With the price of oil dropping below $40 a barrel for several days, the prices of the Canadian oil royalty trusts have dropped substantially. These Canadian Income Trusts, also known as Canadian Oil Income Trusts or Canadian Royalty Trusts pay a very high income. These trusts pass through all their earnings from oil and gas wells to the trust holders, similar to real estate investment trusts. There is no taxation at the corporate level since they are structured as trusts. Also, a portion of the dividends may be non-taxable due to depletion and depreciation deductions.br /You should be aware that the Canadian government came out with a plan to tax all Canadian trusts at the corporate level beginning in the year 2011. However, the average yield from Canadian trusts is still higher than the U.S. royalty trusts. WallStreetNewsNetwork.com recently came out with an updated database list of a href="http://WallStreetNewsNetwork.com"Canadian ...

Tax-Managing Your Investment Portfolio: There’s Still Time to Cut Your 2008 Taxes

by Alexander Green, Chairman, Investment U Investment Director, The Oxford Club Monday, December 1, 2008: Issue #894

Investment legend John Templeton insisted that everyone’s long-term investment goal should be the same: maximum total return after taxes.

In my experience, investors spend plenty of time thinking about risk and return, but not enough about taxes. That’s unfortunate. Especially since - unlike the stock market, interest rates or inflation - taxes are controllable.

Yet too many investors are surrendering far more to the taxman than they should. A Vanguard study, for example, found that the typical investor is giving up 2% a year to the IRS. That’s nearly 20% of the long-term return of the S&P 500. How can you stop this and still remain a law-abiding, civic-minded individual?

It starts with tax-managing your investment portfolio…

Tax-Managing Your Investment Portfolio -

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Bad Bets: Illiquid ETFs

Ian Salisbury of Dow Jones Newswires is one of the best fund reporters in the business. In his latest piece appearing

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Wise investors have traditionally headed for real estate investment trusts (REITs) for their regular, sizeable dividends. Over the past two years, we have grown accustomed to bi-annual payments of 6%, 8% or even 10% of share price.

What if I could tell you one REIT is currently paying over 350%? You would think it is too good to be true.

Of course, you would be right. General Growth Properties (NYSE:GGP), with its $0.43 share price and last dividend payment of $2 per share, may pop up on the screens of investors looking for a big dividend, but there is absolutely no way you should expect to see any dividend from this REIT, let alone anything close to a double-digit payout.

Desperate for cash

General Growth is the latest company to announce it is on the verge of bankruptcy due its tremendous debt load. Like so many other now-defunct companies, General Growth used all

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There are a huge number of stocks, including closed end funds, real estate trusts, master limited partnerships, and oil royalty trusts, which pay their dividends monthly. The advantages of receiving monthly dividends are several:1. They accelerate the investors' return of capital.2. They compound faster than quarterly dividend stocks when reinvested.3. They provide a steadier cash flow for retirees on a fixed income who required a consistent monthly income.4. The stream of income helps reduce volatility.5. Some of these monthly dividend stocks have yields that are partially or wholly tax free.According to WallStreetNewsNetwork.com, there are 323 different stocks which pay their dividends on a monthly basis, with yields from half a percent to almost 50%. Be careful, as many of these yields are extremely high and those dividends may not be sustainable. The highest yielding growth and income fund is the ...

New home sales rose by 2.7% in September, according to the Commerce Department. Andrew Snyder says this is an important sign of a rebound in the property market. And that means adjusting your portfolio to include real estate investment trusts (REITs) like Post Properties (NYSE:PPS) and American Campus Associates (NYSE:ACC).

This from Today’s Financial News:

It is a fact that the real estate industry has historically been a leading indicator of the American economy. When it falls, Wall Street falls. When home prices rise, so does the Street. If that continues to be the case, the American economy is on the rebound.

For proof, look at today’s new-home sales figures released by the Commerce Department. Compared to sales in August, the amount of new homes that sold in September rose by an unexpectedly

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Private Placement InsurancePrivate Placement Life InsuranceBelow is a short article on private placement life insurance. I do not personally recommend any tax or investment strategies or provide financial advice of any type but this topic is highly relevant to both hedge fund investors and professionals so I thought I would include it here:

A small but growing number of wealthy investors have discovered a legal way to invest in hedge funds without paying income taxes on the gains.

It's called "private placement" life insurance. These special insurance contracts allow policyholders to invest in a wide range of products, including hedge funds. The main attraction: Because the investments are held within an insurance wrapper, gains inside the policy are shielded from income taxes -- as is the payout upon death. What's more, policyholders may be able

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As we see Wall Street finally starting to bottom out, as many of our senior analysts had warned us on, we can’t help but be reminded that this all started with the housing crunch. How are real estate investment trusts [REITs] faring? We spoke with Greg Sukenik, senior REIT analyst for Zacks Equity Research, to find out.

Considering the uphill climb most REITS have undertaken this year, would you say the real estate cycle is basically where you thought it would be? Is it different for different types of REITs?

The REIT sell-off began in early 2007. After several years of good returns, REITs were trading at historically high and probably unsustainable valuations. We did expect commercial property REITs to be negatively affected by the problems in the credit markets which were brought on by the meltdown in residential real estate and a declining overall economy.

So to

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viastockadvisors

“Although traded the same way as regular stocks, preferred stocks are more like bonds,” explains Harry Domash, who focuses on long-term investing for those seeking both growth and income. In his Winning Investing, the advisor looks at a pair of preferred stock favorites, which offer above-average dividend yields of 7.4% to 8.2%

Track his picks at:

http://trackthepros.com/

click on stock newsletters and then track the category to get notified of his future picks.

“Usually issued at $25 per share, preferreds generally trade in a narrow $24 to $26 range, no matter how well the issuing company fares. Investors buy them for the steady dividends, which typically equate to 4% to 8% yields.

“When issued, preferreds pay a yield determined by the annual dividend. The yield for a stock paying $1.00 annually would be 4% ($1 divided by $25).

“However, the market yield depends on the current share price. For instance, if the share price drops

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Real estate investing is not nearly as complicated, financially burdensome, or time consuming as you might think. In fact, Its easy to add raw land, shopping centers, apartment complexes, and private homes to your portfolio without brokers, bankers, attorneys, and handymen on your payroll. Even better, the zero overhead approach allows you to blend your real estate investments into your securities portfolio for ease of management, income monitoring, diversification, and analysis.

I know you think that the entire real estate market is in a shambles, and that it is far too dangerous to get involved now, what with all the nasty uncertainty that has decimated property values. But where did the real damage take place, and why? Without having mega millions to work with, or a line of credit that goes around the block, you can have positions in various forms of Real

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