First Quarter Equity CEF Performances And Review

By Douglas Albo: It's been a good year so far for equity based high yielding Closed-End funds (CEFs). Roughly half of the funds I follow have outperformed the S&P 500 on a market price basis though only a handful have actually outperformed on a Net Asset Value (NAV) basis. Still, there are funds that present good opportunities for investors and others that investors should take advantage of the run up and sell.

By Douglas Albo: 2011 will go down as a difficult year for many high-yielding, equity-based closed-end funds (CEFs), as most funds either saw their discounts widen or their premiums reduced. In fact, this year has made little sense in regards to market price action, as many funds with outperforming NAVs have seen their market prices drop to their widest discounts since the bear market in 2008, while some have continued to trade at lofty premiums even with underperforming NAVs.

By Douglas Albo: About four months ago on June 7th, I wrote an article called "The High Cost of High Distributions" in which I showed how ultra high yielding equity based closed-end funds (CEFs) which had overly high net asset value (NAV) yields of 12% or higher were, in fact, yield traps for investors and the end result was far in

By Douglas Albo: The following tables include year-to-date (YTD) and four-year NAV and market price performances for most of the equity based high yielding Closed-End funds (CEFs) available to investors, where "equity based" is defined as having at least 50% of a fund's portfolio invested in U.S. based or global stocks while "high yielding" is defined as a fund having at least a 6% annualized distribution.

Street One Financial submits: by Paul Weisbruch No, the title of this article is not the contents of an errant text message from a cell phone of a thirteen year old, but instead it’s actually a headline from last Friday’s market action. Invesco PowerShares debuted PCEF, the CEF Income Composite Portfolio, which based on our experiences and conversations with investment advisors, we believe will gain traction quickly as unique in its class.

By Douglas Albo: This is the second of a two part series reviewing the Allianz/PIMCO equity based high yielding Closed-End funds (CEFs).

By Douglas Albo: This is the second in a two part series reviewing the high-yielding equity-based Closed-End fund (CEF) market. In Part I, I reviewed 2011 and went over my Buy and Sell recommendations from earlier in the year to give readers some background of where we've been and how my picks performed.

By Douglas Albo: In early 2010, I wrote an article titled "CEFs: Follow The NAV" in which I advised income investors in high-yielding equity-based Closed-End funds (CEFs) that if they wanted to find the best funds to invest in, they should pay close attention to the direction of a fund's Net Asset Value (NAV).