How can a company pay 10 percent when safe yields are 4 percent?

When you see a guaranteed 10% dividend, you have to ask the obvious question, how are they earning it? U.S. Treasuries are yielding about 4%. Anything paying more than double that is only possible if the company is taking outsized, hidden risks. There’s no free lunch in finance, the spread above the risk free rate is the risk you’re absorbing.

@PeterSchiff
actually called this out years ago in a debate with Alex Mashinsky, then the CEO of Celsius. Mashinsky promised sky high yields on Bitcoin deposits, and Schiff pressed him asking “How do you earn yield on Bitcoin? You’ve got to be taking a tremendous amount of risk.” Mashinsky brushed it off as an amazing opportunity. Fast forward and Celsius collapsed, Mashinsky was convicted of fraud, and he’s now serving a prison sentence.

That’s the lesson here. When something dangles a yield that blows past safe benchmarks, it’s leverage, risk, or worse. The market has shown us repeatedly that if the yield looks too good to be true, it usually is.

Sky-high yields are a warning sign, not an opportunity. When companies promise returns far above safe benchmarks, they are exposing investors to hidden risks that can unravel in an instant.

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