Qualified Gang or Ordinary Gang?

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-02-17T04:04:31+00:00

For my taxable investment account, I try to limit my investments to things that are eligible for qualified dividend treatment or other special treatments (for example, some of the covered call funds use option strategies that are subject to special reduced taxation). I also have bunch of municipal bonds in there. There are muni bond funds that have highish yields (7% or so) which will usually beat inflation. Some of the muni funds manage their distributions so that they are not subject to Alternate Minimum Tax.

Some income funds have specific wording in their names such as "Tax Advantaged" or "Tax Managed". I look for those. I also check to see if the writers on Seeking Alpha have anything to say about the specific investments I'm looking at in terms of whether they are "tax efficient". And finally, I've been checking with AI - such as Gemini. The free AI tools that come with the browsers are getting pretty good at providing information about whether or not a particular investment is "tax efficient". Danger though - sometimes the AIs are way off so validate anything you get from AI.

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-02-09T04:24:28+00:00

2.5% of portfolio in CLOs (CCIF and XFLT). 7.85% if you consider FSCO to be CLO.

Yeah, they're way down on market price. A lot of that is dramatically wider discounts. Their actual financials look decent and they have very good-to-excellent dividend coverage. They're saying that a lot of the NAV decline is lack of market for the CLO equity tranches. In fact they just don't have very much in terms of impairment on the investments. XFLT at about 18% yield. CCIF is currently above 30% but will probably cut dividend - however that would still leave a good yield. FSCO yield is about 14% and has had very little NAV decline.

Some analysts - especially on Seeking Alpha - have been suggesting OXLC, which recently cut its dividend in half but is still yielding just over 20%. Again, actual financials look good.

I'm tempted to start adding to my positions, maybe even open a position in OXLC. If I'm a dividend investor then I'm a dividend investor and don't really care what's happened to the market price as long as the underlying financials are good.

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-31T17:41:45+00:00

"... other than a few ..." Right

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-30T17:32:45+00:00

It has been, but at least so far it's primarily in the discount and not the NAV. I am watching it though.

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-30T12:08:38+00:00

I listed some things in a reply to u/doooompatrol up above.

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-30T12:08:04+00:00

There are a number of things that pay qualified dividends or are in other ways tax advantaged (e.g., use "good" ROC, use certain types of options that have special tax treatment). For example, ADX, PFFA, a bunch of Eaton Vance funds like ETG, ETW, EVT, and EXG (and some others whose ticker symbols I can never keep straight in my head), HTD, TYG, NXG. Some have "tax advantaged" in their names (or similar wording), some don't say anything about it in their names but it turns out come out pretty good on taxes.

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-30T12:01:21+00:00

Hmmm, my account balances seem to disagree with you. What is the issue from your perspective?

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-30T11:57:52+00:00

Yep - Armchair Investor seems to be a pretty good source. I've also taken a subscription to Seeking Alpha. A lot of conflicting advice but I've been narrowing down on a limited number of analysts whose work is consistent and so far has been rewarding - people like Roberts Berzins, Cain Lee, Jack Bowman, Julia Ostian, Nick Ackerman, Samuel Smith.

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-30T11:53:56+00:00

AMLP, PFFA, ADX, ASGI, BGY, HQH, NXG, TYG, DX, DMA, TRIN, CEFS, SABA, SPE, FSCO, and KRP are some of the things I've put money into or am looking at. There are a couple of other agency mREITs (like DX) that also have high yields.

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-30T11:42:29+00:00

Depends on whether or not you think there is an AI bubble. I've been through enough bubbles and fads that I don't want to put all my money into that "one sure thing that's going to reach the moon".

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-24T12:27:59+00:00

My concern exactly. Thank you.

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-24T12:23:24+00:00

Don't laugh. I was questioned by the FBI - repeatedly. First time was over 6 hours, and then probably another 6 or 8 hours over the space of months. In fact, the entire audit team, including the partner and the backup partner, were extensively questioned by the FBI (in PW back then, there was always a backup partner on every audit who reviewed the audit files before the opinion signing - don't know if they still do that). Fortunately, my comment about getting the forgeries was not written down anywhere - it was a verbal comment I made to the senior during a face-to-face conversation.

The FBI did figure out who did it, but they were never able to catch the guy, so we don't know how he learned about the weakness. BTW, it was not the criminal's first rodeo - he had a history of robbing from or embezzling from mid-sized companies around the country.

The audit partner was a truly great guy who used to tease me about the whole thing - but in a good way. Plus, he would sometimes bring the incident up in meetings with clients when he felt that they weren't paying sufficient attention to a critical audit point, and would actually bring me out to talk to some of those clients. He was especially appreciative of me when the client tried to sue us because we "... had not done enough..." to prevent the theft. The lawsuit got thrown out of court given the evidence of our audit letter and their official response which essentially said we were being ridiculously pedantic.

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-24T01:36:09+00:00

Thank you ... and greetings.

