AOD: Long-Term Performance Problems, But A Decent Dividend Fund

seekingalpha04-03

The abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund offers a yield of 8.38%, which compares well to similar closed-end funds.The AOD closed-end fund has underperformed global equity indices but has shown consistent...

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Franklin Global Multi-Asset Income A (Mdis) SGD-H1","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4681775-aod-long-term-performance-problems-but-a-decent-dividend-fund","article_id":"2424227300","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":["https://static.seekingalpha.com/cdn/s3/uploads/getty_images/589422272/image_589422272.jpg"],"rights":null,"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=2424227300","pubTimestamp":1712078369,"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"seekingalpha","name":"Seeking Alpha"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"The abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund offers a yield of 8.38%, which compares well to similar closed-end funds.The AOD closed-end fund has underperformed global equity indices but has shown consistent","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"seekingalpha.com","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"LU1244550577.SGD":"FTIF - Franklin Global Multi-Asset Income A (Mdis) SGD-H1","ASML":"阿斯麦","ENB":"安桥","IE00BLSP4239.USD":"Legg Mason ClearBridge - Tactical Dividend Income A Mdis USD Plus","GOOG":"谷歌","GOOGL":"谷歌A","AOD":"Alpine Total Dynamic Dividend Fn","IE00B894F039.SGD":"Legg Mason ClearBridge - US Aggressive Growth A Acc SGD-H","ENGIY":"ENGIE SA","LOW":"劳氏","FGB":"First Trust Specialty Finance","LU1732800096.USD":"摩根大通环球收益基金A (irc)","MSFT":"微软","LGI":"LGI全球基金","TJX":"The TJX Companies Inc.","AAPL":"苹果","AVGO":"博通","03165":"华夏欧优股对冲","LGI.AU":"LGI Ltd","LU0353189763.USD":"ALLSPRING  US ALL CAP GROWTH FUND \"I\" (USD) ACC","TTE":"道达尔","LU0661504455.SGD":"Blackrock Global Equity Income A5 SGD-H","GLQ":"Clough Global Equity Fund","LIN":"Linde PLC","ETG":"Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Globa","RGT":"ROYCE GLOBAL TRUST INC","GLCNF":"Glencore Plc","EOD":"Wells Fargo Advantage Global D","ABBV":"艾伯维公司","LIN.AU":"LINDIAN RESOURCES LTD","URTH":"iShares MSCI World Index Fund","ACWI":"MSCI全球ETF-iShares"},"translate_title":"AOD：长期业绩问题，但分红基金不错","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"AAPL":1,"URTH":1,"TTE":1,"TJX":1,"RGT":1,"MSFT":1,"LOW":1,"LIN.AU":1,"LIN":1,"LGI.AU":1,"LGI":1,"GOOGL":1,"GOOG":1,"GLCNF":1,"ABBV":1,"ACWI":1,"AOD":1,"ASML":1,"AVGO":1,"ENB":1,"EOD":1,"ETG":1,"ENGIY":1,"FGB":1,"GLQ":1,"US7Y.BOND":0.9,"US6M.BOND":0.9,"US5Y.BOND":0.9,"US3Y.BOND":0.9,"US30Y.BOND":0.9,"US10Y.BOND":0.9,"US12M.BOND":0.9,"US2Y.BOND":0.9,"US912797FS14.BOND":0.6,"US912797GB79.BOND":0.6,"US912797HH31.BOND":0.6,"03165":0.6,"US912797HG57.BOND":0.6,"US912797GK78.BOND":0.6,"US912797GL51.BOND":0.6,"US912797GW17.BOND":0.6,"US912797HE00.BOND":0.6,"US912797FH58.BOND":0.6,"US912796CX52.BOND":0.6},"content_text":"The abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund offers a yield of 8.38%, which compares well to similar closed-end funds.The AOD closed-end fund has underperformed global equity indices but has shown consistent performance under abrdn's management.The AOD fund's distribution history has been consistent, and it currently trades at a discount to its net asset value, making it an attractive option for income-focused investors.The fund's largest position is lagging the market and it has a number of large positions with very low dividend yields, which is reducing the income that it earns.The fund has failed to cover its distribution over its two most recent fiscal years, but it is doing okay right now.Wara1982 The abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund (NYSE:AOD) is a closed-end equity fund, or CEF, that investors have long used as a way to obtain a sizable level of income from the assets in their portfolios. The fund does reasonably well here, as it currently boasts an 8.38% yield, which generally compares fairly well to that of many similar closed-end funds. Morningstar classifies the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund as an \"Equity-Global Equity\" fund, so we can use that to establish a peer group for this fund. Here is how its yield compares to that of other funds with a similar classification:   Fund Name Morningstar Classification Current Yield   abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund Equity-Global Equity 8.38%   Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Global Dividend Income Fund (ETG) Equity-Global Equity 8.56%   Lazard Global Total Return and Income Fund Inc (LGI) Equity-Global Equity 7.75%   Royce Global Value Trust (RGT) Equity-Global Equity 1.40%   Clough Global Equity Fund (GLQ) Equity-Global Equity 11.10%   Allspring Global Dividend Opportunity Fund (EOD) Equity-Global Equity 9.14%   Click to enlarge Admittedly, the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund does not have the highest yield on this chart. However, any time that we see a fund whose yield is substantially out of line with its peers, it could be a sign that the market believes that the distribution is unsustainable or that the fund is having some problems. That may be the case with the Clough Global Equity Fund, and indeed that fund manager is often the target