The NAVigator, from the Active Investment Company Alliance (AICA), talks all-weather investing and “excellence beyond indexing” through the use of closed-end funds (CEFs) & business-development companies (BDCs). It will help listeners plot a new and different course to financial success, via the tactical use of securities that mix active management within listed & non-listed structures. Subscribe now to get regular updates on everything you need to know to succeed with CEFs & BDCs.
Kevin Mahn, President and Chief Investment Officer at Hennion & Walsh Asset Management — which runs the Smart Trust Unit Investment Trusts — says that he expects the Federal Reserve to cut rates over the next two years, which will drive investors to turn for income alternatives "since they can't find the 5 percent in the short-term CDs any more." That will drive investors toward business development companies and leveraged municipal closed-end funds, the latter benefitting from a reduced cost of leverage in a declining rate environment, as rates drive down. Mahn talks about using unit investment trusts — and specifically covers his firms UITs that invest in BDCs and closed-end funds — in current conditions, and talks about how the UIT structure can be a benefit for investors now.
12/6/24 • 14:23
The day after Thanksgiving is all about shopping at the biggest possible discounts, and John Cole Scott of Closed-End Fund Advisors puts a closed-end fund spin on it for the third straight year, culling through funds the way bargain shoppers look for the best deals. Scott — Chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance — identifies three different closed-end funds and one business development company that, based on his firm's data, are particularly good bargains entering the holiday and tax-loss selling seasons.
11/29/24 • 12:02
The NAVigator this week offers a taste of the action from the Active Investment Company Alliance's 2024 Fall Roundtable, which was held on November 13 in New York City. Individual investor Jim Cohen discusses how consumers in closed-end funds are caught between activist "whales" and fund sponsors, wanting to hold funds to account to narrow discounts and improve management, but sometimes coming away with lesser results. Axel Merk, President and Chief Investment Officer at Merk Investments — manager of ASA Gold and Precious Metals Limited — discusses why gold has worked better as a geopolitical hedge but has been less successful as an inflation hedge. He adds that precious metals perform better in higher-rate environments, and he doesn't think the current round of rate cuts will go so far as to pose a problem for gold in the medium term.
11/22/24 • 27:29
Josh Duitz, Portfolio Manager for the Aberdeen Global Infrastructure Fund, took a break from the program at the Active Investment Company's Fall Roundtable in New York this week to discuss the state of infrastructure investing now that the presidential election has been decided and the policies of the second Trump Administration are becoming more clear. Duitz says that deregulation and lower corporate taxes will help certain freight, for example, balancing out initial concerns about how tariffs might impact demand. He also notes digs into renewable energy — which critics have said they expect the Trump Administration to hurt — noting that he expects demand to keep it rolling, with some of that demand also coming from the nation's increasing reliance on artificial intelligence.
11/15/24 • 12:17
Jared Hagen, Vice President at XA Investments, discusses this year's unprecedented growth in interval and tender-offer funds and how the number of funds in registration guarantees the trend will continue through 2025. Hagen talks about why the investment community has taken a shine to interval funds and covers how the expansion into the space has included some unique partnerships, with firms like KKR and Capital Group pairing up to bring new products to market.
11/8/24 • 12:37
John Cole Scott, President of Closed-End Fund Advisors and Chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance, digs into his firm's data to break down a great three-month stretch for closed-end funds and business development companies. He says it was a period in which discounts narrowed dramatically and changed the opportunity set without it becoming overvalued or unattractive.
11/1/24 • 12:04
Jonathan Browne, Senior Investment Analyst at RiverNorth Capital Management — and Portfolio Manager on five of the firm's municipal bond closed-end fund-of-funds — says that the headwinds that made for big struggles in the muni bond space have shifted to become tailwinds, creating opportunity despite the strong recent rebound among muni bond funds. Browne says that the rising-rate cycle had led to discounts reaching the 12 to 15 percent range — a level previously only reached during financial crises — making munis about as cheap as they had ever been. Now, even after a run of more than 30 percent, muni closed-end funds are at the 70th percentile of cheapness, with "quite a bit of room to run."
10/25/24 • 12:25
Dana Staggs, President of Arrowmark Financial Corp., talks about how regulatory capital relief securities — bank-generated floating-rate notes that are currently producing yields of up to 15 percent — can function as an alternative investment. He notes that due to their emergence during the financial crisis of 2008, regulatory capital relief securities can also function efficiently in low-rate environments. Staggs says he believes the economy has "a lot of room to absorb continued declines in interest rates," and that banks are relatively healthy right now. However, he notes that concerns over potential troubles in commercial real estate can't be ignored.
