Featuring:
Mark Zheng
Portfolio Manager
Nuveen Asset Management
Rising U.S. debt could elevate long-term yields while the Fed has cut short-term rates, signaling potential opportunities in credit markets for fixed income investors. Nuveen's Mark Zheng, Portfolio Manager of the Nuveen Global High Income Fund (JGH), discusses the Fund's strategy and the market outlook going into 2026.
Nuveen, the investment manager of TIAA, offers a variety of investment solutions including closed-end funds. A fixed income closed-end fund, the Nuveen Global High Income Fund (JGH) seeks to deliver high current income through a diversified portfolio of global high-income securities. Learn more about the Fund here.
Transcript
CEFA:
Welcome to CEF Insights, your source for closed-end and interval fund data, education and insights, brought to you by the Closed-End Fund Association.
Today we are joined by Mark Zheng, a Portfolio Manager within Nuveen's global fixed income team, and Lead Portfolio Manager for the Nuveen Global High Income Fund, ticker symbol JGH.
Mark, thank you for being with us today.
Mark Zheng:
Great to be with you, Matthew.
CEFA:
So Mark, Nuveen is a global investment manager with a long track record of delivering income solutions for clients. Can you tell us a little bit more about your role and where your team sits within the broader organization?
Mark Zheng:
Sure. Just to set the scene, Nuveen's global fixed income platform manages nearly $600 billion in assets and comprises over 200 investment professionals as of June 30, 2025. The fixed income platform manages assets across leveraged finance, securitized credit, emerging markets debt, and non-U.S. debt, just to list a few areas. My role as a multi-sector fixed income portfolio manager focuses on credit strategies, where I leverage the capabilities of more or less every sector across our platform to identify the most attractive opportunities in the credit markets. The team for the Nuveen Global High Income Fund comprises of senior investment professionals from across the broader organization.
CEFA:
Mark, I mentioned the Nuveen Global High Income Fund, which you manage. Can you discuss the investment strategy as well as the key objectives of the fund?
Mark Zheng:
Sure. The Global High Income Fund's key objective is right in its name, high income. That income by design is delivered through a diversified portfolio of higher yielding bonds across a very broad and global opportunity set within fixed income. This includes high yield corporate debt, senior loans, emerging markets debt, preferreds, and securitized debt. The strategy derives its higher income potential primarily from exposure to credit risk. So you can expect to see much of the portfolio invested in securities that are rated below investment grade, not too dissimilar from what you'd find in a high-yield bond fund. Finally, as a closed-end fund, the strategy may and does utilize leverage to generate additional income.
CEFA:
Mark, the Federal Reserve has begun easing rates. Inflation has been stable, but a bit higher than Fed targets, and the shift in U.S. trade policy has created some volatility. Where do you see the fixed income markets currently, and what is Nuveen's outlook for the remainder of 2025 and going into 2026?
Mark Zheng:
From an economic standpoint, we're experiencing a notable slowdown. U.S. growth has decelerated to about 1.4% in the first half of this year, half of last year's pace. We're also seeing job creation slow dramatically. However, we don't see a recession on the horizon. Unemployment has risen only modestly, and manufacturing activity is actually accelerating globally, with fiscal stimulus providing continued support. The Fed is navigating a tricky environment. While tariff-induced inflation creates near-term pressure, making it harder to reach the 2% target, we believe that the Fed will prioritize the employment side of their dual mandate and deliver another 75 basis points of cuts over the coming quarters. Against this backdrop, here's what we think is critical for fixed income investors going into 2026 and the year ahead. We don't expect long-term rates to follow the Fed lower. The reason for this is fiscal policy. With US debt projected to rise about 20% of GDP over the next decade, that alone argues for roughly 75 basis points of upward pressure on 10-year yields, essentially offsetting Fed cuts. We're forecasting a steeper yield curve, but one where duration extension isn't the answer. We believe that the opportunity for fixed income lies in the credit markets. Credit spreads remain well-supported despite growth moderation on strong fundamentals and investor demand. And they've certainly proved resilient through the tariff-induced volatility we've seen back in April. Despite the tightening in credit spreads over the past year, we're still seeing attractive income opportunities across multiple sectors within fixed income, such as emerging markets debt, securitized credit, and senior loans. We believe that this environment going forward should reward broad diversification with emphasis on credit selection overtaking on duration.
CEFA:
Mark, what are the most significant risks in the current environment?
