The NAVigator

Christian Munafo, chief investment officer at Liberty Street Advisors -- which runs the Private Shares Fund -- says that the perceived higher risks in challening environemnts like the one we are facing today often lead to attractive opportunities and oversized future gains, which makes current conditions attractive for private equity and venture capital investing. Munafo notes that private markets are more stable than their public counterparts, but signs of improvement are there now, leading him to believe the asset class will see better relative performance moving forward.

Scott Caraher, head of senior loans at Nuveen -- manager of the Nuveen Floating Rate Income fund -- says that the higher-than-expected increase in rates that has driven up borrowing costs has made credit selection 'more important today than it has ever been.' He notes that lower-rated companies can't sustain high levels of interest payments for long levels of time. As a result, Caraher says he is underweight the lower-quality part of the market, wary of a pick-up in default rates; the flip side of the situation is an opportunity to overweight better-quality companies which are generating superior returns now and which will be more stable and solid whenever the Fed starts cutting rates int he future.

Chris Oberbeck, chairman and chief executive at Saratoga Investment Corp., says that the balance of power in the lender-borrower relationship has shifted dramatically in the last 12 to 24 months, with banks now pulling back which is leaving private lenders with better terms and more power to insist on superior deals. Oberbeck notes that those conditions are putting BDCs generally -- but Saratoga specifically, thanks to an all-weather portfolio of loans -- in a better position to minimize any damage that might be done if the economy goes through a recession.

Josh Duitz, head of global income at Abrdn -- manager of the Aberdeen Global Infrastructure Income Fund -- says that private infrastructure investments have attracted so much money that valuations have gotten off-kilter, creating an 'illiquidity premium' that 'makes no sense.' Duitz explains that publicly listed companies should have higher valuations -- because investors value the liquidity and ability to trade them easily -- meaning that current conditions are making public infrastructure investments particularly attractive right now. Duitz -- who says that politics isn't likely to impact infrastructure as much as headlines suggest -- makes a broad case for infrastructure investing now, but particularly likes the renewable space.

Eric Boughton, chief analyst at Matisse Capital and portfolio manager for the Matisse Discounted Closed-End Fund Strategy, says that while the stock market has roared this year, things haven't changed much with the closed-end fund space this year, meaning there are plenty of highly discounted issues, particularly in muni bonds and some other fixed-income spaces, as well as international funds. He notes that many closed-funds that were good deals based on discounts a year ago haven't narrowed those bargains but now deliver improved yields, which is why he is buying certain issues now 'hand over fist.'

Mark Asaro, director of investments at Noble Wealth Management, says investors should not think that a traditional open-end mutual fund is a good replacement for individual bonds. Without a maturity date, bond funds don't have the pull toward par of an individual bond. Closed-end funds, however, are immune to dilution from cash flows into the fund, thereby providing a stable yield that investors can bank on, making them a better portfolio mix with individual bonds. Asaro notes that closed-end bond funds work best when the yield curve is upward sloping -- as opposed to today's heavy inversion -- but notes that there are selective opportunities looking strong now, notably in funds which buy municipal bonds.

Kenneth Burdon, an attorney in the investment management group at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom says that rules proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission that would dramatically change liquidity requirements on traditional mutual funds could result in a boom for interval funds. While noting that the proposals still have a ways to go before approval, Burdon says that they would, if passed, make it so that many bank loans and other 'less liquid securities,' couldn't be held in traditional funds. Some funds may convert to closed-end status, he says, while other firms will plan more interval offerings if the rule passes.

Kimberly Flynn, managing director of alternative investments at XA Investments, says that demand for alternative investments as a means of adding diversification to a portfolio has spurred tremendous growth in interval funds, whose limited liquidity makes them an ideal vehicle for many types of less-liquid securities. Flynn notes that there are 190 interval- and tender-offer funds in existence today, but that 27 new funds are in registration, many from companies just entering the interval-fund space. Flynn says it's still very early -- 'maybe the second inning' -- in the current interval-fund growth cycle, which will force investors and advisers to do heightened due diligence to make sure the new issues can perform up to expectations.

John Cole Scott, president of Closed-End Fund Advisors, discusses what he is seeing in the market now by delving into four of the investments he is using the most and weighing heavily in client portfolios. He notes that the recent bank collapses actually made a few of his favorites more attractive -- because the market got angry at the financial sectors, driving prices down -- but he also explains that his favorites have more going for them than just a big discount.

