Last year, the White House published a blog post titled “As the US Consumer Goes, So Goes the US Economy.” No matter what your politics are, I think we can all agree that America’s economy depends on consumers buying things. For us income investors, then, the consumer’s health is a key thing to watch, as it ultimately sets the direction of stocks. So how healthy is the US consumer today, and can we confidently buy stocks—and better still, high-yielding CEFs like the one we’ll talk about below (current yield: 10%)? Often, the signals are murky. America is, after all, a big country with a lot of people in it, and some of those people are obviously doing better than others, so it’s tricky to zero in on the overall health of consumers.… Read more