The Canary Just Croaked

Well, I’ve been singing the same tune for a while now. And we just got confirmation that I haven’t been leading you astray.

Or at least, it sure seems like we did…

Last week, AT&T (NYSE: T) posted earnings. It beat expectations on earnings per share (EPS) and total sales (or revenues).

But that’s not what the market heard. What the market heard was a warning about future cash flows and their ability to support AT&T’s dividend.

Just for reference, AT&T has long been known as a stock perfect for “orphans and widows” in that it pays a steady dividend.

But now there’s fear that the dividend will have to be cut by at least 50%…

And that’s if the company can even afford to pay it at all!

The company tried to spin it as something good, saying that it had gotten far more new customers than it had expected.

But hidden deep in the conference call was a much scarier reason for the slowdown in cash flows…

And it signals the economy is in for a lot more trouble in the very near future.

The Canary in the Coal Mine

Back in the days before air monitoring technology existed, miners used to bring a canary in a cage down to the lowest point in the mine with them.

It wasn’t for the company or the festive tunes, however. It was because canaries have very delicate respiratory systems.

Their lungs are extremely sensitive to poisonous gasses that go undetected by human noses.

So the canary served as a warning. If the bird died, it meant there were toxic gasses in the mine and the men were going to meet their maker next if they didn’t high-tail it out of there.

And I’m pretty sure the canary in our economic coal mine just croaked after hearing why AT&T’s cash flows are really slowing.

According to the company's investor relations director, “customers are taking a little more time to pay their bills.”

And while that might sound innocuous, what it signals is potentially disastrous.

Because that little sentence says that people are having trouble paying their bills on time and they’re prioritizing what they pay first.

Mortgage and electric bills, because you need a house and it’s hot outside.

Food is up there too, because, well, you can’t exist without it.

The water bill is probably a priority.

But cellphones and cable television? People can live without those if they have to.

And AT&T is finding out the hard way as folks hold off on paying that bill in order to make sure they’ve got shelter, food, and water.

That could be the canary in the coal mine telling us that things are tougher under the surface than the folks on TV and in D.C. would have you believe.

First people prioritize the order in which they pay their bills, then they start to prioritize which bills they pay at all.

That leads not to economic growth but instead economic contraction.

And that, my friends, is a RECESSION!

I’ve been saying it for a while and now AT&T’s customers are confirming it.

Things may seem like they’ve been bad so far, but you ain’t seen nothing yet!

Baptism by Fire

By now, you know that I got my start in the financial world working my way up the ladder at Morgan Stanley.

But you might not have known that I started at Morgan in the midst of the last financial crisis…

I’d just graduated and had also just watched as my parents lost about 75% of their retirement savings.

And I went into Wall Street with the goal of making sure that never happened again.

Then I saw the bailouts come our way and the multimillion-dollar bonuses my bosses were getting for sending the economy down the toilet.

And I couldn’t stomach being a part of it.

So I stuck around as long as I had to to learn everything they had to teach.

And then I struck out on my own to help people who really needed my help: Main Street investors.

I’d gotten a baptism by fire coming into Wall Street in the midst of a meltdown…

But that’s why I was able to learn so much in such a short time.

And what I learned was how to keep our super-wealthy clients super-wealthy no matter what the markets were doing…

Getting Paid to Do Nothing

The first lesson in maintaining wealth through a market downturn revolved around one word and one word only: INCOME.

Most people only make money while they’re working. But that’s not how it happens when you’re ultra-wealthy.

When you’re that rich, you get paid for doing absolutely nothing.

Whether you’re actually working or not, you’ve always got income coming in from somewhere.

It could be from real estate that’s producing revenues through rental income.

Or it could be from owning shares in a business that spins off excess profits to its shareholders.

Wherever it’s coming from, the point is that it’s coming no matter what the economy is doing and no matter if you’re working or on vacation.

So, as one of my first missions, I wanted to make sure Main Street investors could take advantage of income-generating strategies like the ones my former clients were privy to.

And that led me to The Wealth Advisory, an income-focused investment community where I share my best ideas for generating an extra salary every year.

Be it a loophole that lets investors collect cash straight from Amazon’s checking account…

Or a strategy to skim cash from the growing cannabis market (no pun intended) without ever touching any cannabis itself…

Or just simple, dividend-paying stocks that grow those payments over time.

They’re all ways that you can collect extra income without really lifting a finger.

This Bill Pays Itself

And since the markets are signaling much more gloom and doom to come, I wanted to make you a special offer today…

I know that everything costs far too much these days…

I see that people are having trouble paying bills on time…

And I want to help.

So, for the first time ever, I’m offering a monthly membership to my investing community.

You won’t have to sign up for a year or two. And you won’t have to pay hundreds of dollars upfront, either.

For less than $10, you can give my analysis and strategies a “test drive” for a full 30 days.

If you’re not satisfied, give me a call and I’ll refund every penny.

If I don’t hear from you, I’ll make sure you’re a member for as long as you want to be.

And I’ll NEVER charge you a penny more than $10 a month.

The instant you sign up for your one-month trial, I’ll also send you a hand-curated list of my top income investments for beating inflation and thriving during recessions.

All you’ve got to do is take me up on my offer and you’ll have access to all of them, plus everything that comes with a membership in The Wealth Advisory community:

• 12 comprehensive issues of The Wealth Advisory. Inside each monthly issue, you'll get a deep dive on at least one brand-new income opportunity.
• Every special report that we've ever issued. Sometimes an opportunity is so profitable that I'll commission an urgent special report to give you the full details as soon as possible.
• Weekly updates. When it comes to your money and your retirement, you'll never be left in the dark. That's why you'll hear from me every week.
• The Wealth Advisory's top 10 most lucrative opportunities. To make it as easy as possible for you to grow your income, I'll send you a list of the top 10 opportunities for the month ahead.

That’s a whole lot for less than $10.

Especially when you can’t even get a month of Netflix or a burrito at Chipotle for that little these days…

So I hope you’ll see the value and take me up on my offer.

To your wealth,

Jason Williams

@TheReal_JayDubs

Angel Research on Youtube

After graduating Cum Laude in finance and economics, Jason designed and analyzed complex projects for the U.S. Army. He made the jump to the private sector as an investment banking analyst at Morgan Stanley, where he eventually led his own team responsible for billions of dollars in daily trading. Jason left Wall Street to found his own investment office and now shares the strategies he used and the network he built with you. Jason is the founder of Main Street Ventures, a pre-IPO investment newsletter; the founder of Future Giants, a nano cap investing service; and authors The Wealth Advisory income stock newsletter. He is also the managing editor of Wealth Daily. To learn more about Jason, click here.

Want to hear more from Jason? Sign up to receive emails directly from him ranging from market commentaries to opportunities that he has his eye on. 

P.S. Keep your eyes out for an email from me later this week. Income generation isn’t the only thing I learned about how to make money during recessions and market crashes. And later this week, I’ll be sharing what I consider the most powerful and most valuable tool I took with me when I left Wall Street. It could literally SAVE your portfolio and change your life…