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CEF Long-Short Pair Trade: Premiums vs. Discounts

by: Asif Suria February 08, 2007 | about stocks: CRF / CUBA / EQS    

Asif Suria

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Instead of featuring two individual stocks in my monthly newsletter, I figured I would do something different in this time and discuss an interesting strategy related to closed-end funds [CEF] in detail.

What are closed-end funds?

Closed-end funds are investment companies like mutual funds with a few key differences. Just like mutual funds, closed-end funds charge management fees and consist of a basket of stocks, bonds and other assets. However unlike mutual funds, closed-end funds trade on a public stock exchange and can be purchased or sold just like you would buy or sell a stock. In this way, they are more like Exchange Traded Funds and this might explain why the website ETFConnect.com refers to them as "closed-end ETFs." To learn more about closed-end funds check out this description on the SEC website or this page on ETFConnect.com.

Premiums and Discounts

Once formed, closed-end funds do not issue any more shares and investors who want to buy into the fund must do so by purchasing it on a public stock exchange. Hence the price of these funds depends more on supply and demand instead of the value of underlying assets. This creates situations where some closed-end funds sell at a discount to its underlying basket of stocks (or other assets), while others sell at a premium to its net asset value [NAV].

A good example of funds selling at a premium are the closed-end funds India Fund (IFN) and India Investment Fund (IIF), which were the only options for investors who wanted to invest in India but did not want to purchase individual ADRs like Wipro (WIT) and Tata Motors (TTM). Over the last two years both IFN and IIF have traded at a premium to their underlying assets with the premium ballooning to more than 30% for the India Fund in the second quarter of 2006. After the May 2006 crash in emerging markets that probably reduced investor's appetite for India and a rights offering (pdf file) that increased the number of shares, the premium of the India Fund has shrunk to its current level of just 2.16%.

Similarly some closed-end funds that are not in as much demand as the India fund often trade at a discount to their underlying assets or NAV. While uncommon, there have been instances where certain closed-end funds have traded at premiums of as much as 100%. For such a fund, you would be paying $2 per dollar of underlying assets held by the fund. On the flip side, if a fund traded at a discount of 50%, you would be paying 50 cents per dollar of assets held by the fund.

How Do I Figure Out These Premiums and Discounts?

The website ETFConnect.com has made it extremely easy to figure out not only the premium and discounts of individual closed-end funds, but it also has a very handy tool to display the funds that are selling at the largest discounts and premiums. For example if you want to see the premium or discount of the India Fund, you can go to ETFConnect.com and enter the symbol IFN in its search box. To figure out the funds selling at the largest premiums or discounts, you can use their Fund Sorter tool.

So I understand what closed-end funds are and how to look up their premiums or discounts. Now what do I do with this information?

Applying this information to the principle of "reversion to the mean" or in other words "what goes up must come down", could create some interesting opportunities for investors. Funds that trade at a large discount to NAV are likely to narrow that discount at some point, leading to an increase in price of that fund assuming the price of the underlying assets remains unchanged. Similarly funds that trade at a large premium are likely to narrow that premium at some point, leading to a drop in the price of that fund assuming the price of the underlying assets remains unchanged. In the case of the India Fund, while the Indian stock market and individual ADRs like Wipro and Tata Motors appreciated a lot over the last seven months, the India Fund lost money because the premium narrowed from 28% to 2% as you can see from this chart.

Investors could use this information in combination with a various long/short strategies to create some very interesting hedged (low risk) or profit maximization opportunities. Long/Short strategies are discussed below.

Long/Short Strategy

Long/short strategies involve going long (purchasing) a stock or financial instrument (options, ETFs, etc... ) while simultaneously going short another stock or financial instrument to create a paired trade. This is sometimes done to reduce risk and in some instances to increase profit. For example, if you believe that Intel (INTC) is likely to do well in 2007 with its new line of processors and take away market share from AMD (AMD), in a regular scenario you would buy Intel stock but not AMD. Now if you are convinced that Intel will do well and AMD will do very badly in 2007, you can try to increase your profit potential by buying Intel and simultaneously shorting AMD so that you benefit from the price of Intel increasing and the price of AMD falling. Unfortunately you have also increased your risk with this "directional bet."

Long/short strategies can also be used to reduce risk as illustrated in the following example. Let us still assume that you like the prospects of Intel in 2007. However you realize that a dropping tide brings down all boats and that the price of Intel is highly correlated to that of the semiconductor index [SOXX]. So even if Intel is likely to do well in the long-term, there is a risk the stock might go down if the semiconductor index is dragged down by its other components like AMD. To hedge against this risk, you could go long Intel while simultaneously going short the semiconductor ETF (XSD). This way even if the semiconductor index were to fall and drag down Intel with it, your losses in Intel would be offset by your short position in XSD.

The Trade

We can use long/short strategies with closed-end funds to maximize profits or to create an arbitrage opportunity. Using the Fund Sorter tool on ETFConnect, we can see that the two funds with the largest premiums are Herzfeld Caribbean Basin Fund (CUBA) with a premium of 87.15% and the Cornerstone Total Return Fund (CRF). The premium on CUBA is probably a little lower as the data on ETFConnect is from 1/30/2007 and not from 1/31/2007 like the rest of the funds.

