2008-01-22

Buy, Sell, or Hold? (4)

Another group of securities that haven't been fairing well lately is the closed-end bond funds.

Typically, bond funds do well when the stock market is falling and interest rates are going down.

Credit-related panic selling, though, has driven the price some quality shares down 8-10%.

Will the credit crunch adversely affect these holdings?

I don't think it will.

There are closed-end funds with attractive portfolios of bonds that can be purchased for less than the underlying costs of the bonds themselves.

For instance, a sovereign government fund isn't going to be adversely affected by the sub-prime mortgage situation, yet these shares have been sold-off just like everything else.

But they continue to pay their dividends and have yields over 6%.

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