Saturday, October 30, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Market Summary 10/26/2010
Stock Market Closing Prices – 10/26/2010
Dow ( DJIA ) Close - 11169.46 +5.41
Nasdaq - 2497.29 +6.44
S&P 500 Close - 1185.64 +0.02
Commodities Closing Prices – 10/26/10
Gold Close - 1338.00
Oil Close – 82.43
Natural Gas – 3.33
The Dow closed up 5 points to 11169 today, as stock market traded slightly higher.
The problem was that higher raw-material costs and a weak economy combined to produce disappointing earnings from US Steel(X), Cummins (CMI) and Kimberly-Clark (KMB). However, Ford (F) reported a better–than-expected earning report, Shares were up 1.5% to $14.36.
The dollar moves higher. Crude oil settled up 3 cents to $82.44 a barrel. Gold settled down 30 cents to $1,338.60 an ounce.
Oct. 27, 2010 – Wednesday
Procter & Gamble to announce quarterly results before market open.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Advantages of Tax-Free CEFs Yielding Over 5%
With so much uncertainty in the stock market, and with the possibility of tax increases on the horizon, investors have been allocating funds into tax-free bonds (municipal bonds), directly and through tax-free income closed-end funds. Tax-free closed-end funds, or CEFs, have several advantages over investing in municipal bonds directly.
Many of these CEFs have yields of 5% or more, such as the Blackrock Apex Municipal Fund (APX), which sells at a discount to net asset value, uses almost no leverage and yields 5.7%. The Nuveen New York Dividend Advantage Municipal Fund 2 (NXK) has a yield of 5.5%, is currently trading at a discount to NAV and has about 26.5% leverage, much lower than the average leverage of 34.7% for all the CEFs. The Nuveen Investment Quality Municipal Fund (NQM) yields 6.3%, utilizes about 29% leverage and trades at a slight discount.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)