The Month In Closed-End Funds: February 2018
Summary
- For the first month in six, equity closed-end funds (CEFs) witnessed a negative return on average, declining 4.65% on a net-asset-value (NAV) basis for February.
- For the second month in a row, their fixed income CEF counterparts posted a negative return, losing 0.61% on average for the month.
- For February, only 14% of all CEFs traded at a premium to their NAV, with 18% of equity CEFs and 11% of fixed income CEFs trading in premium territory.
- Loan Participation CEFs (+0.02%) posted the only plus-side return of all the CEF classifications.
- Convertible Securities CEFs (-1.82%) jumped to the top of the equity charts for the first month in 34.
For the month, only 8% of all CEFs posted NAV-based returns in the black, with 3% of equity CEFs and 12% of fixed income CEFs chalking up returns in the plus column. A move to less risky assets helped related CEF classifications mitigate losses better than other classifications for February. Convertible Securities CEFs (-1.82%) jumped to the top of the equity charts for the first month in 34. For the first month in 15, domestic taxable bond CEFs posted a negative return on average (-0.52%), mitigating losses better than their world income CEFs (-1.44%) and municipal bond CEFs (-0.58%) counterparts. In this report, we highlight February 2018 CEF performance trends, premiums and discounts, and corporate actions and events.
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