Mickey Schleien, managing director for equity research at Ladenburg Thalmann and Co, says that business-development companies have seen the rising interest-rate environment lead to higher yields, which has helped to offset declines in net asset value that BDCs have suffered as a result of the Federal Reserve's tightening monetary policy. He says that middle market companies have seen revenues and earnings grow about 11 percent at the start of this year, without endangering their distribution or suffering through a lot of defaults. Schleien says that BDCs have managed credit trends well enough to now represent an attractive opportunity even as the economy heads toward a recession and despite the sector broadly being fully valued.

Chris Marangi, co-chief investment officer for value at the Gabelli Funds, says 'the new normal' is one where inflation is higher than the Federal Reserve's target of 2 percent and growth is below trend, but it is creating an opportunity for active management to shine to find the opportunities that exist beyond the seven stocks that have been carrying the market to gains this year. He particularly likes the live-entertainment and sports-related businesses, and dislikes the path for banks where higher interest rates and a potential recession are pressuring balance sheets and the fallout from the spring's headline-making bank collapses is not yet played out.

Doug Baker, head of preferred securities at Nuveen, says that while it is relatively common now to find preferreds with yields above 7 percent, the real opportunity for investors at the moment comes from looking beyond the yield. He says that preferred prices right now are at 'meaningful discounts' that are uncommon in the preferred industry, creating attractive entry points, particularly on preferreds with adjustable coupon rates. He also discusses how the banking crisis, interest rate environment and inflation picture are impacting the preferred market now.

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,' and says 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.

Duncan Farley, portfolio manager at BlueBay Asset Management -- which runs the BlueBay Destra International Event-Driven Credit Fund -- discusses how his fund produced a 20-plus percent gain during one of the worst years ever for the bond market, and how the fund can avoid regression to the mean thanks to market conditions -- buoyed by the changing interest rate environment -- that if properly managed have the potential to keep delivering double-digit returns.

Matt Freund, co-chief investment officer/head of fixed-income strategies at Calamos Investments, says he expects interest rates to settle in and remain stable for quite a while before trending down; he expects more volatility in longer-term bonds, which will make it harder for investors to get comfortable lengthening duration ahead of rate cuts that, under good circumstances, should arrive in 2024. Freund also discusses the private credit market, and Calamos' new closed-end interval fund, the Calamos Aksia Alternative Credit and Income Fund (ticker CAPIX), which just opened this week.

Jim Baker, managing partner and co-head of energy infrastructure at Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, says that the energy transition -- the push away from traditional fossil fuels towards renewable sources -- will take decades, creating a long-term megatrend in the energy business. With the last few years of global turmoil highlighting the critical nature of energy and the importance of keeping supply levels appropriate, energy infrastructure companies are wide-moat businesses that should ride out any economic downturn comparatively smoothly while generating consistent income for investors.

Christian Munafo, chief investment officer, in Liberty Street Advisors, which runs the Private Shares Fund, says there are two stories dominating the private equity markets, with high-performing well-financed private innovation companies being proverbial unicorns compared to less- differentiated, less-capitalized companies which are more prone than ever to failure due to conditions in the capital markets. Rising rates have resulted in more opportunities coming to market, but have also made it harder for many firms to find the financing they need at reasonable levels.

Host Chuck Jaffe attended this week's Morningstar Investment Conference in Chicago and took the podcast with him, catching up with 'Super Mario' -- investment legend Mario Gabelli, founder of the Gabelli Funds, a long-tenured fan of closed-end funds, who discusses the pros and cons of the closed-end structure, especially as it relates to the Gabelli Equity Trust and the 10 percent payout he has made a cornerstone of the fund's investment policy.

Roxanna Islam, associate director of research at VettaFi, says that exchange-traded funds that invest in closed-end funds give investors diversified portfolios -- and all the benefits of investing deeply in the closed-end space -- in a one-stop shopping wrapper. Islam says that investors worry about high fees in ETFs of closed-end funds, noting that CEFs tend to have higher expense ratios on their own, and the added layer of costs for the ETF sponsor can feel heavy, but she notes that fund sponsors recognize the issue and tend to keep the additional costs low. Meanwhile, ETFs covering nearly all style boxes and assets of the closed-end universe can provide diversification and professional management, and she provides examples of ETFs for listeners to consider.

Jonathan Mondillo, head of North American fixed income for abrdn says that 2023 has been a year of wild moves in the municipal bond market, performing well in January before selling off in one of the worst months of February ever, setting up a March rebound until the banking crisis hit. Most of those movements have been driven by macro headlines, and Mondillo says that investors want to drill down moving forward, focusing on finding credits that can outperform in a market that is likely to slow down, and ignoring the big-picture pressures that are driving the broad trend in the space.

