BBN News and Press, BlackRock Taxable Municipal Bond Trust of Beneficial Interest From 02/27/21

We regularly write about multi-basket income strategies. They mostly have similar underlying principles but vary in terms of income needs, growth goals, and risk levels. We will go over our thesis as to how a diversified income portfolio with an in-built hedging mechanism with low vol...

In this report, we discuss what's happening in the CEF world in terms of valuations which are nearing the tightest levels of the last five years. Investors have a choice. They can be buy-and-hold investors and ride the wave, focusing on their income streams. Or they can protect ga...

Volatility is the most important consideration in selecting a bond fund. We can gain insight into a bond fund’s return/risk potential by comparing yield to historic volatility. The impact of rising interest rates must be examined before investing in any bond fund. Funds...

The market has pushed higher over the past decade, on the backdrop of low rates, massive stimulus, and growing cash levels among the investor class. While a rising market is generally favorable for the country, the gains have been uneven. Government policies to combat the recession an...

Sixteen out of 23 CEF sectors positive on price and 14 out of 23 sectors positive on NAV last week. MLPs lead while commodities lag. Limited duration is the highest-yielding CEF sector. For further details see: Weekly Closed-End Fund Roundup: January 17, 2021

December was another good month for CEFs with some discount tightening and NAV growth. The Core Portfolio was up over 1% with the NAV up 1.8%. The January Effect could bring discounts to an expensive level if the recent trends continue. At that point we would want to start reducing CE...

I like to add closed-end funds trading at a discount to NAV to my portfolio. The Guggenheim Strategic Opportunities Fund is extremely successful and led by bond guru Scott Minerd. Unfortunately it trades at a 20% premium. I like its portfolio a lot better compared to the last ...

2020 year-end review of our 8% Income Portfolio. This high-income portfolio has been through a pretty rough patch in the year 2020, but it's mostly back on its feet. The portfolio has been meeting its income goals handily but has not kept up in total returns this past year. We...

Taxable munis still offer relative value, in terms of income, compared to corporate bonds of similar credit ratings. If investors anticipate additional stimulus in 2021, muni bonds should get a boost in the new year. Despite these tailwinds, there are a few reasons to be cautious ...

November was one of the best months for markets in general and that includes CEFs, which rallied hard. Our Core Portfolio was up 7.2% in the month. Discounts have tightened materially in the last month but still remain much wider than at the start of the year. We describe why we t...