No Free Lunch in Closed-End Funds 

A good article above by Barron's last weekend. 

Can you believe that many high income bond funds are trading 20% to 70% above the NAV? 66% of taxable bond funds and 73% of municipal-bond funds trade above NAV now versus roughly 30% both a year ago and in 2006. 

Investor sentiment could shift, sending shares tumbling. Any hint of rising interest rates would be a concern, as would expectations that the gap between short- and long-term rates might narrow. That would hurt funds relying on short-term borrowing to buy long-term assets.

Household Income Sinks to '95 Level

The income of the typical U.S. family has fallen to levels last seen in 1995, a long and pernicious slide that likely means it will be a generation before Americans regain the peak income levels reached at the close of the '90s.

Social Security

Do you know when to claim your social security? Age 62? 66? or wait until 70?

Do you know that if you wait until 70, you can get 32% more per month and every month ??

Also, do you know that if you divorce and do not marry again, you may be eligible to get half of the social security from you ex?

Read this transcript from Conseulo Mack's show on Social Security.

Mary Beth Franklin, the subject expert, recommends http://www.socialsecuritysolutions.com/

You can also contact mbfranklin@investmentnews.com for tough questions. For the whole article, read them here.

MLPs - High Energy Income

An excellent article in Barrons about MLPs in energy section. See their picks here in MLPs and MLP funds.

Summary:
- MLPs have a great total return, a combination of yield and growth, which is hard to find anywhere else.
- The key to this whole sector is owning the MLPs that raise that distribution over time.
- MLPs are more attractive in low-interest-rate environments.
- The traditional midstream MLP assets include intrastate pipeline systems.
- Retirement accounts: MLP's unrelated business taxable income (UBTI) will make tax filing quite complex. Use MLP funds instead.

Turnaround Story

Mickey Drexler was credited to turn GAP around during the 1990s. Check out his story - Mickey Drexler’s Redemption here.

However, Warren Buffett said " Turnarounds seldom turn. "

Can Ron Johnson in JC Penny do the same thing?

How to Play Energy

A good summary from Barrons this weekend. Check it out here.
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Evan Calio, an energy analyst at Morgan Stanley, wrote recently that many stocks trade "near liquidation value," and the group as a whole is valued at "trough" levels, based on such measures as price to cash flow and reserves relative to enterprise value, which is stock-market value plus debt. He likes stocks that can do well "without commodity support," which is to say rising prices. His favorites include Chevron, Anadarko, and Hess.
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Click the links to read the article and a table .

Falling Star - Chinese Economy

On 6/30/2012, Barron's reported that the Chinese economy is slowing and is likely to slow a lot more. You can find the article here (Click to download the pdf file). The article will help us to be cautious and cognizant about the risks but not to speculate or make investment on it. 

When I was in Fuzhou (福州) in Dec 2011. I witnessed at first hand many many new and empty apartment buildings (mostly 20 - 30 floors or more) between the international airport and city of Fuzhou. During the course of 2011, I also saw many reports on other cities with empty apartment buildings or shopping malls.

You may also notice just recently that many commodity prices go down including oil price. Why did oil fall from $110+ to $80?

If you have friends in China, what questions can they ask? If they have multiple real estate investments which had been doing more than fantastic, should they diversify their investment to US?

Enjoy reading this article.