High Yield Bond Funds: Which Has The Best 5 Year History?

This is the first of a series of articles that are geared toward assembling a $100,000.00 portfolio that will return a minimum of 7% cash income annually using CEFs and ETFs in the current low interest environment. I am looking to put together an assortment of financial products that will have bonds, common stocks, REITs, MLPs, and preferred issues that will be well diversified into all sectors of the financial world including some foreign issues.
In order to do this well, I plan to back test each element of the portfolio 5 years to ascertain that it should work with a minimum of tinkering from year to year to maintain both the principal invested as well as the 7% cash income annually. If one can hold the same investments from year to year without trading, the cash coming in from these financial instruments could go directly to the investor. This is not just a useless endeavor since I am managing several retirement accounts where the retiree needs monthly cash to live. Some of these accounts are around $100 thousand while others are closer to $500 thousand.
Starting with bonds, I want to find a CEF or an ETF that invests in bonds that offer a reasonable rate of return with low fees and has a history of at least 5 years. In order to do so I will use some tools offered by my brokerage houses to make comparisons between various financial instruments to find one that will fill the bill. Reaching for yield, high yield bond funds were used and starting with ETFs you can view the... Read more