The Month In Closed-End Funds: February 2023

For the month, only 20% of all closed-end funds (CEFs) posted net-asset-value (NAV)-based returns in the black, with just 9% of equity CEFs and 28% of fixed income CEFs chalking up returns in the plus column. For the second month in three, Lipper's mixed-assets CEFs (-1.81%) macro-group outpaced or mitigated losses better than its two equity-based brethren: domestic equity CEFs (-2.69%) and world equity CEFs (-3.48%). Also, for the second month in three, the Income & Preferred Stock CEFs classification (-1.46%) moved to the top of the equity leaderboard, followed by Real Estate CEFs (-1.85%) and Options Arbitrage/Options Strategies CEFs (-1.93%).

For the first month in four, the domestic taxable bond CEFs macro-group outpaced or mitigated losses better than the other macro-groups in the fixed income universe, posting a 0.61% loss on average, followed by world income CEFs (-1.23%) and municipal debt CEFs (-3.78%, their largest monthly loss since September 30, 2022). For the first month in five, investors pushed Loan Participation CEFs (+0.22%) to the top of the domestic taxable fixed income leaderboard, followed by General Bond CEFs (-0.33%) and High Yield CEFs (-0.34%).

For the year-to-date period ended February 28, 2023, both equity and fixed income CEFs posted plus-side returns on a NAV-basis, rising 2.68% and 2.18%, respectively.

For February, the median discount of all CEFs widened 25 bps to 8.60%-wider than the 12-month moving average median discount (7.99%). Equity CEFs' median discount widened 104 bps to 9.65%, while fixed income CEFs' median discount widened one bp to 8.19%.

In this report, we highlight February 2023 CEF performance trends, premiums and discounts, and corporate actions and events.