Managerial Performance and the Cross-Sectional Pricing of Closed-End Funds

This paper finds that discounts and premiums of closed-end funds reflect the marketacirc;not;quot;s assessment of anticipated managerial performance. Using single and multiple benchmarks, we present evidence that there is a significant and positive relation between stock fund premiums and future net asset value performance over the following year. The relation is not caused by the anticipation of future expenses. The conclusions are the same if a measure of noise-trading (or the acirc;not;Sinvestor sentiment indexacirc;not;?) is subtracted from a fundacirc;not;quot;s discount/premium. We also find that bond closed-end funds show no such relation between premium and net asset value performance