BIT News and Press, BlackRock Multi-Sector Income Trust of Beneficial Interest From 02/08/21

Floating rate ("loan") securities have been out of favor for more than a year as investors saw interest rates plummet. The loan market looks very compelling relative to high-yield fixed coupon bonds. The avg. price is below par vs. a premium to par for bonds. In addition, we captu...

At WisdomTree, we think there is a unique opportunity presented in developed markets-one best accessed through a quality- and dividend growth-focused framework. In 2015, we launched the WisdomTree International Hedged Quality Dividend Growth Fund (IHDG), which seeks to track the Wisdo...

Stocks in emerging markets continued to lead the major asset classes in January as the top monthly performer. Emerging markets shares have been up for four straight months, pushing this slice of the world's equities to a wide one-year lead of nearly 28%. US stocks are posting the ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a lot of uncertainties surrounding the fair market valuation of level 3 type of assets. BIT has announced that it will allocate 65% of the monthly distribution in January 2021 as a return of capital. The worsening of the global pandemic with the n...

Despite suffering steeper losses in the March panic and again in the September/October correction, the Russell 1000 finished 2020 with a threefold lead over its global peers (up 21% versus 6.8%, respectively). As was the case globally, P/E multiple expansion, rather than dividend or f...

Many investors like the concept of an annuity but hate the word "annuity" liking it to a four-letter word. The portfolio provides a monthly income stream that is better than what traditional annuities pay and yields about 8%. The investor can apply as little or as much maintenance...

Asset valuations, in themselves, cannot tell us when bubbles will burst, but they suggest when we are witnessing them and the depth of liquidation coming on the other side. Today, equities, corporate and many sovereign bonds (and the funds and ETFs that hold them) are more extremely p...

A recent question from a reader presents a good "teaching moment" for evaluating closed-end fund distributions, especially the sustainability of the payout in relation to the fund's underlying earnings. We compare MIN's total return over the past 5-10 years to see whether it supports ...

Seeking "Alpha" means trying to do better than average (i.e. better than "Beta"); a worthy objective that, not surprisingly, less than half of all investors actually achieve. The more aggressively an investor attempts to achieve Alpha, the more they usually end up holding lower-yieldi...

We analyze performance trends in closed-end-funds this year along with themes by asset classes. Equity funds with concentrated exposure to Technology and Healthcare are among the biggest winners this year. Energy focused funds have underperformed given the weaker pricing environme...