ARMOUR Residential REIT has given income investors the number they wanted to see: $0.24 per share for October . That works out to $2.88 per share annually if the payment were maintained for twelve months. At a recent closing price near $14.10, that implies a yield north of 20%. That is the kind of yield that can make an income investor stop scrolling. It is also exactly the kind of yield that makes me stop and ask what the market thinks could go wrong. ARMOUR announced on September 24 that it expects to pay a $0.24 common-stock dividend for October, with an October 15 record date and an October 29 payment date. But the company carefully described the announcement as guidance , and ARMOUR explicitly states that actual dividends remain subject to the discretion of its board. That wording matters. The October announcement tells me that management currently intends to preserve the monthly payout. It does not tell me whether the payout is economically sustainable, whether book value is hold...
I have a confession to make about IPOs: whenever I hear that a fast-growing company is finally coming public, my first reaction is excitement. My second reaction is immediately wondering how much of that excitement Wall Street has already stuffed into the price. Oura is a perfect example. The smart-ring maker is preparing to trade on Nasdaq under the ticker OURA , and on the surface, there is an awful lot for me to like about the business. Revenue is exploding. Membership is growing even faster. The company is profitable. Its brand has become nearly synonymous with the smart-ring category. And, perhaps most importantly, Oura increasingly looks less like a company that sells expensive pieces of wearable hardware and more like a recurring-revenue health platform that happens to begin the customer relationship with a ring. Then I look at the proposed valuation. And my enthusiasm suddenly develops adult supervision. Oura and existing shareholders are offering 50 million shares at an expect...