"Global takeovers have totaled $1.29 trillion so far this year, up +23% from the same time last year. That's great news for funds that profit from Wall Street's deal making," says income specialist Amy Calistri.

The editor of The Daily Paycheck explains, "The Gabelli Global Deal Fund (GDL) is a closed-end fund that invests in securities of companies involved in announced mergers, takeovers and leveraged buyouts. And the fund offers a rich 9.0% yield.

"During the recession, smart companies battened down the hatches, cut costs and paid down debt. As a result, their balance sheets are healthy. Overall, $3 trillion of cash is sitting on company balance sheets.

"You need to be prepared for the possibility of a correction in gold," says resource specialist Curtis Hesler, who adds, "Looking at the long term, however, gold will probably double from current levels."

The editor of The Professional Timing Service explains, "As such, the key is to buy fear and sell comfort. Here we look at a trio of favorite closed-end funds invested in the metals sector.

"Gabelli Global Gold and Nautral Resources & Income (GGN) s a closed-end fund investing in a variety of tangible asset plays.

Some 90% of their holdings are in equities, which are balanced about 32% in energy and 58% in metals and mining. They also hold convertible bonds in these two sectors.

Some closed-end funds pay out what is known as managed distributions as a template for their dividend policy.

What happens here is that the fund, in its attempt to draw investor attention, states that it will pay out a managed distribution that is a percentage of the net asset value (NAV) at the end of each quarter. The idea is stability of income.

Hardly! Most closed-end funds that employ a managed distribution payout policy use 8% as the percentage of NAV they peg the fund to at the end of the quarter.

"Closed-end funds are a terrific way to gain diversified exposure to high-yielding foreign stocks," says global expert Nick Lanyi.

In his High-Yield International, he explains, "My latest closed-end fund pick, First Trust/Aberdeen Emerging Opportunity Fund (NYSE: FEO), gets income any which way it can from the world's fastest-growing economies." Here's his review.

"For U.S. investors looking to broaden their horizons, closed-end funds offer an easy way to gain exposure to a diverse mix of foreign stocks without venturing beyond U.S.-based stock exchanges.

"Not only that, they often provide access to stocks that don't trade in the U.S. -- including companies that only institutional investors (such as a fund manager) can buy.

"But these funds offer a bonus that mutual funds don't: in some cases you can purchase them at a discount to their net asset value (NAV) -- the underlying value of the fund's portfolio.

"That's because closed-end funds trade on the major stock exchanges, just like stocks. Their prices are determined by investor sentiment and supply and demand, in addition to the value of the investments they hold.

"Led by Brett Diment, the management team at Aberdeen Asset Management -- which specializes in emerging markets -- has assembled a portfolio that exposes investors to some of the fastest-growing economies in the world: Brazil, Mexico, China, India, Turkey, Argentina and Venezuela are among the fund's top holdings.

"Buy bonds," says income expert Neil George, adding "More and more folks are heading for the door on stocks and are moving toward quality."

The senior editor of Personal Finance explains, "This means bonds-but not just any bonds: government and upper-tier corporate bonds." Here's a trio of favorites.

"We start with AllianceBernstein Global High Income Fund (NYSE: AWF). This fund owns a collection of government and government agency bonds, along with some selected high-quality domestic and foreign corporates that add to our stability.

"We aren't just locked into the US and the US dollar; we have exposure to the best of Europe, Asia and elsewhere, too. The average duration (measurement of price against changes in yield) is a conservative but attractive 7.4 years.

"The fund generates a yield just shy of 8% and has given us a positive performance of near 100% during the past five years. It trades at a discount of more than 6% to meltdown value.

According to a study written up in the New York Times (subscription required) this week, it isn't lousy management's frequent trading that's responsible for the poor performance of mutual funds. Nope, it's the investors who redeem their shares and force the funds to sell even if they don't want to. The study found that "liquidity-motivated" trades perform poorly compared to trades based on fundamentals.

Mark Hulbert, the author of the piece, suggests that investing in closed-end funds may be a way to avoid this problem, because they generally don't face redemption. In an exchange-traded fund, an investor who wants to sell shares just sells them to another investor. It's just like how selling shares of McDonald's Corp. (NYSE:MCD) would have no impact on the operations of the company.

And yet there's still a problem: Regardless of what any study says, mutual funds simply cannot, on average, outperform passively managed indexes. It's a zero-sum game. Before expenses, the average fund's performance can only be average. After expenses, the average fund is considerably below average. The fact that ETFs are almost always passively managed (rebalanced/adjusted once a year generally) is a large contributor to their outperformance. The fact that they are immune to redemptions by panic-stricken shareholders at precisely the wrong time adds to their value.

The more I study it, the more obvious I think it becomes: ETFs are probably better than traditional mutual funds for most investors.

Each year Steven Halpern, editor of TheStockAdvisors.com, surveys the leading financial newsletter advisors asking for their favorite stocks for the coming year. This article is part of his 24th annual Top Picks Report.

Templeton Emerging Markets Fund (NYSE: EMF), a closed-end fund, is the top speculative idea from Daniel Frishberg, BizRadio host and editor of TheMoneyMan.com.

He says, "Right now, shoppers are buying, foreigners are spending, Asia and Latin America are growing, the world is awash in money, interest rates are low and jobs are plentiful -- so any sell-off early in 2007 could mark a real opportunity to join a stock market that's about to blast off.

"Templeton Emerging Market covers the Pacific and Asia, excluding Japan. Stocks of China, Taiwan, South Korea, Turkey are the main holdings. In each of the last couple of years, it has issued a very large dividend, and many advisors have suggested getting in, in advance, to capture the dividend.

"In reality, the stock declined by the exact amount of the dividend, as should have been expected, and while EMF is recovering nicely, we see it as even more attractive post-dividend. You get the gain without the immediate tax.