John Cole Scott, president of Closed-End Fund Advisors, discusses how and why investors might pursue private equity and debt using closed-end funds, noting that expansion of the industry and changes in structure adding share classes have made private, alternative investments much more accessible for investors. Scott -- who also is chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance -- He says the growth in tender-offer and interval funds is giving investors access to strategies they can't get anywhere else in the regulated-investment world in a form that is more liquid and affordable than investing in hedge funds. He includes two of his favorite funds in the space for investors to consider now.

Cheryl Pate, senior portfolio manager at Angel Oak Capital -- co-manager of the Angel Oak Financial Strategies Income Term Trust -- says that current problems in the banking sector are setting up a recovery, noting that 'opportunities like this are fairly rare, probably a once-in-a-decade opportunity for the banking space,' with the biggest opportunities being on the debt side as spreads start to normalize under the rules and conditions. Pate says investors have good reason to believe that discounts for bank-oriented closed-end funds are likely to narrow as sentiment improves for the sector, with debt benefitting from a consolidation cycle in the industry while the equity benefits from renewed confidence and better positioning for the future.

Steve O'Neill, portfolio manager at RiverNorth, says the average municipal-bond closed-end fund has a discount of 10.5 percent, which over the last 25 years would be in 'the 99th percentile of cheapness.' While O'Neill makes the case for buying muni bonds, he says the case for closed-end funds is largely because of the discounts being oversized, noting that the rest of the fixed-income market has not seen discounts get that big. O'Neill notes that if interest rates are peaking, the turning of the trend should help closed-end funds -- and particularly muni funds -- narrow the discount and generate bigger gains moving forward.

Bryce Doty, senior portfolio manager at Sit Investment Associates says that the problem at the heart of the current banking crisis is not a default problem, but rather is a logical outcome from how quickly the Federal Reserve raised interest rates. He expects it to keep impacting the value of fixed-income securities until things stabilize; that, in turn, will create more opportunities for closed-end fund investors who should benefit from good yields now and additional returns when widening discounts narrow once the banking industry and investors are less worried about insolvency.

John Cole Scott, president of Closed-End Fund Advisors says that -- despite a rough outing for business development companies this week -- BDCs have had a strong quarter from a total return perspective, and that prospects remain strong as BDCs have been raising their distributions but the dividend-coverage percentages have remained roughly steady, a sign that they're not only positioned well now but that they are ready to deal with rising interest rates and inflation. Scott, who is also chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance, compares two BDCs -- one trading at a premium, the other at a discount -- and discusses how there is room for both in a portfolio despite the different way they are viewed by the market.

Jay Rhame, chief executive officer at Reaves Asset Management -- president of the Reaves Utility Income Fund -- says that the dividend-growth potential for utility companies makes them a viable investment option in today's high interest-rate high inflation market. While those conditions typically are not ideal for utilities, Rhame says utility stocks are reasonably valued; he also discusses infrastructure stocks, again pointing out that their consistent dividend-paying strategy and potential to grow dividends makes them attractive in a market where yields on fixed-income have improved.

Steven Perry, vice president at XA Investments -- where he oversees product management on the XAI Octagon Floating Rate and Alternative Income Trust, -- discusses the benefits and risks associated with leverage in closed-end funds during a rising-rate environment, noting that for the closed-end fund market at the end of 2022, the levered market yield on net asset value was about 7.8 percent, compared to 6.4 percent on unlevered yield. Perry says it is important to watch how managers respond to what the Federal Reserve is doing, noting that managers who don't 'get creative with how the leverage is going to be structured might miss out on opportunities.'

Will Rhind, chief executive officer at GraniteShares -- which runs the GraniteShares US High Income ETF -- says that it appears to him that inflation has peaked and that interest rates are more stable, which has created a more favorable outlook for business-development companies and closed-end funds. Rhind notes that with economic conditions improving, the prospects for the businesses that are funded by BDCs has become more stable; he also cited the dollar's peak against foreign currencies as improving the prospects for emerging-markets closed-end funds.

Michael Beth, director of trading at WallachBeth Capital, says that for all of the growth in the closed-end fund space, the amount of trading done each day is relatively small compared to other investment vehicles, which creates challenges for investors to get efficient execution on trades. Beth notes that conditions can make it so that an investor trying to buy a fund at a 10 percent discount could see as much as one-tenth of that benefit wiped out if 'the implicit cost of execution' meets with poor execution.

John Cole Scott, president of Closed-End Fund Advisors and the chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance, returns to The NAVigator to discuss how closed-end funds responded to the year-end rally and then the sharply bullish January, examining which sectors and fund types came out ahead and where the opportunities appear to lie now. He's got details -- and fund picks -- across various sectors and asset classes on where to look for continued growth and income as the rally continues to take shape and play out.