Similarly we can also get the two funds with the largest discounts and they are Equus Total Return (EQS) and Canadian World Fund Limited [TSE:CWF] with discounts of 26.59% and 16.69%. A simple profit maximizing strategy would be to go long EQS and CWF while simultaneously shorting CUBA and CRF. Please note that if you short a stock or fund, you are then responsible for all dividend or distribution payments. CRF pays out monthly distributions of 17.8 cents and its annual distribution rate is 11.45%. Could this be the reason this fund is trading at such a high premium?

According to Herb Greenberg, these high distributions are a red flag. In the comments section of Herb's blog, investors also discuss how hard it has been to short either CUBA or CRF. A big institutional investor may still be able to pull off such a trade but since this trade may not be accessible to all investors, I will not add it to the SINLetter model portfolio.

One part of the arbitrage (or low risk) trade would be to short CUBA, which has gone up on speculation that with Fidel Castro out of the picture, the trade embargo on Cuba (the country) would be lifted and companies based in the Caribbean would benefit greatly. However when you look at the holdings of the CUBA fund, you will notice that nearly 60% of assets are in U.S based companies like Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCL), Carnival Corp (CCL) and Garmin (GRMN). In fact 20% of assets are concentrated in a single railroad company called Florida East Coast Industries (FLA). So the second part of the arbitrage trade would be to go long on the top 10 holdings that constitute more than 60% of assets.

Whew! That felt more like writing a book or a lengthy article instead of an investment newsletter. It is almost 5 AM and the caffeine is beginning to wear off.

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This article has 6 comments:

  •  
    Feb 09 12:48 AM
    The big problem with the pairs strategy is most of the ETF's with real high premuims are very difficult or immpossible to borrow. So you can't short. I have been trying to borrow CRF forever from one of the biggest brokerage on the street and cant get a share. Even a lot of the etf's are often hard to borrow. I often short the IYR (REIT Holder) and it is always hard to borrow.
    Reply
  •  
    Feb 09 04:29 AM
    This strategy is pretty old school but still works. You are right in saying that the funds mentioned are trading at extreme discount and premiums but that alone should not be a reason to long/short them. You should make a premium/discount bollinger bands of 1.5 stand dev and see whether they are trading at one of the extreme bands. If they are, then maybe yes there is an opportunity. It is becuase few of the CEF are always trading at high discount or premiums. Its when they make an extreme move from their moving average you have the chance to take in profits.
    Reply
  •  
    Feb 09 12:38 PM
    Don, I did mention this difficulty in borrowing these CEFs with real high premiums in the article and hence did not add these trades to the SINLetter model portfolio.

    Thats an interesting thought Ankit. Any idea why some of them always trade at a premium? The premium for CUBA has been narrowing over the last few weeks, especially after its manager Thomas Herzfeld sold 18,800 shares in late December. The strategy is pretty old school but I figured it would be a good idea to share it with my subscriber base, which is mostly retail investors.
    Reply
  •  
    Feb 11 09:38 PM
    I just had a quick look and found 2 funds that normally always trade at dis/prem. They are APF and ETF but still you can find long/short opportunities in these funds by forming bollinger bands. You are probably safe using the fund sorter tool and looking at the funds trading at extreme dis/prem as they are probably trading at extreme bands but I wouldn't make it a habit. Also, by looking at the MAV you can also find opportunities in the funds which wouldn't necessarily show up from the fund sorter tool ( at they might seem to be only trading at a slight premium or discount but could be a whole different story when compared to its MAV). Have a quick look by forming bollinger bands. You will see a mean reverting pattern.
    Reply
  •  
    Feb 12 01:49 AM
    Sorry I forgot to answers why they trade at premiums or dis. I mean there have been many reasons put forward to why this happens but quite surprisingly no one really has found an exact reason that explains all. Stephane Reverre explains some of the reasons why in his book "The complete Arbitrage Textbook":

    Unrealized capital appreciation (-): Investor face built in capital gains tax liability from substantial amount of unrealized gain.

    Restricted, or letter, stock (-): Stocks in the fund carry restrictive clauses and cannot be sold before the end of a stated holding period.

    Holdings of foreign stock (+/-): Holdings of foreign stocks in countries with different tax treatments or legal environments maybe be partially attractive or unattractive, especially if individuals are unable to replicate the same portfolio on their own.

    Performance (+/-): A fund can trade at prem/dis based on the perspective ability of its management team to deliver outstanding results.

    Turnover (-) Transaction costs in the form of brokerage fees or bad execution in the market drive a fund's performance down.

    Market Sentiment (+/-): In case of country funds. He mentions a hypothesis that suggest U.S investors in aggregate price the systematic risk attached to a country differently than they price the U.S. market risk.
    Reply
  •  
    Feb 12 03:04 PM
    Ankit, I have never given much thought to technical trading patterns but in this scenario I can see how it can be useful. You are right about APF and ETF trading at discounts over a period of many years but their discounts are consistently less than 10%. Moreover in the case of CUBA, the fund was trading at a small discount over the last few years and then all of a sudden shot up to a premium of about 100%.

    Thanks for taking the time to write down some of Stephane Reverre's explanations. I will add "The complete Arbitrage Textbook" to my long list of books to read.

    I have enjoyed this exchange and if you would like to stay in touch, you can reach me through the Contact Us form on SINLetter.com

    www.sinletter.com/cont...
    Reply
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