Our interactive Investor Tools are part of our Premium subscription service.

Investor Tools

Our interactive investment tools are designed to cut through the noise and allow investors to evaluate securities and identify attractive opportunities that fit their investment styles. These tools empower investors and place allocation decisions squarely back in their hands rather than keeping it in the hands of market “gurus” whose interests rarely coincide with that of individual investors.

We host five investor tools:

  • BDC Tool (historic sample here)
  • CEF Tool (historic sample here)
  • Preferred Stock Tool (historic sample here)
  • Baby Bond Tool
  • Open-end Fund Tool

BDC Tool

The BDC Tool allows investors to track the broader BDC space. We currently cover about 30 companies in the sector.

Investors can compare various metrics easily between different BDCs. These metrics cover valuation, returns, dividends, yields, portfolio metrics etc.

Investors can also drill down into individual BDCs and track performance over a number of quarters.

CEF Tool

The CEF Tool allows investors to actively follow the CEF market, evaluate individual CEFs and find attractive CEFs that fit their investment style. Below are some of the features of the CEF Tool.

Follow the moves across CEF sector prices, NAVs and discounts over various time periods.

Track the biggest movers over different time periods across individual funds by price, NAV or discount.

Track the broader market such as the average CEF discount, median return and yield

Compare funds within a given sector by various features and metrics such as returns, discount valuation, yields, risk metrics such as volatility and drawdowns, portfolio credit quality, level of borrowings and leverage and more.

Generate a detailed comparison of a given fund versus its sector

Easily compare two funds and their discounts / premiums to each other.

Compare different CEF sectors to each other

And track their historic metrics like discounts, yields, drawdowns and others.

Sort CEFs by different metrics

Track monthly distribution coverage and UNII figures.

Track daily NAV and discount estimates of CLO funds.

Other features include:

  • Follow insider activity and activist holdings in CEFs
  • Track CEF press releases and SEC Filings
  • Use tender offer and rights offerings worksheets to evaluate these corporate actions
  • Use a Watchlist and Portfolio functions to track your holdings and new ideas
  • Track PIMCO CEFs with a separate function devoted to these funds
  • And much more…

Preferred Stock and Baby Bond Tools

Preferred stocks are very popular income investments, however they present a number of challenges for investors. First preferred stocks have a number of different important features such as call dates, varying coupon structure and others, Secondly, their yields are tricky to calculate because of the call feature. And thirdly, the same issuer can have many different series, making it challenging to select the “best” one. Baby bonds present similar challenges – which is why these two tools share many similar features which we describe below.

Follow the broader preferred / baby bond markets.

Track biggest movers.

Drill down into individual sectors.

Compare individual securities to the broader market.

Compare different sectors to each other and to the broader market.


Strategic Allocation Tool

The Strategic Allocation Tool is a grab bag of different features. Primarily, the Tool holds our Income Portfolios as well as our Tactical Ideas.

Apart, from this users can track the moves in the broader income markets.

Chart different market and macro variables.

Check out some key income sector data.

Explore our fund database across various income sectors that includes mutual funds, ETFs and CEFs that helps in identifying the best funds for a given investment style.

and more…