of some very harsh criticism from the investment community. For the most part, what we see here is that the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund compares fairly well with its peers, so it seems to have the confidence of the market as well as the potential to serve as a significant source of income for a yield-hungry investor. As regular readers can likely remember, we previously discussed the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund in late October 2023. The equity market has been incredibly strong since that time in both the United States and abroad. The credit for this market strength has been assigned to expectations of a pivot by the Federal Reserve, but the bond market realized several months ago that the central bank is not going to cut interest rates to nearly the extent that is currently priced into market assets. Personally, I suspect that a significant proportion of the recent strengthening of the equity market has come from investors realizing that inflation is not at all beaten and will return with a vengeance if the Federal Reserve does not increase interest rates. As common equities tend to be a better store of wealth than cash in an inflationary environment, what we are seeing is a return to the \"cash is trash\" mentality that dominated the 2010s. Regardless of the reason, the market strength might lead a reader to assume that the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund has delivered a reasonably strong performance since the date of our previous discussion. This is certainly true, but the fund still underperformed the global equity indices. As we can see here, shares of the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund are up 11.37% since the date that my previous article on this fund was published. This is quite a bit less than the 22.52% gain of the iShares MSCI World ETF (URTH) and the 21.10% gain of the iShares MSCI ACWI ETF (ACWI) over the same period: Seeking Alpha This is something that could prove to be disappointing to investors, although I did point out in my previous article that this fund has a tendency to underperform the broader market indices. This could be, at least partly due to the fact that the fund's previous management was not exactly a great performer. Indeed, an Internet search for \"Alpine Fund's problems\" actually brings up a securities lawyer on the first page. In short, this fund employed a dividend capture strategy that did not work too well following the last financial crisis and it caused substantial losses for the fund's investors. However, this fund has done much better under abrdn's management team and the problems that it faced under its old management are far from the past. It is possible that the negative perceptions still weigh on the fund, especially among those investors who are old enough to remember the damage that it inflicted on our portfolios nearly fifteen years ago. As I have pointed out in numerous previous articles, a fund's share price performance alone does not provide an accurate picture of how well investors in the fund have actually done. This is because closed-end funds such as the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund typically pay out most or all of their investment profits to the shareholders in the form of distributions. The basic business model is to keep the fund's portfolio at a relatively stable level and give the investors distributions totaling all of the profits earned from the assets. These distributions will not be reflected in the fund's share price performance, but they obviously represent a real return that is realized by the shareholders. As such, it is important that we include these distributions in any analysis of the fund's performance. When we do so, we see that shareholders in the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund have actually experienced a 15.55% total return over the past six months since we last discussed this fund: Seeking Alpha Unfortunately, we can still see that the fund's performance has been somewhat lower than that of the two global stock indices, but the difference between the fund's performance and the indices is much smaller than we would assume simply by looking at the share price performance. This is important because income-focused investors are sometimes willing to accept a lower return in exchange for a high level of income, but there are limits to their patience in this respect. Overall, a 15.55% gain over six months works out to 31.10% annualized, so there is little to be disappointed about here despite the fact that the fund failed to keep up with the global market indices. As six months have passed since the last time that we discussed this fund, it is reasonable to expect that there have been several changes to the fund's portfolio and finances. As such, we should revisit the fund and our thesis surrounding it to see if it makes sense to hold this fund today. About The Fund (The abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund may merge with the First Trust Special Finance and Financial Opportunities Fund (FGB) at some point. However, the shareholders of the First Trust Specialty Finance and Financial Opportunities Fund have not approved this merger as of yet. Based on current information, the only impact that this merger will have on the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund is to increase its net