[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images Building a second income stream is a great idea for 2026 and there are lots of ways to do it. Starting a business is one way, buying a property to rent out is another. The downside to both of these, though, is that they involve a lot of work. But there are ways of aiming for a second income without a second job. The stock market Instead of starting a business, one way to earn extra income is by investing in someone else’s. There are lots of ways to do this, but the easiest is…
Author: user
[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images Officially, shares in B&M European Value Retail (LSE:BME) come with an 8% dividend yield. But investors could potentially be in line for much more than this going forward. The 8% figure doesn’t include the firm’s special dividends, which have been pretty regular. And while they’re under pressure at the moment, investors should look further ahead. Dividends and dividends Over the last five years, B&M has distributed 77.3p in ordinary dividends, which is almost half the current share price. But that’s only part of the story. The firm has also returned £1 in special dividends, which…
[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images It’s tempting to think that the best dividend stocks are those that return the most cash to their owners. But I would politely disagree. This Fool much prefers to see a company returning more money to investors every (or nearly every) year rather than a massive but stagnant payout. The former tends to signal that all is going well. The latter suggests a business is treading water and may prove unsustainable. Today, I’ve picked out five examples of brilliantly consistent dividend hikers from the UK stock market. Wealth manager Rathbones Specialist mortgage lender OSB Group…
[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images The S&P 500 and FTSE 100 indexes are very different beasts, with the former dominated by Big Tech and the latter by old-economy banks and commodity giants. Yet both generated inflation-beating wealth in 2025. The S&P 500 rose by 16.3%, while the FTSE 100 jumped around 21.5%, marking its best year since 2009. However, the UK’s blue-chip index pays a higher dividend yield, pushing the total return (share price and dividends) towards 25%. Nice. Given that the majority of my portfolio is made up of S&P 500 and FTSE 100 shares, I’m happy last year…
[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images Some investors may view mining giant Rio Tinto (LSE: RIO) more as a dividend play than a growth share. That’s forgivable, given poor recent performance. The shares are up less than 10% over five years. Now they’ve sprung into life. Over the past 12 months, the Rio Tinto share price has climbed around 26%, most of which came in the last three months. Is this the opening salvo of an explosive recovery? First, it’s worth revisiting why Rio Tinto has struggled. The biggest issue is its heavy reliance on iron ore, which typically generates well over half…
[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images The FTSE 100 index of stocks has already crashed the 10,000-point barrier in January. With demand for cheap, dividend-paying shares continuing to heat up, 2026 could well be another spectacular year for UK blue-chip shares. While the Footsie has risen more than 20% over the past 12 months, there’s a wide selection of top-quality shares still going at rock-bottom prices. Fresnillo (LSE:FRES), Admiral Group (LSE:ADM), and Allianz Technology Trust (LSE:ATT) are just a few that have attracted my attention in recent weeks. I think they could deliver spectacular price gains as investors wise up to…
[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images I’ve got scope to add another dividend income stock to my portfolio, and I’m hunting for something a little different. I already have plenty of exposure to high-yielding financials such as M&G and Phoenix Group Holdings. They’ve been paying super-generous dividends while delivering solid share price growth. That’s great news for me, but investing is cyclical, and after such strong runs their share price momentum may be fading. So I’m casting my net wider and looking at a different sector, real estate investment trusts, or REITs. They can be tempting for income seekers because to…
[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images So, the FTSE 100 finally broke through the long-anticipated 10,000 level on the first trading day of the new year. It’s a bit below it at the time of writing. But the top London index has gained 21% in the past 12 months. The same again in 2026 could send the Footsie as high as 12,000 points. But what are the chances? The Footsie has risen 20% or more in a single year only three times this century — in 2005 and 2009. And we haven’t seen two consecutive bumper years like 2025. History, it…
[ad_1] GenAI is reshaping investment workflows faster than most firms can adapt. The release of Claude for Financial Services is the latest step in applying GenAI in the investment industry. Its focus on domain knowledge and specialized workflows distinguishes it from generalized frontier LLMs and raises important questions about how financial workflows will evolve, how tasks will be divided between humans and machines, and which skills will be needed to succeed in the future of finance. Financial firms are contending with the most significant overhaul of technology capabilities in a generation. AI-driven digital transformation is reshaping job roles and investment…
[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images Will there be a stock market crash in 2026? There’s always a chance. That’s why investors will want to prepare should a crisis come our way. A crash could come in the way of something unforeseen. The pandemic, for instance, came along and caused a 20% drop in the markets, albeit a brief one. Or a crash could be something everyone and their dog has claimed is coming – like the hype surrounding artificial intelligence. Little growth I must confess I’m a touch bemused with what’s been going on with tech and AI companies of late.…