I've been waiting years for an opportunity to get into some of Pimco's amazingly high performing CEFs, and I'm thinking I'm going to get it. (These will go into my solo 401K, with retirement 15+ years away, so I'm happy to wait out volatility.) Anyone have any insights as to the big differences between the three and which might make the better long-term bet? It seems like PTY has much lower leverage (and therefore expenses), as well as a lower premium, but it doesn't seem much different in the end result.
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PTY v. Other PIMCO CEF's
Edit: You can also dig out differences by examining the 'Portfolio' of each fund on M* or similar. Not the 'Portfolio Holdings' - hardly anyone can figure that out besides probably capecod but rather just the 'Portfolio'.
Even rattling around the idea to ONLY hold these funds, along with VCSH, VCIT, MINT, and maybe another ST/ultra short term/high quality floating rate bond ETF as ballast/cash to draw from during drawdowns (and opportunistically buy more of the CEFs). Maybe 60/40 or 70/30...your cash flow will be much higher than a typical equity/bond 60/40 portfolio, and performance may be close. There’s a poster of Morningstar who only holds PCI, PDI, and PTY and has since ~2016 or so. And probably been pretty happy with his portfolio (though much much higher volatility than bond mutual funds, volatility similar to equity).
As to your question, PCI recently raised its distribution and has generally yielded more than PDI (and their portfolios are similar now), and PCM, so I went with PCI for the middle quality fund. PCN is a higher quality fund, and is yielded almost 8% (esp if you can catch some near the lows on these big down days). And PTY is a little lower quality, slightly lower quality earnings to cover the distribution, so would hold this in lesser amounts (more price volatility, as Mark says above). And PFN/PFL are similar, and consistently in the 9’s% yield; and again, lower quality so a smaller piece of portfolio. PCM and PKO are slightly different portfolios, and they are less mentioned and lower trading liquidity.
I think (grain of salt, again) you can hold these in a portfolio, hold a core position (especially after recent sell offs), and trade opportunistically around the edges based on price movements. PIMCO uses all the tools in the toolbox, and have access to some of the smartest people in retail-available fixed income portfolio management.
Above is not to be construed as advice<img src="https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/plugins/Emoticons/images/smile.gif" alt=":-)" />
Everything is reinvested at this point. So far I plan to keep it, as it will be a nice addition to the interest my other bond funds kick off when I retire in a few years.