assets. There will be no change in the fund's strategy, so it should not be especially important for our analysis today.) According to the fund's website, the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund has the primary objective of providing its investors with a high level of current income. The fund has a secondary objective of providing long-term growth of capital. This objective does work for an equity closed-end fund like this one, but it is extremely difficult to obtain a reasonable yield by investing in common equities. This is because common equities only have very low dividend yields, with the notable exception of a handful of energy partnerships and some Singaporean real estate trusts. As of the time of writing, the iShares MSCI World ETF has a trailing twelve-month yield of 1.61% and the iShares MSCI ACWI ETF has a trailing twelve-month yield of 1.79%. At these yields, a one-million-dollar investment would earn less than $18,000 in annual income. That is unlikely to be anywhere close to enough to support the desired lifestyle of anyone who managed to become a millionaire over the course of their career. Some of the common stocks held by the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund manage to do a better job at providing dividend income to their investors, but not all of them are so fortunate. Here are the largest positions in the fund according to the most recent fact sheet: Fund Fact Sheet Here are the current yields of these stocks:   Company Current Yield   Apple Inc. (AAPL) 0.56%   Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) 0.71%   Broadcom Inc. (AVGO) 1.56%   BE Semiconductor Industries N.V. (OTC:BESIY) 2.06%   Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) (GOOGL) N/A   Enbridge Inc. (ENB) 7.38%   TotalEnergies SE (TTE) 4.59%   ASML Holding N.V. (ASML) 0.66%   Linde plc (LIN) 1.20%   AbbVie Inc. (ABBV) 3.43%   Click to enlarge We can see that the fund includes investments in a few companies that boast better yields than the index such as Enbridge, TotalEnergies, and AbbVie. However, all three of the major American companies do not make a lot of sense as core holdings for a fund that is trying to achieve a high level of dividend income. After all, as we can clearly see above, not one of them has an attractive yield right now, and all three of them pay out less as a percentage of their stock price than the average company in the global market. As such, the presence of these companies is a drag on the fund's dividend earnings potential. With that said, all three of these major technology companies have been responsible for an outsized proportion of the global market's performance over the past year. As we can see here, Microsoft and Alphabet have both beaten the two MSCI World indices by quite a lot over the past twelve months: Seeking Alpha Apple was also outperforming the two indices until this year when it started to fall off significantly. This is understandable for two reasons:  Apple is currently the target of an antitrust lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice and sixteen states (see here) regarding the company's practice of limiting the ability of applications to access certain features of its hardware. Apple has had nearly no net income growth since 2001. All of its earnings per share growth has been caused by an expensive share buyback program.  The second of these two bullet points may be perhaps the most important, as Apple has been targeted by regulators multiple times over the past five years or so for alleged antitrust violations, but its shares have always bounced back. The second factor is more important considering that Apple is considered a growth stock. Here is its net income over the past three years: Seeking Alpha As we can see, this is a growth stock with no growth in net income. That is almost certainly contributing to the market's changing perception of the stock year-to-date. This is important because Apple is the largest holding in the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund, but it has been underperforming the market year-to-date. This is almost certainly one reason why this fund's shares are only up 2.11% year-to-date and its share price performance over the past six months appears to have stalled following the start of the new year. With respect to Microsoft and Alphabet's presence among the largest holdings of a fund that claims to focus on earning a high level of dividend income, the outsized performance of these two companies relative to the global market indices basically means that it would be very difficult for any fund to keep up with the global benchmarks without including them among its largest positions. Thus, the fund is basically forced to include them simply to satisfy its investors despite the fact that their below-average yields weigh on the fund's ability to earn a very high level of dividend income per its objective. There have been quite a few changes to the fund's largest positions list since the last time that we discussed it. In particular, we see that The TJX Companies, Inc. (TJX), Engie SA (OTCPK:ENGIY), Glencore plc (OTCPK:GLCNF), and Lowe's Companies, Inc. (LOW) were removed from the largest positions list. In their place, we have Enbridge, ASML Holding, Linde PLC, and AbbVie. In addition to this, the weightings of several of the fund's largest positions have changed since our previous