Below are our latest blog posts for the week of May 16th.  Click on the links below to view the full article.

While most investors would likely believe that it’s tougher to uncover relative value in deeply discounted closed-end funds, in my opinion the hardest part of managing a CEF portfolio is knowing when to cut bait and move on.  The truth is that there is no clear formula for measuring valuation, meaning that although a fund may be trading marginally above its historical spread to NAV, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s richly valued.

This is probably one of the more interesting times in recent memory for the stock market.  Investors are so panicked about the possibility of a recession, bear market, or even just a simple correction that they are exiting funds at a breakneck pace.

The market has drifted lower in recent weeks as rising anxiety over a second Fed rate hike looms. I look at some of the top technical and fundamental reasons the market is behaving the way it is.  Observations of risk and reward are noted throughout.  Charts include: large cap stocks, treasury bonds, oil, energy sector, high yield bonds, REITs, and more.  Recorded on May 19, 2016.

Published on NASDAQ.com

The allure of high yields is something that income investors are always tempted to chase.  When you couple an outsized dividend payout with an explosion of momentum, the attraction can become even further exacerbated.  This is exactly what happened earlier this month when Jeffrey Gundlach offered a recommendation for investors to purchase the iShares Mortgage Real Estate Capped ETF (REM) and simultaneously short the Utility Select Sector SPDR (XLU).

This week I was honored to be included as an educational speaker on the topic of ETFs at the Las Vegas MoneyShow.  I have been coming to this investor summit for years and was excited to share my thoughts on how to build portfolios using these innovative tools.  I invite all of our readers to download my slides from the event here.

P.S. Are you confident in your portfolio?

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