CEF Holdings ---- May 2025

dickoncapecod said:
Reduced most holdings a little bit. 21% cash.....can't see any news that is going to cause a rapid price runup but lots that could cause a bit of retacement. Seems like an okay place to trade some imagined upside opportunity to avoid a significant drawdown. I can buy it all back in five minutes if that seems smart.
Regards, Dick
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Are you concerned with getting a lesser yield on the items you sold and potentially would buy back? I assume you locked in a nice yield the past month and a half.

As a diehard buy and hold investor that is beginning to venture out, I am trying to wrap my head around the selling and buying back.

I suppose if a drawdown happens like you are feeling, your extra 20% of cash will go a lot further and get an even larger yield.
 
C-man23 said:
Are you concerned with getting a lesser yield on the items you sold and potentially would buy back? I assume you locked in a nice yield the past month and a half.

As a diehard buy and hold investor that is beginning to venture out, I am trying to wrap my head around the selling and buying back.

I suppose if a drawdown happens like you are feeling, your extra 20% of cash will go a lot further and get an even larger yield.
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Hi c-man. Since retiring in late 2008, capital preservation has been my over-riding strategy. We have lived since off the portfolio and its principal value almost 4 times larger than what we started with. I have owned almost exclusively bondish income CEFs. Over any time horizon, unrealized losses (marks to market) have the same effect of long term returns as realized losses. So I obviously try to avoid those.

Right now, I see nothing on the horizon that will encourage folks to add / buy income CEFs ---- not because they aren't fine/valuable here, but because risk assets look pretty risky here. Plus recent experience has increased fear levels. On 4/2, PDI closed at 19.87....and on 4/7 at 17.02. If I had not significantly reduced my position on the way down, my unrealized loss would have been over $91,000. What did happen was I was able to significantly increase my portfolio cash flows by reducing positions --- rather inelegantly and not enough because there was little time and few of the normal signals. Today, I don't see much different about the future than the view on 4/7 ---- except Fed sounds less willing to ease in the near term.

If I'm wrong, I'll pay a bit more to get back in ---- but all I'll be giving up is some opportunity, having reduced my more important risk to capital. Now 38% cash.
Regards, Dick
 
dickoncapecod said:
Hi c-man. Since retiring in late 2008, capital preservation has been my over-riding strategy. We have lived since off the portfolio and its principal value almost 4 times larger than what we started with. I have owned almost exclusively bondish income CEFs. Over any time horizon, unrealized losses (marks to market) have the same effect of long term returns as realized losses. So I obviously try to avoid those.

Right now, I see nothing on the horizon that will encourage folks to add / buy income CEFs ---- not because they aren't fine/valuable here, but because risk assets look pretty risky here. Plus recent experience has increased fear levels. On 4/2, PDI closed at 19.87....and on 4/7 at 17.02. If I had not significantly reduced my position on the way down, my unrealized loss would have been over $91,000. What did happen was I was able to significantly increase my portfolio cash flows by reducing positions --- rather inelegantly and not enough because there was little time and few of the normal signals. Today, I don't see much different about the future than the view on 4/7 ---- except Fed sounds less willing to ease in the near term.

If I'm wrong, I'll pay a bit more to get back in ---- but all I'll be giving up is some opportunity, having reduced my more important risk to capital. Now 38% cash.
Regards, Dick
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Thanks for the reply, Dick. Love hearing your perspective on the movement of the market.
Another 17% selloff for you from your post from yesterday :)
 
C-man23 said:
Thanks for the reply, Dick. Love hearing your perspective on the movement of the market.
Another 17% selloff for you from your post from yesterday :)
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Yeah, I noticed this as well.
The thing about for me, I only have Pimco---- and to get the amount of income needed, it requires 60-90k per fund. A 1000 shares for me is not -income-. So,
when the price drops, on 90k of PDI, if I don't react quickly and sell, it's a deep well of trouble.

Now, if you take someone like @COcheesehead, who is unconcerned w/ unrealized losses and only the distribution, then that's a different scenario. But the caveat here w/ him is what he posted to me once:
-----he said his 13,000 shares of PDI was his -smallest- holding in all of his investments. So,
what this says to me is that he is extremely wealthy whereas I am not even in his ball park.

The weekly MACD for PDI is signaling it is not a buy at this time. Same for PDO & PAXS which I own. PHK is iffy. PHK does not seem chart-wise like it is a buy either. Given the unforeseen stuff going on in government makes it even more of what Dick mentioned.