discussion. However, weighting changes can simply be caused by one asset outperforming another in the market and do not necessarily suggest that the fund is actively trading stocks or other assets in order to adjust its weightings. The fact that four of its largest positions have changed over the past six months still suggests that this fund engages in a significant amount of trading activity, however. This fund's annual turnover is 78%, which is not especially high compared to its peers:   Fund Annual Turnover   abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund 78.00%   Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Global Dividend Income Fund 101.00%   Lazard Global Total Return and Income Fund 5.00%   Royce Global Value Trust 14.00%   Clough Global Equity Fund 122.00%   Allspring Global Dividend Opportunities Fund 97.00%   Click to enlarge (All figures are from the funds' most recent annual reports.) As we can see, the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund is not particularly high compared to some of its peer funds. It is, admittedly, not the lowest fund in the list but the incredibly low turnovers of the Lazard and Royce fund are akin to a buy-and-hold strategy. There are very few actively managed funds that employ such a strategy, and few investors are willing to pay the expenses associated with such a strategy as a passive fund would be much cheaper when management does not really do anything. One of the problems with a high turnover is that it tends to cause a fund's fees to come in a bit higher than they otherwise would. This is because it costs money to trade stocks or other financial instruments and these trading expenses are billed directly to the fund's shareholders. This is not necessarily a problem if management is able to generate sufficient excess returns to cover these fees and still have enough left over to provide the shareholders with an acceptable return, but very few management teams are able to accomplish this successfully. This is one reason why many actively managed funds fail to beat their benchmark indices. For its part, the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund has an expense ratio of 1.36%, but some of this is due to the fund's use of leverage: Fund Fact Sheet That is a bit higher than some of the other funds that we have discussed in this column, which is unfortunate. The fund's operating expenses are perhaps the most important consideration though, as the leverage expense can change wildly based on the amount of money that the fund borrows in an attempt to juice its returns, as well as the prevailing interest rate in the market. The fund's 1.02% management fee alone is higher than some other actively managed closed-end funds that we have discussed, however. This fund has significantly underperformed both of the MSCI World indices over the past five years on a total return basis: Seeking Alpha Thus, it does appear that the fund's management has not been able to generate sufficient excess returns to cover the fund's expenses and still keep up with the market. This is true even when we consider the additional returns that are provided by the fund's much larger yield relative to both market indices. As such, an investor who wants to achieve the maximum possible return may want to just buy the index. However, this fund has done well enough during certain periods that some investors might be willing to take it over the index in order to earn a higher yield. For example, consider the fund's relative performance over the five-year period that ended on December 31, 2023: Seeking Alpha While it still underperformed over the full periods, there were certainly a few times when it delivered the same or better trailing total returns than the market indices. This might be enough for income-focused investors to favor it over the indices, but overall, it does not appear that this fund is beating the market over the long term. Leverage As is the case with most closed-end funds, the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund employs leverage as a method of boosting the effective yield and total return that it receives from its portfolio. I explained how this works in my previous article on this fund:  In short, the fund is borrowing money and using that borrowed money to purchase dividend-paying common equities of various companies from around the world. As long as the purchased assets deliver a higher total return than the interest rate that the fund has to pay on the borrowed money, the strategy works pretty well to boost the effective yield of the portfolio. As this fund is capable of borrowing money at institutional rates, which are considerably lower than retail rates, this will usually be the case. However, it is important to note that this strategy is not as effective today with interest rates at 6% as it was two years ago when rates were at 0%. However, the use of debt in this fashion is a double-edged sword. This is because leverage boosts both gains and losses. Thus, we want to ensure that the fund is not using too much leverage since that would expose us to too much risk. I generally do not like to see a fund's leverage exceed a third as a percentage of assets for that reason.  