The last few months have seen extreme moves in asset prices. This kind of outsized market volatility has underlined the fragility of certain asset classes and investment vehicles. In this article, we compare the behavior of common and preferred shares of leveraged equity CEFs, using the Gabelli Utility Trust (GUT) as a case study.
Our main takeaway is that investors should be careful about owning highly volatile assets in leveraged CEF wrappers. This is because of the likelihood of CEF deleveraging during periods of sharp drowns, potentially locking in permanent capital loss to