THE PERFORMANCE OF UK CLOSED-END FUNDS: A COMPARISON OF THE VARIOUS RANKING CRITERIA

This study considers the performance of UK Investment Trusts over the ten‐year period 1968 to 1977, using the major criteria suggested in the literature. The results indicate that UK closedend funds were generally inferior (ex post) to the market portfolio (FT Actuaries All‐Share Index). These findings were invariant to the particular peiformance methodology selected. When the overall test period was broken up into sub‐periods it was also found that the ex post performance findings were not particularly stable or consistent over time. These results highlight the problems a fund investor would face in attempting to predict future fund performance on the basis of historical results.