If you haven’t heard it, seen it and tried it out already, it’s time to catch up—we have improved our coverage of closed-end funds and incorporated this into our new and improved Closed-end Funds Centre. Regular Morningstar users will have noticed that the CEF Centre has replaced our former Investment Trusts page. If the term change makes you raise an eyebrow, you should read all about it in our recent article What’s in a Name?
Included in the new features of the CEF Centre are our upgraded closed-end fund reports, which now provide more information on these investment companies in a clear and concise format. Why are we so excited about them? We have not only enhanced the quantity but also the quality of data.
In terms of performance metrics, share prices are now updated throughout the trading day as opposed to at the close of the day’s trade, and daily as well as 52-week trading ranges are now displayed. We’ve also calculated the CEF's current estimated discount to net asset value and its 12-month average discount. You'll notice that we now estimate current net asset value, which investment companies are not legally required to provide—a data point that we are able to calculate using the most recent portfolio information available from the company and the current performance of the underlying holdings. You can view the portfolio holdings and asset allocation of each closed-end fund under the report's Portfolio tab.
In addition, we have allowed for like to be compared with like. That is, under the Share Price tab, you can see at a glance how your chosen closed-end fund is performing against peers by viewing price returns compared to Morningstar Peer Group Indices and Association of Investment Companies (AIC) categorisation.
And last, but not least, key company dates, news, dividend history and director dealings can all be viewed at the click of a button.
But don’t just take our word for it. Check out the CEF Centre and our improved individual CEF reports at your earliest convenience and we’re confident you’ll appreciate the improvements.
Please note that the new CEF report is only available for ordinary share classes; for other shareclasses (e.g. warrants, splits, convertibles) we still show data in the previous format--we're still working on these and they'll be upgraded in in the near future.
As always, we welcome your feedback, so feel free to make use of the commenting feature below this article.