Closed-end Fund - Exchange-traded

Exchange-traded

Closed-end fund shares are traded throughout market opening hours at whatever price the market will support. It may be possible to deal using advanced types of orders such as limit orders and stop orders. This is in contrast to some open-end funds which are only available for buying and selling at the close of business each day, at the calculated NAV, and for which orders must be placed in advance, before the NAV is known, and by simple buy or sell orders. Some funds require that orders be placed hours or days in advance, in order to simplify their administration, make it easier to match buyers with sellers, and eliminate the possibility of arbitrage (for example if the fund holds investments which are traded in other time zones).

Closed-end funds are traded on exchanges and in that respect they are like exchange-traded funds (ETFs), but there are important differences between these two kinds of security. The price of a closed-end fund is completely determined by the valuation of the market, and this price often diverges substantially from the NAV of the fund assets. In contrast, the market price of an ETF trades in a narrow range very close to its net asset value, because the structure of ETFs allows major market participants to redeem shares of an ETF for a "basket" of the fund's underlying assets. This feature could in theory lead to potential arbitrage profits if the market price of the ETF were to diverge substantially from its NAV. The market prices of closed-end funds are often 10% to 20% higher or lower than their NAV, while the market price of an ETF is typically within 1% of its NAV. Since the market downturn of late 2008 a number of fixed income ETFs have traded at premiums of roughly 2% to 3% above their NAV.