Nuveen Short Duration Credit Opps JSD: 7.85% Yield Plus Protection From Higher Rates At An Anomalous Discount To NAV

Floating rate loans are similar to high yield ("junk") bonds but have a coupon payment that adjusts with interest rates on a quarterly (typically) basis. We are clearly in, and have been for over two years, a rising interest rate environment. Shortly after the Brexit vote, global interest rates hit their low point with the U.S. ten-year treasury rate falling to an all-time* low of 1.37%.
At about that time, our marketplace service Yield Hunting, instituted a "three-legged stool" strategy meant to combat rising rates. The stool consisted of floating rate securities, short-duration high yield, and hedged core fixed income.
The goal of the strategy was to guard against rising interest rates but still participate in the bond market. At the time, many were shifting their bond allocations to equities as "there was no alternative" a.k.a. "TINA". Instead of taking on significantly more risk by overweighting equities, we simply allocated to areas of fixed income that had the best risk-return characteristics assuming a rising interest rate regime. In other words, we used the asset sub-class as a strategic allocation in our portfolio.
Today, our Core Portfolio still has a significant overweight to these securities using closed-end funds. It really wasn't until late last year and early this year that we began adding to floating rate CEFs in earnest. That is largely because of the repricings that were occurring in the space. A repricing is... Read more