Though a bull market ruled from 2009 to 2014, anticipation of a lift-off as early as this month is likely to put a spanner into the ascent. The bet was never so strong before with a procession of Fed official supporting the December timeline this time around. 

Though the latest manufacturing numbers came in at a six-year low or even contracted after three years, we believe a stronger greenback, global growth issues and spending cuts at the energy sector were the main culprits of this debacle; the underlying strength of the U.S. economy was innocent. Other data points, be it job, housing or auto sales, have been pretty decent, giving the Fed a serious thought to policy normalization this month.
 
How Would High Income Investing React? 
 
This makes it more important to take a keen look at high dividend investing. The widespread perception of income investing is that this investing spectrum underperforms in a rising rate environment as the benchmark Treasury bond yields start to soar. As a result, the natural trend over the last one month was to dump high income securities, be it stocks or bonds or alternative assets and the related ETFs (read: Rate Hike Bet Put These Inverse Sector ETFs in Focus).

However, investors should note that dividend investing is still in fine fettle. In fact, 10-year Treasury bonds have seen yields fall consistently since the last 10 days from roughly 2.26% to 2.15% (as of December 1, 2015). The yields jumped just 3 basis points since the start of the year, which seems nothing in the face of a rising rate environment.

Every blow that came from the Fed hit the short end of the yield curve, leading yields on the six-month U.S. Treasury bonds to jump 31 bps to 0.42% since the start of the year. In such a situation, investors can very well bet on the income-producing securities as long-term Treasury yields started backtracking.
Secondly, volatility levels are likely to flare up once the U.S. economy changes the monetary era from a loose to a tight one and some market correction looks inevitable, though for a while. The dividend earned from securities should then make up for the likely capital loss.

Finally, although the Fed is highly expected to turn hawkish in December, it repeatedly asserted that it will opt for a slow rate hike trajectory making dividing investing a not-so-downbeat area in the days to come. Even if the yields rise ahead, investors may look for benchmark Treasury yield beating options that offer decent capital gains in a choppy market.

For them, we highlight three stocks and equity ETFs yielding around 3% or more. These could be interesting plays for investors in the days to come (read: 5 Dividend ETFs for Growth):

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Communications Systems Inc. (JCS)