Mark Zheng:
There are several significant risks that we're monitoring closely in the current environment. First, trade policy uncertainty remains a primary concern. While some tariff turbulence has subsided. Ongoing trade policy uncertainty continues weighing on global activity. The effective U.S. tariff rate, we believe, is projected to rise approximately 13% this year, accelerating core goods inflation with risks of further upward pressure. More broadly, we're seeing geopolitical tensions that suggest the era of globalization may be fundamentally shifting. Second, the slowing growth momentum is concerning, and there's pockets of weakness in the data. U.S. job creation, as we noted earlier, has slowed dramatically. Business sentiment remains weak, and building permits have declined for four consecutive months, and that marks the longest stretch since 2009. While we don't see recession on the immediate horizon, this deceleration is certainly meaningful. Lastly, I would be remiss to not acknowledge that valuations across many markets, including parts of the credit market, appear fully valued, especially compared to levels that we've seen over the past several years. We've talked about reasons why we think there are still opportunities in credit, but we are mindful that current valuations may not leave much room for error, especially when it comes to negative growth surprises or some unforeseen major macroeconomic shock.
CEFA:
Where are you seeing the best opportunities to put new capital to work?
Mark Zheng:
For one, we're still seeing value in many areas within securitized credit. And just to list a couple, commercial mortgage-backed securities, or CMBS, there's been several years of concern around the commercial real estate market. That's been depressing pricing, and our highly experienced research team believes they can find significant value in higher yielding, shorter duration and highly diversified exposure to commercial real estate loans. There's also collateralized loan obligations, or CLOs, which we deem as an all-weather investment that can provide enhanced yield diversification and opportunities to improve income. And lastly, we see opportunities in asset-backed securities, or ABS, and complexity premiums associated with the structuring of collateral, provides idiosyncratic risk exposures that also offer the potential for a high level of income. Second, outside of securitized credit, we're increasingly constructive on emerging markets debt. Fundamentals in that space have been improving, and valuations still look appealing relative to many other credit asset classes. Additionally, within emerging markets debt, there are opportunities to add exposure to non-US dollar denominated debt securities from emerging market issuers who issue across multiple hard currencies and that those issuers are credit profiles that our teams already like. And because there's differences in how credit spreads are priced between different markets, this gives us opportunities to pick up additional yield when we go outside of the US dollar. Finally, there are opportunities to buy senior loans discounted to par that we believe are attractively valued and that they are outliers versus the broader market. And that will provide, in our opinion, attractive income and potential for capital appreciation.
CEFA:
Mark, JGH is conducting a secondary offering to raise new capital to take advantage of some of the opportunities you just discussed. Can you outline the terms of the offering?
Mark Zheng:
Of course. The Nuveen Global High Income Fund, or JGH as we call it, is conducting a transferable rights offering that will allow investors the opportunity to buy additional shares of the fund at a discount to its market price. Shareholders of record as of October 21st received one right for each share owned. Four rights are required to subscribe for a new share. The offer expires on November 20th, and the subscription price will be the higher of 95% of the average market price over the final five days of the offer, or 90% of the NAV at the close of the market on November 20th. More information about the offer can be found at nuveen.com/rights.
CEFA:
Mark, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today.
Mark Zheng:
It's my pleasure, Matt.
CEFA:
We want to thank you for tuning into another CEF Insights podcast. For more educational content, please visit our website at www.CEFA.com.
Podcast recorded October 2025.
Disclosure
This material is not, and is not intended as investment advice, an indication of trading intent or holdings or the prediction of investment performance. All fund-specific information is the latest publicly available information. All other information is current as of the date of this presentation. All opinions and forward-looking statements are subject to change at any time.
Nuveen Asset Management disclaims any responsibility to update such views and/or information. This information is deemed to be from reliable sources; however, Nuveen does not warrant its completeness or accuracy. This presentation is not intended to, and does not constitute an offer or solicitation to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security, product, investment advice or service (nor shall any security, product, investment advice or service be offered or sold) in any jurisdiction in which Nuveen is not licensed to conduct business, and/or an offer, solicitation, purchase or a sale would be unavailable or unlawful.
Investors should consider the Fund's investment objective, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing. The prospectus supplement and accompanying prospectus will contain this and additional information about the Fund and additional information about the rights offering, and should be read carefully before investing. For further information regarding the rights offering, or to obtain a prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus, please contact the Fund's information agent, Georgeson LLC, at 833-989-7750.
Investing in closed-end funds involves risk; principal loss is possible. There is no guarantee the Fund's investment
objectives will be achieved. Closed-end fund shares may frequently trade at a discount or premium to their net asset
value.