I have stop loss settings placed and PAXS is dipping down very close to where they'll kick in.
 
marget said:
Yeah, I noticed this as well.
The thing about for me, I only have Pimco---- and to get the amount of income needed, it requires 60-90k per fund. A 1000 shares for me is not -income-. So,
when the price drops, on 90k of PDI, if I don't react quickly and sell, it's a deep well of trouble.

Now, if you take someone like @COcheesehead, who is unconcerned w/ unrealized losses and only the distribution, then that's a different scenario. But the caveat here w/ him is what he posted to me once:
-----he said his 13,000 shares of PDI was his -smallest- holding in all of his investments. So,
what this says to me is that he is extremely wealthy whereas I am not even in his ball park.

The weekly MACD for PDI is signaling it is not a buy at this time. Same for PDO & PAXS which I own. PHK is iffy. PHK does not seem chart-wise like it is a buy either. Given the unforeseen stuff going on in government makes it even more of what Dick mentioned.

I have stop loss settings placed and PAXS is dipping down very close to where they'll kick in.
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Hi marget.......I also have this only-sorta-true thingy in the back of my head: my CEFs spit yield on only 12 days a year. And it's 2-3 weeks until PIMCOs spit again.
Regards, Dick
 
dickoncapecod said:
Hi marget.......I also have this only-sorta-true thingy in the back of my head: my CEFs spit yield on only 12 days a year. And it's 2-3 weeks until PIMCOs spit again.
Regards, Dick
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@dickoncapecod
Yes, I understand how you are doing this moving around of the CEFs to get closer to 24 days instead of 12. I don't think I have the ability to do it. I've thought about it, but I just don't have the confidence in being able to do it. I sorta feel that you would not feel the pressure to do this maneuvering around if it weren't for your wife. To my eye it's an action of true love .......and knowing you have the ability to do this type of investing.

If I can add 100k every 3 years, I should be ok. That's my ball park for now, or, I should say it's do-able. Truthfully if it weren't for you i'd have never been able to do even this much. Once I finally learned your system, it has been the most worry-free way to invest ---IF you're not extremely wealthy.

I'm not even worried about PAXS hitting the stop-loss marks b/c I have already determined a buy mark via chart discrimination and put in a buy. It can't any easier than this IMO. No loss on the stop-loss hits & a replacement already in place. so, thanks and have a good swim

MARGARET
 
marget said:
Yeah, I noticed this as well.
The thing about for me, I only have Pimco---- and to get the amount of income needed, it requires 60-90k per fund. A 1000 shares for me is not -income-. So,
when the price drops, on 90k of PDI, if I don't react quickly and sell, it's a deep well of trouble. ….
The weekly MACD for PDI is signaling it is not a buy at this time. Same for PDO & PAXS which I own. PHK is iffy. PHK does not seem chart-wise like it is a buy either. Given the unforeseen stuff going on in government makes it even more of what Dick mentioned.
Click to expand...
Hi Marget, How successful has it been for you buying and selling these CEFs based on MACD? I guess success would have to be selling at least above price bought plus collecting the dividends. Thanks
 
tutan said:
Hi Marget, How successful has it been for you buying and selling these CEFs based on MACD? I guess success would have to be selling at least above price bought plus collecting the dividends. Thanks
Click to expand...
Not Marget, but PLEASE remember that weekly MACD signals are PART of a technical toolkit and signals are often late or vary late or uselessly late. Weekly MACDs are a decision aid, NOT a trading system,
Regards, Dick
 
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tutan said:
Hi Marget, How successful has it been for you buying and selling these CEFs based on MACD? I guess success would have to be selling at least above price bought plus collecting the dividends. Thanks
Click to expand...
@tutan
It was hit and miss until I understood Dick's process. I'm not the brightest bulb on the block though.
Presently i'm completely successful. And, what's more, I know what i'm doing and the confidence is in place.
As @dickoncapecod posted--- don't base investing on one criteria. There is a Tool Box involved here. Unless you know when and how to use the tools in the tool box, they can't help you fix anything.

Dick also has not "taught" me. I wouldn't put that on him. I have simply studied his posts and -followed- his trading/action. ...carefully followed I should say and ruminated on it w/o asking him to explain.

His tool box is different than mine and it's way more sophisticated. However, the tools I have in mine are serving me well. You need to figure out the specific tools for Pimco Bond-ish funds. I don't think I would consider owning them if they were not in IRAs and the Roth. Filing taxes and claiming loss is not such a hot way to invest imo.

