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Fourth Quarter and 2017 Overview
The average closed-end fund (CEF) managed a small gain of 0.18% during the fourth quarter of 2017. With this positive gain for the quarter, the average CEF earned a positive total return in each of the four quarters during 2017. It was a very strong year for the CEF marketplace with the average fund up 11.37% in 2017. This follows another solid year when the average CEF was up 8.59% for 2016. Gains in 2017 were broad based for the year, but the rise in global equity prices helped propel the average equity CEF to a particularly impressive positive return of 16.08%. Fixed-income CEFs benefited from relatively stable long-term interest rates and a low default environment for credit-sensitive securities. Taxable fixed-income CEFs were up on average 10.90% for the year while municipal CEFs were positive by 6.49%. (Source: Morningstar. All data is share price total return throughout this commentary.)
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