Looking for different investments?

Question

I am in my 20's and have a 14k portfolio. I am able to add 900 dollars a month to it plus 100 dollars in dividends that I get from owning Closed End Funds(CEF's). My question is what are some other good investments besides CEF's I tend to buy 1 CEF every month and all my CEF's are yielding between 7-10% a year in dividends plus they have been doing extremely well on the capital appreciation side.

My question is do I continue buying CEF's or should I start buying up other investments? I do like investments that pay monthly dividends:)

Any advice would be appreciated

Answer 1

I would say never put all your eggs in one basket. Every market has its own cycle. Be sure to have something in stocks, bonds, money markets, government securities and real estate.

Answer 2

This is Mike_J ok my current holdings are EBI-EOE-FGI-FOF-HCF-JGG-JGV-JRS-NCZ-PCN-PFL-PFN-PHK. I do buy a new fund every month. I look for CEF's whos dividend has been steadily increasing and if they decide to lower the dividend then I would bail. I don't really care how they fit in my portfolio, all I care about is a steady and increasing dividend as well as capital appreciation. I also try to look for CEF's selling at a nice discount. I guess the reason why I like dividend paying securities is that I can always have something to fall back on.

EDIT:swenjj, honestly I don't look at what sector a fund is in or even its holdings(shame on me). What I have been doing and will probably be doing is just buying funds that have recently IPO'ed and have paid dividends for 3 consecutive months. My plans are to hold the fund until it decreases its dividend. It seems like once a fund decreases its dividend its all downhill from there.

Answer 3

Closed End Funds definitely have their place in someones portfolio. I would recommend owning between 10% to 35% of your portfolio in CEF's. The other 90% to 65% should be invested in actively managed open-ended funds and REITs. Others might suggest ETFs,but I prefer OEFs and CEFs.

Answer 4

are you buying a different fund every month? are you keeping track of how they fit together in your portfolio, i dont see why you would do that

and if you are in your 20's why are you trying for dividends? not saying it is a bad idea but why not go for some long term growth instead of current income, you have 40 years to go

EDIT: mike, how the funds fit into your portfolio can be more important than which fund you pick even, are you picking funds all in one sector? do they all have a large holding in the same companies? how they fit is extremely important, dont overlook that just to end up picking the latest popular flavor of fund, look long term

Answer 5

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