The ever-evolving situation in the Middle East has left a lot of uncertainty in the air. But in unpredictable times like these, the best move is often simply this: stay the course.
Investors in high-yielding closed-end funds (CEFs) know this. Our favorite income plays throw off dividends averaging 9%. That means we can sit back, wait out volatility and get paid handsomely as we do.
And some CEFs, like our long-time CEF Insider portfolio holding the Adams Diversified Equity Fund (ADX), go one further: ADX kicks out an 8.3% dividend as I write this. And it does this while outperforming the S&P 500 over the long haul.
8.3% Dividends and Index-Busting Performance. ADX Has Both
That makes ADX a rare bird indeed. As you can see above, the fund has beaten the S&P 500 in the last 33 years, with every $1 invested now worth $30.90 for ADX versus $27.14 for the benchmark State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY). (Thirty-three years is our timeline because that’s how long SPY has been around.)
It’s a testament to the power of the old Wall Street adage that “the trend is your friend”—especially when you consider that ADX holds many of the same stocks SPY does, NVIDIA (NVDA), JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Meta Platforms (META) among them.
ADX is itself an example of the wisdom of taking the long view: It’s been around since 1929 and has tapped that long institutional memory to drive those outsized returns. Its shareholders have consistently received a high-single-digit dividend while they’ve owned the fund.
This is why ADX was one of the first funds we added to the CEF Insider portfolio in July 2017, just a few months after launching the service.
Even investors who simply held SPY have done well in the long haul (even though we much prefer ADX and its 8.3% dividend over SPY’s microscopic 1.1% payout)
Over the 33 years since SPY’s launch, the ETF has returned 10.4% yearly, on average. The interesting thing is, even with the index’s meager yield, reinvesting payouts makes a big difference over a timeframe like that. An investor who withdrew their dividends would’ve brought in just 8.5% annualized.
When Trend-Following Fails
I bring all of this up now because anyone buying stocks or CEFs these days might not feel like the trend is all that friendly. The market has, after all, fallen in 2026, while being whipsawed by up-and-down headlines out of the Middle East.
But it’s important not to succumb to short-term worry, because the best move in times of crisis is often to buy. Or if you’re not comfortable doing that, then, as I said off the top, doing nothing is a strong play, too.
Last Year’s Paranoia Was Worse …
We need only to look back a year to see the wisdom here. At this time last year, stocks were deep into a correction and flirting with a bear market.
Back then, the panic was mostly driven by President Trump’s tariff announcement. That situation, of course, isn’t like today’s problems in the Middle East, but the uncertainty it’s caused feels similar.
… Then This Happened
But as you can see above, anyone who ignored the fear and focused on the long term did very well.
The bottom line? Wall Street’s adage should be adapted to read: “The long-term trend is your friend!” And note that diversification is the key to making the long-term trend your friend, since leaning too hard on one sector often leads to underperformance.
To see what I’m getting at, consider oil, where, yes, there is a CEF play: the Adams Natural Resources Fund (PEO), a well-managed fund that yields 7.3%.
As I write this, PEO is outrunning the S&P 500, as you’d expect in a year heavy with Middle East turmoil. But this is a good example of a place where we don’t want to chase a trend. In last year’s selloff, for example, PEO didn’t fall as far as the market, and it bounced back from that episode faster than stocks in general.
But by the end of the year, PEO had underperformed the market by nearly half!
Oil—and PEO—Are Not Places to Blindly Follow the Long-Term Trend
And indeed, while oil investments like PEO can outperform in the short term and do tend to rise over time, they lag the market in the long haul—with more volatility, too.
Long-Term Thinking Falls Short With Oil
This brings us back to ADX, whose discount to NAV, currently 3.6%, is headed toward premium territory.
ADX’s Discount Moves Toward Par (and Likely Beyond)
This is often a good time to buy—when a CEF remains discounted, but that discount has settled into a narrowing trend. Right now, the fund trades right around my buy-up-to price of $23. My suggestion? Put it on your list to snap up on any major moves below that level.
Get My Latest Guidance on ADX (Plus 5 Monthly Payers Yielding 9.7%+) Now
At CEF Insider, we’re tracking the fallout from the Middle East situation closely, and I continue to update my recommendations in response, including on ADX.
I want to make sure you get the latest information on these 9%+ yielding funds as this situation evolves. So I’m offering you the chance to road test CEF Insider—and get access to its complete portfolio of high-yielding CEFs—for 60 days with no obligation.
That’s not all.
As you may know, many CEFs offer us something else (beyond high dividends) that’s extremely valuable at a time like this: monthly dividends.
Consider the 5 funds in my “9.7% Monthly Dividend Portfolio.” As the name says, they yield 9.7% on average and pay you every 30 (or 31) days. That’s a total of 5 dividend “paychecks” a month, or 60 every year.
Just from these 5 funds!
And these 5 CEFs come from across the economy, holding top stocks, bonds, REITs and other assets. That broad diversification gives us peace of mind while we collect our rich 9.7% monthly payouts.
These funds’ discounts are still available, but with the high, and reliable, monthly payouts they offer, I don’t expect that to last. Click here and I’ll let you tell you more about these 9.7% monthly payers. I’ll also give you a Special Report revealing their names and tickers and a VIP invite to try CEF Insider.