As far as I can see from your note you haven't lost much except some  sleep.

I own 4 Nuveen funds.  "Pfd Income 2" dividend  is off about 10%; "Sr. Income" dividend about 33%. from 2//07, and not counting year end special dividends and capital gains distributions. The other two payouts have been constant.  Even with the dividend cuts the yield on market cost is not bad. Granted that at years end some of the return on the 4 funds will be cap gains and ROC, but since i need the income i will forego growth in the NAV for income  to put food on the table. As an income investor I worry more about NAV growth and dividends from NII and C.G. than I do about market pricing. Of course I am not happy about all the red in my CEF portfolio, but i knew when I bought leveraged CEF's the ride could get rough (however not this rough!!!).

I'm figuring that a year from now the auction debacle will be pretty much squared away as Nuveen moves into new forms of leverage. Hopefully the yields will begin to rise as the market for loans becomes unfrozen.  And as Bond 100 wonders where would you put the money for income and rising market prices if you could get out of Nuveen.

Good Morning....

 If you hadn't noticed the message boards get very  "quiet" during down markets [opinions no longer available, bulls/traders are gone]. I normally only read the message boards on CEF's for good ideas/opinions but seldom respond because CEF's are "LIGHTLY" traded and the CEF's can be volatile and mkt's can change radically [like the weather] IMHO....

 With that said, a lot of us currently do not follow the CEF's currently mentioned. I am aware of JTA but it is not included in our 100 CEF watch list because of the extremely poor performance [sector rotations occur and "investors" must be aware of the "Risk Factors" attached to all of the CEF's being held in their portfolio]....

 Hopefully, your financial advisor advised you [and "NOT" the different message boards where different opinions will always be prevalent and some have hidden agendas (traders)]. Since I don't follow these particular CEF's, I can't respond to whether the CEF's were good buys at the time of your buys. I am aware that JTA did well during their IPO but appears not to be performing well in a down market [very poorly]. Many CEF's do not perform well in Bear type scenario's and this is ok/acceptable if the investor has taken this into account and one has a very well diversified portfolio [at least sixteen different securities to meet the statistical protection risk factor for potential gain/loss that a lot of us studied in statistics during our college years]....

 Taking your JTA comments [going back up in the next turnaround (hopefully in our lifetime)] we should be "AWARE" that we have manager changes, investment strategy changes, portfolio changes, changes in percent of holdings in any one security, etc that will affect the next up swing [based on experience with CEF's] IMHO. We can not take for granted that any CEF will go back up to existing levels. Some go beyond and some do not...,

 In addition, when making investments in relatively up markets, we "MUST" take into consideration that we need the best discount for any buying activity to protect us from downward slides and protection of our retirement investment capital expended. A lot of us use the "Rule of 72" in helping us [retiree's] to make these type of decisions when using CEF's as a investment....

 Also, one should be using a maximum investment allocation when investing in "any" one security. We use phases of our 2-cube theory [one form of protection allocation for protection] where we can only have a maximum of 6% in any one security after a few different buys over periods of "TIME" [which is more than the normal mutual fund has in their portfolio (normally runs 2-4% for any one security)]. 2-cube theory also works well in reverse [-2% at a time with downward sells (or using "wash-sales" for taxable accounts for helping with end of year taxes and rebuying the security after 31 days if we "MUST" have it and in love]....

 Riding CEF's down to their worst "value" possible [mkt bottoms] and then selling them [when frustration sets in] is not a option for retiree's like myself or others.IMHO. Keeping a "MINIMUM" of these securities in portfolio if wanted or desired to [or other CEF's] when worried/concerned in a down mkt is a option. Selling some percentage of the existing CEF and keeping a very minimum amount [normally 2% of total portfolio] normally satisfies our ego's [where if they go up right after selling them, we are holding them; and if they go down, we already knew that IMHO]....

 Bottom line IMHO: is to consult with a "GOOD" [or get a different one] financial planner and understand the current market as well as what sectors have been in favor. Looking at current data, KYE [oil/gas] and GGN [gold] come into mind, but these securities may have already seen their peaks [with their dimished distributions at current mkt levels]. Other CEF's look promising in this bear type mkt but one has to talk with one's financial advisors to meet each of our individual financial "GOALS & OBJECTIVES]....

  The above, of course, is one investors opinion. Others [pro/con] are always welcome. Hope I helped a little....

Live Long and Prosper/Eddy

Eddy, nice to see you posting on public forums again! Hope you are able to visit more often. Your views are always welcome.

Perhaps I misunderstood the comment in your last paragraph about KYE and GGN having "diminished distributions", but KYE just raised their quarterly distribution 7.1% over the previous quarter, and GGN has been paying a steady $0.14 since early '06.

Best,

Steve

Good Morning Steve....

 Always glad to converse with you. As you are aware, I have been quite busy in the previous year with many updates to the retiree website. Hopefully, I can reply to some CEF posts in the future [as time is available]....

 What I was referring to was the R72 that a lot of us use for investing [getting our investment money "BACK" in the shortest time period]. Then using the markets money [IMHO] lets us sleep well and the normal up/down cycles of the market doesn't mean much [again IMHO]....

 GGN and KYE were bought by us back when they were bargains. Currently, both do not meet our current R72 requirements for any additional buying activity [5.77%/R72=12yrs, 7.23%/R72=10 yrs respectively ... both COB last Friday from our weekly data]. We try to buy at substantial discounts and with a R72 of 7-8 yrs [or better]. They are on our "serious" watch list because of their star ratings of 9 and 10 respectively [10 star maximum rating possible]. Should the market panic [irrational exuberance in selling and getting out], they again [dependent on market conditions on oil and gold] might again prove to be a buying situation [for the long term]....

Hope I clarified the question....

Best Regards/Eddie

skelly36:

Good Morning Steve....

 As you are aware, I have been quite busy in the previous year with many updates to the retiree website. Hopefully, I can reply to some CEF posts in the future [as time is available]....

 

What is the url of your retiree website?

Regards,

Lew