000 jobs.

Trade, transport, leisure, hospitality — all quietly cut back. Excluding healthcare, the U.S. economy has actually lost 142,200 jobs over the past four months.

The revisions are so large they now rival the global financial crisis.

If June’s downward revision of -27,000 is counted, that’s -285,000 over two months, the worst outside of 2020.

No, We Can’t Time A Crisis