Well, that was a month to forget, with the 4.8% downturn for the S&P 500 SPX, +1.15% the worst September in a decade.

It’s been a difficult decade, not just month, for income investors, with interest rates so low. Now, income investors confront not just low rates but high inflation. So it isn’t easy to find places to invest for income streams rather than shooting for the moon.

Adam Kramer, a portfolio manager at Fidelity, says floating-rate preferred stocks and loans are less likely than fixed-income investments to lose value in a higher inflationary and interest-rate environment. In an article on the fund manager’s website, he said master limited partnerships, typically oil and gas pipelines, pay some of the highest yields, and according to Kramer are mispriced by the market. Similarly, clean energy yieldcos tend to operate solar and wind power projects.

Kramer also notes real-estate investment trusts — and mentions casino and shopping mall REITs as having COVID concerns reflected in their prices. Lastly, he mentioned dividend-paying value stocks, like oil producers and gold miners.

While Kramer didn’t mention individual investments, a review of the Fidelity Advisor Multi Asset Income Fund where he’s lead manager shows holdings through the end of September. The fund’s top stock market investments included metals streaming company Wheaton Precious Metals WPM, -1.62%, gold miner Newmont NEM, -1.36%, and crude-oil tanker company DHT Holdings DHT, +2.76%. Preferred stockholdings include thermal-energy provider Babcock & Wilcox, Volkswagen investor Porsche Automobil Holding, investment banking firm B Riley Financial and commercial real estate firm Brookfield Property Partners.

The fund invests in wood-fiber-processing master limited partnership Enviva Partners EVA, +1.68%, as well as Smart SRU.UT, +0.88%, the Canadian shopping center REIT.

The chart

People don’t really talk about the New York Stock Exchange NYA, +1.11% index — an index of all the companies listed on the Big Board — but Bank of America presents an interesting annotated chart of it. Right now, it says we’re in the “summer consolidation” phase.

The buzz

Politics continued to take center stage, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delayed an infrastructure vote while West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin called for the social-spending plan’s size to be cut to $1.5 trillion from $3.5 trillion. The debt-ceiling issue still looms as well.

The core PCE price index was a tenth hotter than forecast for August, rising 0.3%, as the overall PCE price index added 0.4%. U.S. consumer spending jumped 0.8%.

The closely followed Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index is due at 10 a.m., as are construction spending data, as automobile makers release their monthly sales throughout the day.

Merck MRK, +8.37% and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics said their oral antiviral reduced the risk of hospitalization or death from COVID-19 in a Phase 3 trial. Merck said it plans to submit an application for emergency-use authorization to the Food and Drug Administration as soon as possible.

Zoom Video Communications ZM, +2.30% and Five9 FIVN, +4.71% called off their multibillion-dollar merger Thursday, after Five9 shareholders voted against a deal that was being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice. Five9 separately announced an analyst day for November to discuss the company’s strategy and outlook.

The market

Futures on both the S&P 500 ES00, +1.23% and Nasdaq-100 NQ00, +0.65% turned higher, reversing early declines. The yield on the 10-year Treasury TMUBMUSD10Y, 1.463% slipped to 1.496%.

Random reads

“Seinfeld” reruns have landed on Netflix NFLX, +0.46%, but Jerry Seinfeld says a reboot of the show would be sad.

The pop singer Shakira says she fought off a pair of wild boars.

Talk about a mixed bag — a man died before cashing the winning lottery ticket he was carrying in his wallet.

Need to Know starts early and is updated until the opening bell, but sign up here to get it delivered once to your email box. The emailed version will be sent out at about 7:30 a.m. Eastern.

Want more for the day ahead? Sign up for The Barron’s Daily, a morning briefing for investors, including exclusive commentary from Barron’s and MarketWatch writers.