Back in the fall of 2007, when the Dow Jones and S&P 500 established new highs, media trucks located outside the New York Stock Exchange were five deep, champagne corks were bursting all around, drinks were on the house at Harry’s and price was no object at the Peter Lugar Steakhouse.

Oh, how times have changed. The Dow has set a string of new highs, and the S&P 500 is within a whisker of doing the same … but this time around, no media trucks.

So what’s the deal? Shouldn’t we all be whooping it up?

Well, this time around doesn’t feel the same. I have neighbors with families that are struggling like never before, and I’m sure you do, too. The “Great Recession” is still very real to millions of Americans, and the new high for the Dow has not just caught a lot of people off guard, it almost seems out of place. Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t think so.

It’s great news that Americans — those who didn’t sell at the 2007 highs and buy at the 2009 lows — are back to the flat line and have regained their once lost wealth. But do you honestly know anyone who didn’t undergo drastic portfolio upheaval in the past five years? I don’t. Let it be known that it’s been a grueling five years trying to get back to the flat line.

With that said, if your portfolio still hasn’t broken even with its pre-recession highs, I have several promising stock picks just for you, all of which pay hefty dividend yields and should get you caught back up in the long run.

• Triangle Capital (NYSE:TCAP), 7.4% Yield: Upward momentum in BDC stocks is increasing with that of the broader financial sector as a whole, and Triangle Capital is one of my favorites. TCAP usually invests between $5 million and $25 million per transaction in companies located throughout the United States with annual revenues between $10 million and $200 million. It is sitting pretty right now at my suggested buy-under price of $29.
• Kayne Anderson Energy Total Return Fund (NYSE:KYE), 6.7% Yield: A hot performer of late is the closed-end fund KYE, which is a collection of the leading energy-related MLPs, offering investors a way to cast a net over the entire sector without having to cherry-pick. The shares rallied smartly off the bottom with the recovery in energy prices and the MLP sector. However, you may want to wait for a pullback to add.
• Mesabi Trust (NYSE:MSB), 9.8% Yield: A pure play on iron ore demand, this stock might be a good way to gain exposure to the China economic recovery. The shares were looking like they might put in an upside breakout, but have since found their way back to the bottom of the range where a wait-and-see policy is best.
• PennyMac Mortgage Investment (NYSE:PMT), 8.9% Yield: Since running higher last year, the shares are now pulling back. PMT still trades at 1.29 times book value, which is rich by my standards, but a trip back to $24 would provide a great entry point.

The current market rally is two-and-a-half months in the making, and by definition is technically overbought and ripe for some sort of consolidation, if even a brief one. When it does, you’ll be able to enter any of these positions at very fair prices.

Even with a short pause, though, the latest round of economic data supports the idea that the market uptrend will be maintained and that further capital flows out of bonds and into equities can be expected.

Bryan Perry is editor of Cash Machine, a newsletter focused on dividends and income investing. As of this writing, he did not own a position in any of the aforementioned securities.