As of the time of writing, the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund has a leverage ratio of 1.44% of its assets. This is an incredibly low level of leverage that compares pretty well with the fund's peers, as we can see here:   Fund Leverage Ratio   abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund 1.44%   Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Global Dividend Income Fund 19.80%   Lazard Global Total Return and Income Fund 30.20%   Royce Global Value Trust 5.08%   Clough Global Equity Fund 25.09%   Allspring Global Dividend Opportunities Fund 18.00%   Click to enlarge (All data courtesy of CEF Data) Curiously, Morningstar puts the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund's leverage at 4.58% right now. That is significantly higher than the ratio provided by CEF Data, which was used to construct the chart above. The fund sponsor does not specifically state the fund's level of leverage in real-time or even on a regular basis, so we have to go with a third-party source and obviously, the two sources that are most often used by investors in closed-end funds differ on the figure. With that said, the fund's leverage is clearly very reasonable relative to its peers regardless of which source's information is consulted. The fund employs much less leverage than any of its peers, which is something that risk-averse investors should be able to appreciate. As such, there does not appear to be anything to worry about with respect to this fund's leverage. Distribution Analysis As mentioned earlier in this article, the primary objective of the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund is to provide its investors with a high level of current income. It seeks to achieve this objective by investing its assets into a portfolio that primarily consists of dividend-paying common stocks. However, as we saw in this article, common stocks in general have relatively low yields so it seems highly unlikely that the fund is actually earning anywhere near enough money to sustain its distribution via this method. It does still try though, and it pools the dividends that it collects together into a sum of money. To this total, the fund adds any capital gains that it manages to realize from the sale of appreciated common stocks. It does employ a small amount of leverage, so it is able to collect more dividends and capital gains than it otherwise could by relying solely on its own equity capital. Finally, the fund pays out all of this accumulated money to its shareholders after subtracting its own expenses. While the dividends alone do not provide much in the way of income, we can still see how this should allow the fund's shares to boast a reasonably high yield when we consider the capital gains that are frequently provided from common stocks. It is indeed the case that the fund's shares have a respectable distribution yield, as the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund pays a monthly distribution of $0.0575 per share ($0.69 per share annually). This gives the fund a reasonable 8.38% yield at the current price. As we saw earlier in this article, this yield compares reasonably well to that of the fund's peers, although it is certainly not the highest yield that is available in the space. As may be assumed by comments that I made in the introduction to this article, the fund's long-term distribution history has not been especially impressive but it has done reasonably well in recent years: CEF Connect We can see a number of distribution cuts over the 2007 to 2013 period. However, since then the fund has been very consistent with respect to its distribution. In early 2014, the fund started paying a monthly distribution of $0.0565 per share and it has not cut since that time. That was more than ten years ago, so we can probably excuse the cuts prior to that time. Abrdn took over the management of this fund in 2018 so everything that the fund did prior to that date is attributable to the previous management that employed a different strategy in any case. The fund has been remarkably consistent since abrdn took over its management and the distribution history should overall be pretty attractive to anyone who is seeking to earn a safe and consistent level of income that can be used to pay their bills or finance their lifestyles. As is always the case, we want to have a look at the fund's finances in order to determine how well it is paying for its current distribution. After all, we do not want the fund to be paying out more than it earns from its investment portfolio and destroying its net asset value in the process. The destruction of net asset value is not sustainable over any extended period, after all. Unfortunately, we do not have an especially recent report that we can consult for the purposes of our analysis. As of the time of writing, the most recent financial report for the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund corresponds to the full-year period that ended on October 31, 2023. As such, it will not include any information about how well the fund has performed over the past five months. This is somewhat disappointing as the market has been very strong over the period and this undoubtedly allowed this fund to earn a significant amount of capital gains. With that said, though, anyone can earn money during a bull market so the inclusion of those five months would be unlikely to give us any insight into the quality of the fund's management. The most recent report is newer than the one that we had available to us the last time that we discussed this fund, which is actually