10/18/24 • 11:54
John Cole Scott, President of Closed-End Fund Advisors and the Chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance, discusses interval funds and digs into the data on four funds that use the structure to create promising investment opportunities for investors. Plus, learn about the NAVigator Podcast's first-ever contest, in celebration of its fifth anniversary!
10/11/24 • 14:23
Sean Feeley, part of the U.S. High Yield Investment Group at Barings, says he believes that with the bulk of interest rate adjustments happening at the short end of the yield curve, a wave of refinancing of shorter-term debt is coming, and that this typically makes high-yield investments look more attractive. Feeley expects the economy to avoid a recession, with strong balance sheets contributing to a soft landing situation that plays out into 2025.
10/4/24 • 11:28
John Cole Scott, President of Closed-End Fund Advisors and Chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance, looks ahead to the fourth quarter on today's podcast. He discusses two equity and two fixed-income funds that hit his trifecta — an analytical mix of discount, dividend, and net asset value — and that he says look particularly promising for year-end portfolio moves.
9/27/24 • 12:03
Miguel Laranjeiro, Investment Director at abrdn, says we are seeing "the beginning of a robust in-flow cycle into the muni space," noting that credit spreads and all-in yields are attractive and that the value of the tax exemption will particularly pay off now. He says he expects the Federal Reserve's long-awaited rate cuts will end the longest yield curve inversion ever for municipal bonds. Once the yield curve has normalized, Laranjeiro expects leverage costs to become a positive for the total return of levered muni funds, creating an additional impetus for investors.
9/20/24 • 10:10
Mitchel Penn, Managing Director of Equity Research at Oppenheimer and Co., says that while business development companies (BDCs) have struggled this year, they are positioned well to ride out the changing interest rate cycle. He says that when the Federal Reserve starts cutting interest rates, he expects BDCs to see higher fee income, though some of that could be offset by a higher level of defaults. However, he notes that because those defaults are a hangover from high-rate conditions, they have already been priced into many portfolios, creating a cushion against potential credit losses. Penn also discusses the kinds of BDCs that balance out the current risks and that historically have generated high returns on equity with low credit losses, naming several BDCs that fit that description.
9/13/24 • 11:07
John Cole Scott, President of Closed-End Fund Advisors and Chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance, discusses how investors in funds trading at premiums can use sector swapping to turbocharge their gains. He describes a process where an investor sells out of funds trading at premiums and purchases similar funds trading at discounts, locking in profits and expanding the buying power of their money. He cites examples of how making swaps — even within the same fund family — could deliver instant advantages.
9/9/24 • 12:13
John Cole Scott, president of Closed-End Fund Advisors and Chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance, explains how closed-end funds have responded historically to corporate actions like tender offers, liquidations, transitions to open-end funds, rights offerings, and big changes in dividend policy. He notes that understanding how those events play out gives investors a guideline on what to look for and how to act if they see those same actions in the funds they own.
8/30/24 • 13:15
Maury Fertig, Chief Investment Officer at Relative Value Partners, discusses how the changing interest rate picture is impacting considerations on the closed-end funds he is considering for client portfolios — and which areas of the closed-end fund universe look particularly attractive now. He also talks about how a number of BlackRock funds are performing in the wake of a recent tender offer.
8/26/24 • 18:54
Chris Oberbeck, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Saratoga Investment Corp., says that private credit — which has been on the rise for several years — is being challenged by a cooling market for mergers and acquisition activity. That has put pricing pressure on managers, which should ease a bit as rates come down and mergers and financing deals become easier to do.
8/23/24 • 12:36
Aaron Filbeck, Managing Director of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Association (CAIA), discusses interval funds, their evolution, fee structures, and potential. He also responds to recent media coverage that has been critical of them as investment vehicles, including a recent Wall Street Journal article on how interval fund fees "will leave you high and dry."
8/16/24 • 13:10
Kimberly Flynn, Managing Director of Alternative Investments at XA Investments, discusses the state of interval funds, which have been growing rapidly and expanding their asset reach. It's not just the 50-plus funds on file and the entry of big players and new investment ideas, but also the recent rise in media interest. In the interview, Flynn responds to a recent Wall Street Journal article critical of interval funds and their fee structure.
8/9/24 • 13:56
Duncan Farley, Portfolio Manager on the Developed Markets Special Situations team at RBC BlueBay Asset Management — manager of the BlueBay Destra International Event-Driven Credit Fund — says corporations that have been "dining out on cheap finance" now have indigestion because their debt levels, leverage, and costs have gone up, so "the math doesn't work." As a result, he's expecting trouble for corporate paper globally, with a sharp rise in default rates, though he notes that creates opportunities for special situations investors.