Eric Purington, portfolio manager and infrastructure specialist at abrdn, says that middle-market private investments are a path to profitability and outperformance now due to a supply-demand imbalance that has large-cap operators -- working with an 'ocean of capital' looking to do more acquisitions and pay a premium for them. Purington, who is responsible for private-market investments for the abrdn Global Infrastructure Income Fund, says that while infrastructure provides services and assets for the community and predictable cash flows for investors, the premiums being paid for middle-market assets could generate roughly '200 basis points of outsized returns' moving forward.

Nate Jones, head of fund finance and Treasury at Nuveen, says that conditions and 'market nuances' from late in 2022 have carried into the new year, noting that the yield curve for municipal bonds is sloping upward even more than the plot on taxable bonds, which is creating opportunities for investors to benefit from using leverage to make closed-end muni returns attractive now. Jones also explains the December supply-demand imbalance in muni bonds, and why it might reoccur come tax time, and discusses how rising rates have raised default concerns but haven't led to a significant increase in bond failures.

Axel Merk, chief investment officer of the ASA Gold and Precious Metals fund, says that the market is pricing in a recession and the start of rate cuts down the road, and the gold market is already reacting because it tends to lead in these cycles. Merk makes the case for owning both precious metals and the mining companies now, though he notes their different risk profile and uses; he points out that both are being embraced now because the miners would be lumped in with all equities and poised for a takeoff if a recession is shallow, while the metal will be a diversifier in the event that a downturn is more severe and protracted.

Cheryl Pate, senior portfolio manager for Angel Oak Capital -- manager of the Angel Oak Financial Strategies Income Term Trust -- says that it's late in the cycle for rate hikes, mid-cycle for banks in terms of margin expansion and early in the cycle for credit, and she noted that the financial services sector typically goes through a profit-margin expansion that's a 'lagged benefit' that should show up early in the year when the rate hikes stop. She expects that benefit to show up late in the year or into 2024, but she says fundamentals -- including credit quality and default risk -- will be moving in the right direction and that financial services companies will experience the benefits they historically get from operating in high-rate conditions.

John Cole Scott, chief investment officer at Closed-End Fund Advisors -- the chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance -- says that investors looking for the top sector bets in the new year will want to look at some of 2022's weakest areas, most notably real estate investment trusts 'REITs' and real assets. He also expects international bonds and more to be in the sweet spot. Scott gave his look-ahead for the closed-end fund industry for 2023, and it's a year when he suggests investors take more duration risk, tilt their equity portfolios toward value, dividend and international funds and expect to see discounts narrow and yields to fall, though the latter will be driven by some capital appreciation later in the year as the economy and market continue to digest inflation and more.

John Cole Scott, chief investment officer at Closed-End Fund Advisors -- the chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance -- takes a look back at the challenging times experienced by the closed-end fund industry this year, noting that all the news wasn't bad despite slower-than-expected growth for the industry and bigger-than-anticipated losses on the market. His basket of five funds for 2022 came out ahead of the market and, like many parts of the industry, is poised to rebound in the new year.

Stacey Morris, head of energy research at VettaFi -- part of the team involved in the Alerian Energy Infrastructure Index suite -- says that energy markets are likely to remain tight and keep dealing with inflation in 2023, both of which can be tailwinds to energy companies and especially midstream companies, but she notes that the midstream/pipeline companies have cash-flow stability that makes them the more-defensive options in the energy space, and particularly attractive in a recessionary environment.

Steve O'Neill, who co-manages the closed-end fund trading strategies and oversees the closed-end fund analysts at RiverNorth, says the timing is right for closed-end fund investors looking for big discounts that will likely be shrinking right after the turn of the year as the tax harvesting process plays out. O'Neill discusses how the big discounts amount to extra gravy for investors hungry for better yields.

Chris Oberbeck, chairman and chief executive officer at Saratoga Investment Corp. -- one of the industry's largest publicly traded business-development companies -- says that BDCs have been a relative sweet spot during this year's troubled times largely because they benefited from being on the front end of rate hikes and turning them quickly into cash on the bottom line. While the companies must also deal with higher costs, he expects the trend to continue for at least as long as the Federal Reserve keeps projecting higher rates, which he thinks will be well into 2023.

With holiday shopping bargains on everyone's mind, John Cole Scott, chief investment officer at Closed-End Fund Advisors -- the chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance -- sorts through the big discounts in the closed-end fund world to come up with the best bargains, the most meaningful plays now, based not just on current sale prices but the value and income streams investors can unlock. In his search, he identified two equity and two fixed-income funds that might be a good addition to any investment shopping list.