quite nice as it will include information about the fund's performance over the summer of 2023. That was a period of rising interest rates and generally weak stock price performance, so the fund might have taken some losses during the period. It will be very helpful for investors to see how well the fund handled those conditions, as management's ability to navigate challenging conditions is somewhat more insightful than its ability to earn money in a strong market. For the full-year period that ended on October 31, 2023, the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund received $81,099,979 in dividends and $8,745 in interest. From these amounts, we have to subtract the money that the fund had to pay in foreign withholding taxes. This gives the fund a total investment income of $73,972,832 for the period. It paid its expenses out of this amount, which left it with $61,514,810 available to shareholders. As might be expected, that was nowhere near enough to cover the distributions that the fund paid out in the period. Over the twelve-month period, the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund distributed $72,747,390 to its investors. At first glance, this is something that may be concerning to shareholders as the fund clearly failed to earn sufficient income to cover its distribution over the period. I will admit, though, that it got closer to fully covering its distributions out of net investment income than may be expected for an equity closed-end fund. There are other methods through which a closed-end fund can obtain the money that it requires to cover the distribution. For example, the fund might have been able to realize some capital gains through the sale of appreciated common stock. Realized capital gains are not considered to be investment income for tax or accounting purposes, but they do result in money coming into the fund that can be paid out to the fund's shareholders. Unfortunately, the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund had mixed results in earning money via these alternative methods during the period. For the full-year period, the fund reported net realized losses of $28,051,167 but it was able to offset this with $31,509,278 net unrealized gains. Overall, the fund's net assets declined by $7,774,469 after accounting for all inflows and outflows during the period. Thus, the fund failed to cover its distributions over the full-year period, which is concerning. This fund also failed to cover its distributions during the previous year. For the full-year period that ended on October 31, 2022, the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund reported a $249,483,706 decline in net assets after accounting for all inflows and outflows. Thus, the fund paid out more than it could really afford for a two-year period. Fortunately, the fund does appear to be okay so far in the current fiscal year. This chart shows the fund's net asset value per share since October 31, 2023: Barchart As we can clearly see, the fund's net asset value per share is up 13.58% since the close of the most recent reporting period. Thus, the fund has managed to fully cover all of the distributions that it has paid out since that date with a significant amount of money left over. This is a good sign, although it remains to be seen how much of the trailing two-year capital destruction it manages to undo with the recent strong performance. For now, investors certainly do not need to worry about a distribution reduction. Valuation As of April 1, 2024 (the most recent date for which data is currently available), the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund has a net asset value of $9.70 per share but the shares currently trade for $8.15 each. This gives the fund's shares a 15.98% discount on net asset value at the current price. This compares pretty well to the 15.20% discount that the shares have averaged over the past month. Thus, the current price represents a pretty reasonable entry point for anyone who wants to add this fund to their portfolio. Conclusion In conclusion, the abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund is a reasonable way for investors to retain their common equity exposure while earning a very high level of income through the distribution yield that it pays out. The fund actually manages to cover a significant portion of its distribution solely with net investment income, which is very rare for an equity closed-end fund. The fund also trades at a very attractive discount on net asset value, which provides a margin of safety for a potential buyer today. Unfortunately, abrdn Total Dynamic Dividend Fund does have a long-term track record of underperforming the market, even when the distribution is considered. As such, investors who want to maximize their returns would be better off just buying an MSCI World index fund. However, this fund might offer a reasonable proposition for someone who wants exposure to more dividend-oriented companies and a high current income.  Editor's Note: This article covers one or more microcap stocks. Please be aware of the risks associated with these stocks.","kind":null,"is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":null,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":1},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.24.0","shortVersion":"4.24.0","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/2424227300"}