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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ild who wrote (89306)	2/7/2001 11:46:46 PM
From: Joan Osland Graffius	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

ild, This is a good site for evaluation of CEF's. cefa.com If you go to the box in the upper right hand corner you can click to a screen that lets you search on all CEF's. Joan

To: ild who wrote (89306)	2/8/2001 2:38:26 PM
From: Knighty Tin	Respond to of 132070

ild, Barron's has a fairly complete list. As does Illiterate's Business Daily once in a while. There are research products available. Thomas Herzfeld has the oldest and best of them. Morningstar used to have one, but they shut it down. I don't know if it is related, but in that Kiplinger's article I often mention (also one of the best sources for general background if you can somehow get a copy of the May 1995 issue), 6 "gurus" picked their CEFs for the next 6-12 months and Morningstar's picks fell flat on their face. 6th out of 6 and far behind the top 2, Frank Cappiello and some fella I see in the mirror every morning when I shave. <g> If their picks weren't any better than that at other time periods, I can see why it went belly up. Herzfeld is usually a pretty good picker. Much better a picker than a manager. He runs CUBA. My only misgiving about Herzfeld is that, IMHO, he puts too much emphasis on the discount and too little on what is in the portfolio. However, I don't subscribe to anything. You can get all the info that is available simply by calling the companies. Good ones from bad ones can usually be separated by time. Of course, some change. Tricontinental was one of the best for decades and it hasn't done well in the past decade. The funds that haven't been around long are more of a crapshoot. In those cases, I examine their reports to see what they own and then call the manager to see if he's made any changes. If I like the portfolio and the discount/fee situation is positive, I will usually take down a third. Sometimes, if the discount/fee situation is positive enough, I hold my nose and buy even if the portfolio is not my favorite. But that is usually at the bottom of the market, not at the top. The Barron's Quarterly Mutual Fund Report, next one due after March 31, has the phone numbers of all the CEFs.