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For the month, 92% of all closed-end funds (CEFs) posted net-asset-value (NAV)-based returns in the black, with 84% of equity CEFs and 98% of fixed income CEFs chalking up returns in the plus column. For the second month in a row, Lipper’s world equity CEFs macro-group (+5.08%) outpaced its two equity-based brethren: mixed-assets CEFs (+4.50%) and domestic equity CEFs (+2.60%). For the first month in 17, the Convertible Securities CEFs classification (+7.39%) outperformed all other equity classifications, followed by Emerging Markets CEFs (+6.24%, June’s leader) and Utility CEFs (+6.07%). For the second month in a row, Energy MLP CEFs (-0.72%) posted the worst returns of the equity universe.
For the third month in a row, world income CEFs remained at the top of the charts, posting a 3.05% return on average, followed by domestic taxable fixed income CEFs (+2.93%) and municipal bond CEFs (+2.63%). Investors continued their search for yield during the month, pushing High Yield CEFs (Leveraged) (+4.18%) to the top of the domestic taxable fixed income leaderboard for the first month in 33, followed by Corporate Debt BBB-Rated CEFs (Leveraged) (+3.94%) and High Yield CEFs (+3.16%).
For July, the median discount of all CEFs narrowed 70 basis points (bps) to 8.72%—wider than the 12-month moving average median discount (7.58%). In this report, we highlight July 2020 CEF performance trends, premiums and discounts, and corporate actions and events.
Highlights
Download our Closed-End Funds FundMarket Insight Report: The Month in Closed-End Funds: July 2020 here.
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