When I was younger, I spent my investment time looking for stocks with 10% yields. Sometimes those investments worked out very well and sometimes they resulted in me owning stocks that went belly up. My worst offense, however, was thinking that a rising tide lifts all boats. That's just not true when it comes to high-risk stocks and a Wall Street uptrend. High-risk investments are high risk no matter what's going on with stock prices more broadly.

I've owned Realty Income (NYSE: O) twice. The first time I bought it was decades ago at a time when it was sporting a dividend yield of roughly 10%. It was a well-run company then and still is, noting that the yield is less than half that level today and there have been annual dividend increases each year since I bought it that first time.

I actually sold it when the yield dipped down into the 4% range, a decision that I subsequently regretted. One of the reasons for that 10% yield was that real estate investment trusts (REITs) were still a small and misunderstood asset class. That situation has changed over time and resulted in the yield range shifting to a lower level.

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Source Fool.com