WC Whiner

Lightening Up on the India Fund

Rights offerings are one big reason not to hold funds that trade at a premium, since they're called "rip-off rights offerings" for a reason. That, and the near-impossibility of your fund being that freaking good; even that 5% premium needs 100 bps of alpha for five straight years to match, and 100 bps of alpha for five straight years is an awfully nice way to start your hedge fund. Don't get me started on those expenses, now. Yow.

I'm a little surprised you didn't swap out to IIF the moment the premium ballooned. IIF isn't all that different, it's cheaper (a comparatively rational 140 bps, vs IFN's 4-freaking-00), and it's premium didn't blow up the way IFN's did.

Heck, if IFN's premium were a little higher and IIF's maybe a small discount I could see shorting the former against the latter. 'Tain't so, so I'm busy shorting CRF and CLM and their 75% (!)/45% premiums against a US index proxy instead.