Closed-End Funds Back On Sale

If you missed the end-of-summer sale in August, don't worry -- closed-end funds are back in the bargain bin.

Year-end tax-loss selling has pushed prices of closed-end funds to historically wide discounts to the value of their holdings, allowing you to pick up assets from stocks to municipal bonds for as little as 86 cents on the dollar.

Unlike open-end mutual funds, which issue and redeem shares upon request from investors at net asset value, closed-end funds issue a fixed number of shares. They trade on an exchange, like stocks, so the only way you can unload them is by selling them to another investor.

When their investment strategies fall out of favor, they can trade at steep discounts to NAV -- meaning whoever wants out has to leave some money on the table.

This gives other investors the opportunity to pick them up on the cheap. For instance, if a fund's net asset value was $10, per share but its shares traded at $9.50, you could buy the entire portfolio at 95 cents on the dollar.

It's not unusual for discounts on closed-end funds to widen at year's end as investors sell them to harvest tax losses, just as they might sell losing stocks.

Discounts are particularly steep this time around because the industry had a rough summer. Some funds were unloaded by hedge funds that had taken losses related to subprime mortgages and needed to sell other, more liquid assets to raise cash.

Others, like municipal bond funds, were sold off due to concerns about the securities they held.