8/2/24 • 13:17
John Cole Scott, President of Closed-End Fund Advisors and Chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance, provides an update on what's been happening with closed-end funds throughout the first half of 2024. He notes that discounts narrowed almost across the board, but yields increased, resulting in positive returns for most asset classes.
7/26/24 • 13:43
Jason Akus, Senior Investment Director and Head of Healthcare Investing at abrdn and manager of the firm’s four closed-end funds covering biotech and healthcare, says that the stock market appears to be broadening out and that healthcare and biotech are both likely to be beneficiaries. Healthcare stocks have generally lagged the stock market since the start of 2023, but with the Standard & Poor's Health Care index up 11 percent in 2024 — respectable but still trailing the broader S&P 500 by about seven percentage points — there are strong signs of recovery. As the catch-up trade materializes, Akus believes there will be no shortage of potential opportunities ready to benefit even if the economy begins to slow.
7/19/24 • 12:08
Mark Gatto, Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of CION Investment Group — which manages the business development company CION Investment Corp. — discusses the heavy interest and cash flow into BDCs and how that is changing the space and making it important for investors and advisers to "pull back the layers to understand what they are investing in." Gatto advises paying particular attention to the deals and credit quality a BDC engages in. He also says that the biggest players in BDCs are becoming "very homogeneous" and avoiding differentiation when they get very large. However, Gatto says that situation also creates opportunities for investors who want to diversify their BDC holdings by investing in middle-market deals, where smaller BDCs can be more nimble and offer different exposure.
7/12/24 • 13:22
John Cole Scott, President of Closed-End Fund Advisors and Chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance, compares two high-yielding offerings from Ares, breaking down the Ares Dynamic Credit Allocation (ARDC) fund and the CION Ares Diversified Credit I (CADUX) fund. He shows that while both could be viable and attractive options for investors diversifying a portfolio into the alternative credit space, there's much more to picking between them than big yields, reasonable expense ratios, discounts, and recent results.
7/5/24 • 12:41
John Cole Scott, President of Closed-End Fund Advisors and Chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance, shares takeaways from a recent industry conference focused on business development companies (BDCs). He talks about how BDCs compare to private credit funds, how the market is changing, and how some money managers are using artificial intelligence to get better information on market trends that could help them pick better investments or improve timing on the trades they make.
6/28/24 • 11:50
Roxanna Islam, Head of Sector and Industry Research at VettaFi, discusses the benefits and flaws of applying rules-based investing to closed-end funds. She notes that changes in the industry have forced changes on a rules-guided index of closed-end funds created by VettaFi, and how that is impacting the holdings and asset allocation of the fund-of-funds that some investors are using instead of building their own portfolio of individual closed-end strategies.
6/21/24 • 09:24
Rob Shaker, Portfolio Manager at Shaker Financial Services, says that economic conditions — the debt-ceiling debate, troubled banks, higher interest rates and persistent inflation — have created a situation where the market isn’t climbing the proverbial wall of worry, but rather a ‘Wall of Meh.’ However, he adds that there is opportunity in the unimpressive current conditions, noting that long-term investors in closed-end funds can use lagging investor sentiment to capture discounts as early as the second half of this year, when he expects a ‘generalized recovery’ from today’s worrisome issues.
6/14/24 • 11:41
Dave Lamb, Head of Closed-End Funds at Nuveen, says there is a "much more aggressive form of activism today than what we saw years ago," and notes that it's driven entirely by discount-arbitrage opportunities rather than whether a fund is underperforming due to management decision-making. With discounts at wide levels — particularly for fixed-income funds — sponsors like Nuveen are taking more steps to cut the gap and reduce their funds' attractiveness to activists. Lamb discusses Nuveen's strategies, which he says are largely focused on enhanced distribution tactics, trying to drive demand, and narrow the discount. Nuveen recently announced plans to increase distributions on more than two dozen funds.
6/7/24 • 13:23
John Cole Scott, President of Closed-End Fund Advisors and Chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance, talks about the good and bad in recent industry developments. For example, Scott discusses how fund sponsors are taking steps to keep a lid on discounts, potentially reducing a fund's attractiveness to activist investors. He also highlights the trend towards managed payouts and how investors should size up distributions that might be connected more to marketing materials than to what a fund can actually deliver.
5/31/24 • 13:31
Stephen Minar, Managing Director and Head of Closed-End Funds at BlackRock, discusses a contemporary conundrum in the closed-end fund industry: How discounts drive money flows into closed-end funds but also attract activist investors whose actions may be harmful to long-term individual investors. To address this, Minar notes that BlackRock has launched initiatives in a series of new funds that can reduce discounts, thereby making a fund less likely to attract activists, while increasing consistency in distributions.
5/24/24 • 12:52
