Essays on closed end funds: disclosure, discounts and performance

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Closed end funds provide a unique asset class for academic research due to that fact that they typically trade at a price different from the Net Asset Value (NAV). This is known as the discount. The first essay examines that voluntary change from weekly to daily NAV reporting. Surprisingly, this additional information generates greater information asymmetry. This supports the theory that a skilled subset of investors can exploit public information by processing it into private information and/or opinion. The result is that these funds are riskier, have greater transaction costs. The second essay examines the hypothesis that discount is the price investors are willing to pay for future performance. Earlier work found that the hypothesis is true for equity funds but not bond funds. The findings here are that the relation has changed over time. The hypothesis now holds for international funds (bond and equity) but not domestic funds.The third essay studies the timing ability of fixed income closed end fund managers. Fund flows may hamper (open) mutual fund managers' performance. Fixed income portfolio management should be more an issue market and interest timing due to the fact that bonds of the same characteristics (yield, duration, coupon and credit rating) are close substitutes. The findings are of no timing ability, but also, no evidence of the perverse that is common in the literature.