CEF Weekly Review: The 13 closed end fund (CEF) types on average were up 2.0% for the week ending 10/9/09. On an aggregate, unweighted basis, the weekly average price change for 523 CEFs was also up 2.0%. The weighted 49 CEFs comprising the Claymore CEF Index registered an average advance of 3.9% for the week. The S&P 500, as measured by the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), registered a surge of 4.7%.

(Click here for YTD CEF performance. The table is based on a 275 CEF sample size as all the data fields are not available for the CEF universe.)

Closed-end funds differ from open-end mutual funds in that the size of the assets under management does not change when investors buy in or sell out. So when you want to buy a share in a closed-end fund, you have to buy it from someone who already has one (not the fund manager, as you would for an open-end fund). As such, many closed-end funds trade like regular stocks on the NYSE.

Often, however, many of these funds trade at discounts to what they actually own. For example, here's a list of some of the largest discounted funds currently on North American exchanges:

Benjamin Graham is widely regarded to be the founder of modern value investing. His greatest student, Warren Buffett, attributes much of his success to Graham’s teachings. In this article, we take an in-depth look at stocks that Ben Graham might have liked.

Benjamin Graham is widely regarded to be the founder of modern value investing. His greatest student, Warren Buffett, attributes much of his success to Graham’s teachings.

Though Graham believed that much research is necessary and that no stock screening methodology is perfect, he did give us some guidelines on how to perform initial screening techniques to limit the number of investments that should be researched further. The following is a list of the attributes he suggests investors look for first. The italics represent our changes to his methodology based on the current market:

Benjamin Graham is widely regarded to be the founder of modern value investing. His greatest student, Warren Buffett, attributes much of his success to Graham’s teachings.

Though Graham believed that much research is necessary, and that no stock screening methodology is perfect, he did give us some guidelines on how to perform initial screening techniques to limit the number of investments that should be researched further. The following is a list of the attributes he suggests investors look for first. The italics represent our changes to his methodology based on the current market:

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They have expanded their capital base significantly in 2006, through a 100 million dollar term loan, unlike some business development companies that sell equity on a regular basis to expand their operations. Though not as appealing a value as in the past, the company performed spectacularly in 2006 (it expanded it's net asset value 47.33 million dollars).

Despite the controversy over Allied Capital Corporation (ALD), which operates in a similar space as MVC, MVC appears to be a much more transparent and well managed company. Definitely a company to pay close attention to.

Any ETFs or Closed-End Funds that we haven't covered that you think we should? Leave a comment below.