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Quant Investor of Quant Investor Oct 12, 2008 Email this article to a Friend  Printer friendly page

vI have previously posted about the Cornerstone Total Fund (ticker:CRF) which had maintained a very high premium over NAV for quite a long period, and was owned by the Renaissance Fund.

insert.a.chart.CRF

But there has been a sudden reversal in this fund, and it is actually a decent buy now. (Although I think there are even better values available today in the CEF market).

On July 31, 2008, the NAV was 6.33 and the NAV on Friday's close is 4.31.
This decline is pretty much in line with the market averages.

But the CRF market price has been absolutely massacred.
July 31, 2008 12.97
October 10, 2008 3.11

On July 31, the premium over NAV was 104.90 percent. CRF is now selling at a 27.84 percent discount to NAV. This is a swing of over 132 percent in less than three months.

This is certainly a strange market for closed end funds. On Friday, many of the REIT closed end funds fell sharply in price, even though their NAV's rose sharply. One example is SRQ, but there are many more. SRQ dropped 20 percent, but it's NAV XSRQX was up 23.75 percent.

Some leveraged closed end funds with leverage factors above 33.33 are being forced to liquidate some of their portfolio at fire sale prices.

by Quant Investor (Quant Investor)

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