The NAVigator

In this bonus edition of The NAVigator taped at the Active Investment Company Alliance Boot Camp and Roundtable in New York City on Nov. 6, host Chuck Jaffe talks with Rob Shaker, portfolio manager at Shaker Financial, about why his primary focus in choosing closed-end funds is the discount level, but why all discounts are not created equal.

In this bonus edition of The NAVigator taped at the Active Investment Company Alliance Boot Camp and Roundtable in New York City on Nov. 6, host Chuck Jaffe talks with Eric Boughton, chief analyst at Matisse Capital about which investors might prefer a fund of closed-end funds rather than a few individual holdings and why, but also discusses discounts, which sectors are particularly attractive now and more.

In this bonus edition of The NAVigator taped at the Active Investment Company Alliance Boot Camp and Roundtable in New York City on Nov. 6, host Chuck Jaffe talks with Bill Meyers, senior managing director at Nuveen about how and why he thinks investors are overly focused on discounts, on the reasons why investors -- if they focus less on discounts -- would want closed-end funds at all, about how interest rates are affecting funds and more.

Chris Oberbeck, chairman and chief executive officer at Saratoga Investment Corp. talks about how and why he and his partners took over a struggling business-development company at the height of the late-2000s financial crisis, and how BDCs by structure and underlying assets make for a unique and diversifying investment for investors looking for alternatives to traditional yield-focused investments. 

Piers Currie of Warhorse Partners discusses the long history of closed-end funds and unit investment trusts in England and what domestic investors can learn from the industry in Europe, as well as why closed-end funds are ideal for making international investments and how he thinks the financial industry will be affected by the resolution of Brexit.

Patrick Shaddow, director of index operations at S-Network Global Indexes, discusses the merits to and the construction of index funds built entirely of closed-end funds, noting the importance of favoring issues with discounts and good liquidity in developing products and benchmarks that reflect the true potential and performance of the closed-end fund space.

Kimberly Flynn, managing director of alternative investments at XA Investments, discusses how alternative investments from private equity to illiquid securities, insurance credits and much more are being increasingly made available through closed-end fund structures, a result both of investor demand and changing regulatory rules. Flynn discusses how and why advisors want to use these new portfolio tools and identifies several alt funds with low minimum investments that personify the trend.

John Cole Scott, founder of the Active Investment Company Alliance, is the guest on the first NAVigator podcast, discussing the ins and outs of this new show and closed-end fund investing, what to expect from it in the future, and what his new organization is trying to achieve by bringing together all of the constituents of the closed-end fund and business-development company industry.