Bubble Fears? Income Solutions With +6% Yields

Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2025 is behind us. Now is the time for our inboxes to be flooded with Christmas and New Year promotions. Retailers have perfected the art of stretching a one-day sale into an entire holiday season, piling on early access discounts, bundles, and doorbusters right through New Year’s. It’s hard not to feel the pull. A simple markdown can flip a switch in our minds—suddenly, something feels more valuable simply because it costs less than it did yesterday.

We love bargains. We celebrate them. But imagine a store proudly advertising, “Black Friday: Prices Raised 20%!” No one would camp outside in the cold for that. And yet in the stock market, that’s often what people do—avoid perfectly good companies when their prices fall, and rush into overheated assets because everyone else is excited. No one enjoys seeing red in a portfolio, but markets don’t move in straight lines. If you’re a long-term buyer, lower prices are opportunities, not warnings. Even the biggest long-term winners take detours through fear and volatility.

At High Dividend Opportunities, we don’t chase what’s fashionable. We look for strong, cash-generating businesses selling at reasonable valuations. This is our own version of picking up quality goods on sale. Let’s dive into our top bargains.

Pick 1: MO – Yield 7.2%

We have regularly discussed Big tobacco players like British American Tobacco (BTI) and Altria Group, Inc. You may be surprised to know this, but despite the S&P 500 (SP500) being tech-heavy and largely allocated to some of the biggest AI companies out there, it couldn’t outperform our boring tobacco duo in the past five years.

Strong, predictable cash flows, large, consistent, and growing dividend payments, and a sound balance sheet do emerge strong over time—who knew?

MO is one of the world's largest producers of tobacco products, and the company ended Q3 with an investment-grade BBB balance sheet, with debt-to-EBITDA of 2x, and $3.4 billion in cash and cash equivalents. Altria maintains a phenomenal streak of 55 years of continuous annual dividend raises. The company’s current $1.06/share quarterly dividend annualizes to a 7.3% QDI yield.

MO is raising its 2024 Adj. EPS guidance range to between $5.37 and $5.45, placing its recently increased dividend at a 78% payout ratio. In an uncertain market with heightened valuation concerns, MO offers margin of safety, with its current price at a forward PE of 10x.

Pick 2: ENB – Yield 5.9%

Enbridge Inc. (ENB) is the largest midstream corporation in North America by market cap, responsible for moving 30% of all crude oil produced and 20% of all natural gas consumed on the continent. Enbridge also operates the largest natural gas utility company by volume, serving 7.1 million consumers.

With over 98% of its contracts set as take-pr-pay arrangements less than 1% of its EBITDA is variable due to commodity prices.

ENB is pursuing massive expansion projects, with a third of them focused in the U.S. Several of these are expected to be operational in the next 24 months and will be immediately accretive to earnings. 

During the first nine months of 2025, ENB reported $9.2 billion in Distributable Cash Flow (up from $8.9 billion for the same period last year), or $4.24/share, placing the company’s dividend at a modest ~67% payout ratio. ENB maintains a 30-year dividend growth streak and we expect the company to keep up its track record next month.

Zooming out, ENB has been delivering steady dividends to shareholders for over 70 years, with an impressive 9% dividend CAGR in the past three decades. Just last week, the company announced a 3% raise to its dividend. ENB maintains an investment-grade BBB+ balance sheet, and pays a ~5.9% annualized yield.

Conclusion

Bull markets tend to reward hype. Investors become eager to pay steep prices for the possibility of future growth, even when those future cash flows are far from guaranteed. At High Dividend Opportunities, we prefer companies that already produce steady, reliable cash flows and readily share them with shareholders.

This approach puts income investors in a strong position. Our dividends keep flowing, giving us the ability to stay disciplined and buy through market swings instead of reacting to them. Regular cash flow allows us to accumulate more shares when prices are attractive, turning volatility into a long-term advantage. Patience, consistency, and dependable income—these are the tools that transform market noise into lasting wealth.