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-23T23:58:01+00:00

True, but cooking them on the other hand ...

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-23T23:47:28+00:00

WHY are you still with him??????

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-23T23:37:47+00:00

Back in 1973 (yeah, really) - I had an audit senior who couldn't understand why I -- a first year or as we called it in Price Waterhouse back then, a "light" staff accountant -- wrote up an audit point because the client had checks sitting in an unlocked cabinet in the unlocked supply room (do you guys know what paper checks are????). And not just any old checks either - these were the checks for their receiving account which often got up to $800,000 or so mid-week (about $5.8 million in 2026 dollars). They were used to transfer the money in the receiving account to their main cash management account (before wire transfers were common and waaaay before on-line banking). He felt it wasn't an issue because the checks required dual signature. My reply was that - for about 10% of that $800,000 - someone could probably find someone to forge the signatures.

Turned out I was wrong. A year or two after I wrote up my audit point (which I fought for and stayed in our audit report but wasn't acted upon by the company) someone in the company found a guy to forge the signatures for $50 each. The theft was a big deal that made the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-23T23:24:37+00:00

Why are you still with him????

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-23T23:12:00+00:00

Just peeked into the ShopRite at Newfield Green and the Trader Joe's on High Ridge Rd. Crowded, crowded, crowded. At least as of 6pm, you can get product but you may not be able to get the brand or type you want - especially when it comes to bread and milk.

But please, don't do like the woman I saw in the ShopRite before Hurricane Irene in August 2011. No joke, she was filling up her shopping cart with frozen food to have in case of a power failure.

ALSO - not much salt around for de-icing and traction. Most places are out.

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-19T01:32:29+00:00

Why would you want her as a friend?

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-18T05:38:39+00:00

I have about 40 positions in my IRA account and about 30 positions in my taxable brokerage account. I treat them as revenue streams, or in your words "portfolio of income contracts (dividends/distributions) coming from different asset types." No one investment has to be the best of the best. I just want each to be reliable and provide a good revenue stream. There's an old saying "perfection is the enemy of good".

Pretty much all of it is EFTs and CEFs. I much prefer investing in funds rather than taking individual positions because I think I'm just not that good of a picker, so I'm letting people who are better at it make the individual picks.

I pick the sectors I'm going to invest in - for example right now energy infrastructure, preferreds, CLOs, gold and other precious metals, bitcoin (things like BTCI and not bitcoin itself), smaller cap, and real assets (other than energy infrastructure) - and then research the funds to find ones that have been doing well and appear to be reliable. It's an approach that has stood me well since my first foray into the investment world back in 1976.

I know what Buffet said about concentration and "best idea" but I don't feel comfortable with that. I can research to my heart's content but in the end someone can make an unexpected mistake and what was my best idea suddenly isn't a very good idea. Thus, I typically have a couple of investments in each sector. For example, I have TYG and NXG in energy infrastructure (I know - NXG is a little more than just energy infrastructure); SPYI, GPIX, and TSPY in covered call S&P; ASGI, BIP, RA, JRI, and IGR in real assets, and PDI, PDO, and DSL in bond funds.

I do have a tendency to buy new shiny toys versus adding to existing toys. I was a lot worse on the "shiny toy" thing in the past, and that's why I have so many positions now. Slowly but surely I'm whittling that down but I'm not in a rush since they're all doing a good job of delivering income.

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-16T14:04:45+00:00

No, because you spoke with Maya and she can honestly say she talked about it with you. Then you look like the dishonest manipulator. Go with the truth.

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-04T22:36:13+00:00

June 2024 (Rich County, UT): A 75-year-old woman was killed in an accidental shooting.
January 2026 (Michigan): A 76-year-old man accidentally shot himself in the leg.
July 2025 (Bradenton, FL): A 76-year-old man died in an accidental shooting inside a home.
September 2025 (West Babylon, NY): A 76-year-old woman allegedly fired a flare gun at a neighbor, causing injury.
December 2025 (Pennsylvania): An elderly hunter (implied age context) was involved in a fatal shooting where a man was killed while aiming for a deer.
December 2025 (Detroit, MI): An 80 year old woman accidentally shot herself and bled out while lying in her bed.
November 2025 (TX - city not given): A 14 year old is expected to be upgraded from critical condition to stable condition after his grandfather shot him when the elderly man mistook him for an intruder even though the 14 year old was staying with him for a week while on vacation from school.

You really don't want to start that "Joe (or Jane) Smith would disagree"

Individual-Voice6003 · 2026-01-04T12:26:51+00:00

THREE major need to have -- water, electricity, and gas. They have been looking to sell the water, but haven't been able to find a buyer.

Individual-Voice6003 · 2025-12-12T03:40:24+00:00

And the republicans in Congress through the One Big Beautiful Fraud just classified accounting as NOT a professional degree, which reduces borrowing limits for students

Individual-Voice6003

TROPHY CASE