re: Medical Properties Trust, Inc. (NYSE:MPW)

I missed this thread last fall, but whoa!

Some pretty good lessons here:

Huge dividend yields can often be signs of a value trap - or worse. I didn't see any discussion of yield fundamentals in this thread interrogating whether or not the yield was "true" (i.e. derived solely from investment income) or "false" (i.e. return of the shareholders' own capital, masquerading as a "dividend")

Looks like at least half the float is owned by ETFs. I'm not exactly sure what that tells us, but it strikes me as weird.

What was the debt profile of the REIT - both at the corporate and the property level? I don't see much discussion of such in the thread.

Local knowledge matters. I notice several appeals to "we'll always need medical, even in a recession" type of sentiments. But it's almost always more complicated than that - especially for REITs such as this which, IMO, are usually compiled mostly to attract retail investors with a "story". Thanks to the poster who mentioned the more granular fundamentals he was noticing in the space.

Having said all that - the divvy is up to 26%! What gives with this fricking thing?