Michael Grayson, portfolio manager for First Trust Capital Management -- where he oversees their Alternative Opportunities, Private Credit and Real Assets funds -- says that investors should be sacrificing some liquidity for the flexibility to get different assets into their portfolios and to have investments that capture most of the upside in bull-market times while protecting capital during market dislocations. That's how the funds he manages have fared over the last two years and he says that current market conditions are bringing out the best properties in interval funds, making them more attractive for investors now.

Mitchel Penn, managing director of equity research at Oppenheimer & Co., says that business development companies have seen yields rising in line with higher interest rates, a trend he sees continuing while the Federal Reserve continues hiking rates. The higher rates have resulted in more credit risk with more borrowers struggling to make payments; as a result, unrealized losses at BDCs have increased, and while those setbacks remain within expected ranges this year, investors will want to watch the trend to make sure losses don't grow wildly if rates keep rising and/or remain high for several years.

John Cole Scott, chief investment officer at Closed-End Fund Advisors -- chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance -- says that today's rate uncertainty has created attractive entry points for some municipal-bond funds because they are trading at big discounts and, in many cases, have gone through a dividend cut, thereby reducing the potential for another cut moving forward. Scott doesn't minimize the pain the muni funds have experienced this year, but notes that investors who are brave enough to double-down should be rewarded as the rate cycle plays out, although he cautioned against looking at yield as the selling point rather than combining yield with discount and net asset values to determine the best opportunities.

Mark Milner, senior investment strategist at Parametric Portfolio Associates, says that a lot of asset classes of closed-end funds have now reached double-digit discount territory, "which historically has been a good opportunity to buy closed-end funds," noting that current discounts allow investors to add to their portfolios or rebalance into funds creating greater value for their money. Milner does worry that year-end tax-loss harvesting in 2022 will be higher than in years past as a result of the large market drawdown earlier this year -- but is hopeful that the compelling values will convince investors to reinvest the proceeds of those sales back into closed-end funds, which would help to minimize the potential impact all of that money movement.

Gretchen Lam, senior portfolio manager, Octagon Credit Investors -- sub-adviser on the XAI Octagon Floating Rate & Alternative Income Term Trust -- says that while economic conditions are challenging and that a recession will be bad for the credit markets, collateralized loan obligations and other loan products have held up relatively well during the current period of rising rates. They haven't been able to avoid the downdraft, she says, but they have outperformed other forms of credit, maintaining a historical pattern of superiority in tough conditions. Coupled with low default levels -- which she expects to rise a minimal amount despite higher interest rates -- it creates an opportunity for credit investors now.

Duncan Farley, portfolio manager at BlueBay Asset Management and manager of the BlueBay Destra International Event-Driven Credit Fund, says that the current economic and market conditions that are making headlines and rattling investors are actually creating something of a 'perfect storm' of opportunities that should make it easier to profit from alternative credit investments moving forward.

Robert Bush, senior vice president and director of closed-end products at Calamos Investments, says that convertible securities -- a hybrid product built to give investors the best of stock and bond performance -- have not been giving investors their cake and letting them eat it too this year, underperforming both stocks and bonds, but he says that positive returns to the end of the third quarter and the way convertible funds have held up relative to fixed-income funds suggests that convertibles should deliver better on their purpose moving forward. Bush also discusses two of the firm's funds, comparing a long-short strategy to a total-return fund and discussing how they have fared -- and what has happened to their discounts -- this year.

John Cole Scott, chief investment officer at Closed-End Fund Advisors -- the chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance -- discusses and compares floating-rate and senior loan funds with preferred-securities funds, noting that floating-rate funds are a tool for combating high and rising interest rates, while preferred equities are a good weapon for battling a recession. As a result, investors in today's complex market may want to "split the ticket," using both types of funds to bolster their portfolio; he looks at the characteristics of each asset class, and has fund suggestions in each category for investors to consider.

Mark Scalzo, chief investment officer at Validus Growth Investors -- portfolio manager for the newly listed Destra Multi-Alternative Fund -- discusses the outlook for alternative investing, the process his fund went through in changing its status and becoming one of the few new listings on the New York Stock Exchange this year, and how that conversion and some other factors have led to a discount that is much bigger than average or than most closed-end fund investors would expect.

Kyle Brown, president and chief investment officer at Trinity Capital, explains how the company's structure helps to support double-digit yields and makes them more secure than other high-yield investments, but also discusses the business development company's exceptionally high yield relative to the rising interest rate and high inflation rates of today. He also talks about how those conditions impact the high-growth, venture-backed, early-stage companies that Trinity finances.