Jay Rhame, chief executive officer at Reaves Asset Management -- president of the Reaves Utility Income Fund -- says that the dividend-growth potential for utility companies makes them a viable investment option in today's high interest-rate high inflation market. While those conditions typically are not ideal for utilities, Rhame says utility stocks are reasonably valued...

Steven Perry, vice president at XA Investments -- where he oversees product management on the XAI Octagon Floating Rate and Alternative Income Trust, -- discusses the benefits and risks associated with leverage in closed-end funds during a rising-rate environment, noting that for the closed-end fund market at the end of 2022...

Will Rhind, chief executive officer at GraniteShares -- which runs the GraniteShares US High Income ETF -- says that it appears to him that inflation has peaked and that interest rates are more stable, which has created a more favorable outlook for business-development companies and closed-end funds...

Michael Beth, director of trading at WallachBeth Capital, says that for all of the growth in the closed-end fund space, the amount of trading done each day is relatively small compared to other investment vehicles, which creates challenges for investors to get efficient execution on trades...

John Cole Scott, president of Closed-End Fund Advisors and the chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance, returns to The NAVigator to discuss how closed-end funds responded to the year-end rally and then the sharply bullish January...

Eric Purington, portfolio manager and infrastructure specialist at abrdn, says that middle-market private investments are a path to profitability and outperformance now due to a supply-demand imbalance that has large-cap operators -- working with an 'ocean of capital' looking to do more acquisitions and pay a premium for them...

Nate Jones, head of fund finance and Treasury at Nuveen, says that conditions and 'market nuances' from late in 2022 have carried into the new year, noting that the yield curve for municipal bonds is sloping upward even more than the plot on taxable bonds...

Axel Merk, chief investment officer of the ASA Gold and Precious Metals fund, says that the market is pricing in a recession and the start of rate cuts down the road, and the gold market is already reacting because it tends to lead in these cycles...

Cheryl Pate, senior portfolio manager for Angel Oak Capital -- manager of the Angel Oak Financial Strategies Income Term Trust -- says that it's late in the cycle for rate hikes, mid-cycle for banks in terms of margin expansion and early in the cycle for credit...

John Cole Scott, chief investment officer at Closed-End Fund Advisors -- the chairman of the Active Investment Company Alliance -- says that investors looking for the top sector bets in the new year will want to look at some of 2022's weakest areas, most notably real estate investment trusts (REITs) and real assets...