The weekly MACD for bond-ish for Pimco CEFs is very telling when looking at a few other bits of data. Would I ever trade on only the weekly MACD cross overs? nope
I studied the Nison Japanese Candle Stick book for a few years, so I can read what any candle Stick is indicating and the parings.
I.studied IBD's, William O'Neil's investing strategy for a some years, so I use 10 ema, 21 ema & 50 ma averages. The moving averages when looking at the candle sticks tells a story for me

well, there's more that I use than I realized, hmm. I can't write them all down. sorry
 
FWIW I have recently (~last year) begun using PPO instead of MACD. Why: on an individual issue basis the histogram tells the same story, but when trying to compare one issue to another the PPO makes relative comparison real. PPO also enables easier identification of extreme oversold or overbought conditions by normalizing that metric across issues. All that said, I've still got a lot of work to do to develop a relative & absolute strength ranking system for income CEFs.
 
tutan said:
Hi Marget, How successful has it been for you buying and selling these CEFs based on MACD? I guess success would have to be selling at least above price bought plus collecting the dividends. Thanks
Click to expand...
MACD usually is late in my experience both on buys and sells.
 
marget said:
Yeah, I noticed this as well.
The thing about for me, I only have Pimco---- and to get the amount of income needed, it requires 60-90k per fund. A 1000 shares for me is not -income-. So,
when the price drops, on 90k of PDI, if I don't react quickly and sell, it's a deep well of trouble.

Now, if you take someone like @COcheesehead, who is unconcerned w/ unrealized losses and only the distribution, then that's a different scenario. But the caveat here w/ him is what he posted to me once:
-----he said his 13,000 shares of PDI was his -smallest- holding in all of his investments. So,
what this says to me is that he is extremely wealthy whereas I am not even in his ball park.

The weekly MACD for PDI is signaling it is not a buy at this time. Same for PDO & PAXS which I own. PHK is iffy. PHK does not seem chart-wise like it is a buy either. Given the unforeseen stuff going on in government makes it even more of what Dick mentioned.

I have stop loss settings placed and PAXS is dipping down very close to where they'll kick in.
Click to expand...
Trying to follow this logic. You are paid on shares, not value.
 
COcheesehead said:
MACD usually is late in my experience both on buys and sells.
Click to expand...
That's right.....when one considers the numbers that go into weekly MACD computations, it MUST be late/will NEVER signal an absolute bottom. However, in my experience, a weekly MACD buy or sell signal increases confidence in the persistence of a trend change.
Regards, Dick
 
FWIW, I noticed the Western CEFs released 3/30 summary financials recently. WDI continues to eat into UNII to support distributions---- but at such a very slow rate that it's not a near term consideration. DMO continues to add to negative UNII, but I've never been able to figure out whether that is an artifact of MBS accounting --- since MBS pay both interest and principal monthly.
Regards, Dick
 
dickoncapecod said:
I continued to lighten up this morning....some of each holding. Cash up to 52%. There's really no point in just doing a little. I plan to buy it all back...the only question is when.
Regards, Dick
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@dickoncapecod
Thanks, I started lightening up a couple days ago, but this post helped me to be a bit more aggressive. I have some very low cb for these CEFs. I have a stop loss in for only one lot of PDI at 18.30.
I lightened up on PHK a lot. It may reach below the present cb, but I don't see that possibility just yet.
One lot of PAXS is set for a stop loss, but it hasn't reached it yet.
I plan to buy it all back...the only question is when. So far no loss of principle and some decent distributions to add in.
 
Posted earlier on another forum:



Sold a chunk of my PDI pimco Dynamic Income CEF, at opening today. WHY? DickonCapecod, whom I follow, reported selling some CEF holdings to 21% of portfolio two days ago; increasing to 38% cash in portfolio yesterday. He considers risk/reward not good from here, as it would take a lot to get PDI to go higher from here given recent NAV declines (and relatively high premium) ; and not much to have PDI price to go down. I don't trade my CEFs much. This is not a high conviction sell. The chart going forward will dictate any further selling or buying back in.

R48
 
FWIW I just ran the 5y total return numbers on PDI. Starting from May '20 the post-lockdown rally through the bear of 22-23 to now. Doing nothing other than reinvesting the standard dividend (excluding the special .87 in early 23 and excluding the Fido 5% DRIP discount), total return is right around 80%.
Pretty powerful investment, and Dick / CoCheese probably improved on that with selling after ex-div on weakness and buying back a bit before ex-div.
Simon sez (perplexity.ai) estimates that 35-50% of stocks in the Russell 3000 returned that much over the same timeframe. And one would have had to pick and hold one of those stocks or do some phenomenal trading to get that. (although, truth, B&H that index went up ~110%: tx large cap tech.)
 
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