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With 10-year Treasury rates still below 3% and money market funds yielding less than 0.5%, capturing significant income from your investments still requires that you take on substantial risk. But with risk can come significant reward. All of the “Best Ideas” below contain recommendations of stocks, MLPs, preferreds or bonds that currently have relatively high yields. For some of the picks, like Cisco and American Eagle Outfitters, there could be some hefty capital appreciation in 2014 as well.

For a round up of all 43 “Best Investment Ideas”, please click here.

John Buckingham

Buy: Ensco PLC (ESV)

Yield: 5.3%

Ensco is the world’s second largest offshore driller. The firm operates across six continents with one of the newest jackup and deepwater fleets in the contract drilling industry. In its last few earnings releases, ESV has shown a relatively impressive ability to keep operating expenses in check and generate solid free cash flow. I believe that the outlook for deepwater drilling remains attractive and Ensco is well positioned to benefit as new builds come online and it realizes favorable contract rollovers.

ESV has a solid balance sheet and future cash use should provide another near-term catalyst, coming in the form of additional rig capacity, debt reduction, share buybacks and dividend increases. On that last point, the driller recently announced a 50% increase in its quarterly dividend (from $0.50 to $0.75). ESV trades for less than 10 times trailing 12-month earnings and for a little more than 8 times the current 2014 consensus earnings estimate, while the shares also boast a better than 5% dividend yield.

Buy: American Eagle Outfitters (AEO)

Yield: 3.3%

American Eagle Outfitters is a retailer of high-quality clothing focused on 15- to 25-year old shoppers. AEO operates more than 1,000 stores in North America and ships to 81 countries worldwide via its Web sites. AEO is down 25% since early August, tumbling after reporting very disappointing second quarter results due to poor product execution in women’s apparel and the need to offer a high level of promotions to drive foot traffic and in early December issuing weak guidance for the fourth quarter.

I believe the shares offer an attractive long-term opportunity, just as they did when I had a previously very lucrative stint with the company from 2000-2008, even as I respect that the teen retailing space is challenging. AEO has overall brand strength, especially in denim, and management is focused on improving product assortment, implementing inventory management enhancements and growing its international presence. Additionally, I am quite smitten with the balance sheet, which sports no debt and $1.75 per share of cash and short-term investments, and 3.3% dividend yield .

Richard Lehmann

Buy: Energy master limited partnerships

Income investors should look to energy related master limited partnerships (MLPs) for income in 2014 and beyond. Such partnerships offer high current income, steady dividend growth, inflation protection and tax deferral to boot. Better yet, they offer long term price appreciation as the domestic energy boom in the U.S. will continue to displace imported oil and gas for years to come.

There are three ways to play this: by direct purchase of MLPs, by buying a closed-end fund specializing in them, and by buying an exchange-traded fund that holds a composite of the industry. For direct purchase, look at the pipeline companies Plains All American LP (PAA, 4.78% yield/10.19% dividend growth) and Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP (KMP, 6.75%/8.45%). Pipelines offer the most reliable dividend because they don’t depend on the price of oil and gas.

To get a broader selection and specialized management look for a closed-end fund such as Kayne Anderson MLP Investment Co (KYN, 6.49%/9.44%) or Fiduciary/Claymore MLP Opportunity Fund (FMO, 6.66%/8.40%). To buy the broadest cross section of this market, the Alerian MLP ETF (AMLP, 6.32%/7.23%) offers a low fee indexed approach which has worked well. No matter which approach you use, an investment in this sector belongs in every portfolio.

John Dobosz

If you’re not a Forbes Dividend Investor subscriber, you are not yet aware of my apparent predilection for regional banks. Of our 196 currently recommended stocks, 25 of them are regional or savings banks—by far the biggest industry group represented among past picks.