He recommends lower-cost, open-end funds when no similar closed-end looks worth buying.

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That can be most severe if your broker doesn't offer free reinvestment of the monthly dividend payouts, as done by open-end funds.

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You can buy shares at any time at the net asset value, as with open-end funds, but you can only redeem quarterly and not necessarily all your holdings.

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After all, loans remain one of the few asset classes that offer retail investors relatively wide distributions, with open-end funds paying yields of 4.5-5% and closed-end funds that use leverage paying 6-7%.

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Open-end mutual funds trade directly with investors, creating and destroying shares as needed to account for investments and withdrawals.

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Unlike open-end mutual funds that are bought and sold at Net Asset Value (NAV), ETFs are traded throughout the day at whatever price clears the market.

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But in most cases, I think I have a better chance at limiting risk (and ideally boosting returns) by sticking with open-end bond funds like DoubleLine Core Fixed Income (DLFNX), DoubleLine Total Return (DLTNX), Thompson Bond (THOPX), PIMCO Income (PONDX), and PIMCO Foreign Bond US Hedged (PFODX).

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My policy on bond investing is to only use open-end no load Institutional class mutual funds to invest in bonds.

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But at the same time, closed-end funds, being different than open, they only have to report their holdings every six months but they can go to nine months, where a regular mutual fund, every quarter they have to send out prospectuses and all sorts of things.

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Floating-rate funds come in three varieties: open-end, closed-end and a hybrid of the two.

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