Why is Net Asset Value (NAV) only reported by funds, but not stocks?
The (assets - liabilities)/#shares of a company is its book value, and that number is included in their reports. It's easy for a fund to release the net asset value on a daily basis because all of its assets (stocks, bonds, and cash) are given values every day by the market.  It's  also necessary to have a real time value for a fund as it will be bought and sold every day. A company can't really do the same thing as it will have much more diverse assets - real estate, cars, inventory, goodwill, etc.  The real time value of those assets doesn't have the same meaning as a fund; those assets are used to earn cash, while a fund's business is only to maximize its net asset value. Nobody tracks a single company's net assets on a daily basis, and stock prices are almost never derived directly from their assets (otherwise there would be no concept of 'growth stocks').  Stocks trade on the presumed current value of future positive cash flow, not on the value of their assets alone. Funds are totally different.  They own nothing but stocks and are valued on the basis on the value of those stocks.  (Commodity funds and closed funds muddy the picture somewhat, but basically a fund's only business is owning very liquid assets, not using their assets to produce wealth the way companies do.) A fund has no meaning other than the direct value of its assets.   Even companies which own and exploit large assets, like resource companies, are far more complicated than funds: e.g. gold mining or oil extracting companies derive most of their value from their physical holdings, but those holdings value depends on the moving price and assumed future price of the commodity and also on the operations (efficiency of extraction etc.) Still different from a fund which only owns very liquid assets.
No, this is quite wrong. Almost all hedge funds (and all hedge fund investors) use Sharpe as a *primary* measure of performance. The fact that they don't consider themselves risk-free has no bearing on the issue (that's a bizarre line of reasoning - you're saying Sharpe is only relevant for assets that consider themselves risk-free?). And as AlphaPortfolio rightly points out, most funds have no explicit benchmark and they are usually paid for performance over zero.  I've never seen a hedge fund use a benchmark relative information ratio - for starters, what benchmark would you measure a CB arb fund against? Or market neutral quant? Or global macro? Same for CTAs... The only way for a mutual fund to default is if it inflated the NAV. I.e.: it reports that its investments worth more than they really are. Then, in case of a run on the fund, it may end up defaulting since it won't have the money to redeem shares at the NAV it published. When does it happen? When the fund is mismanaged or is a scam. This happened, for example, to the fund Madoff was managing. This is generally a sign of a Ponzi scheme or embezzlement. How can you ensure the funds you invest in are not affected by this? You'll have to read the fund reports, check the independent auditors' reports and check for clues. Generally, this is the job of the SEC - that's what they do as regulators. But for smaller funds, and private (i.e.: not public) investment companies, SEC may not be posing too much regulations. The company that runs the fund (Vanguard) on their website has the information on the general breakdown of their investments of that fund. They tell you that as of July 31st 2016 it is 8.7% emerging markets. They even specifically list the 7000+ companies they have purchased stocks in. Of course the actual investment and percentages could [change every day]. Vanguard may publish on this Site, in the fund's holdings on the   webpages, a detailed list of the securities (aggregated by issuer for   money market funds) held in a Vanguard fund (portfolio holdings) as of   the most recent calendar-quarter-end, 30 days after the end of the   calendar quarter, except for Vanguard Market Neutral Fund (60 calendar   days after the end of the calendar quarter), Vanguard index funds (15   calendar days after the end of the month), and Vanguard Money Market   Funds (within five [5] business days after the last business day of   the preceding month). Except with respect to Vanguard Money Market   Funds, Vanguard may exclude any portion of these portfolio holdings   from publication on this Site when deemed in the best interest of the   fund. Mutual funds don't work like stocks in that way. The price of a mutual fund is set at the end of each day and doesn't fluctuate during the day. So no matter when you put in your order, it will be filled at the end of the day at whatever the closing price is for that day. Here is some good information on that There is no continuous pricing of fund shares throughout the trading   day. When an investor places an order to buy or sell a fund's shares,   the order is executed based on the NAV calculated at the end of that   trading day, regardless of what time during the day the order was   placed. On the other hand, if the investor were to check the price of   his or her fund shares halfway through the business day, the price   quoted would be the previous day's NAV because that was the last time   the fund calculated and reported the value. -http://www.finweb.com/investing/how-mutual-funds-are-priced.html Yahoo's primary business isn't providing mutual fund performance data.  They aim to be convenient, but often leave something to be desired in terms of completeness. Try Morningstar instead.  Their mission is investment research. Here's a link to Morningstar's data for the fund you specified.  If you scroll down, you'll see: Why is that? With all the successful investors (including myself on a not-infrequent basis) going for individual companies directly, wouldn't it make more sense to suggest that new investors learn how to analyse companies and then make their best guess after taking into account those factors? I have a different perspective here than the other answers.  I recently started investing in a Roth IRA for retirement. I do not have interest in micromanaging individual company research (I don't find this enjoyable at all) but I know I want to save for retirement. Could I learn all the details? Probably, as an engineer/software person I suspect I could. But I really don't want to. But here's the thing: For anyone else in a similar situation to me, the net return on investing into a mutual fund type arrangement (even if it returns only 4%) is still likely considerably higher than the return on trying to invest in stocks (which likely results in $0 invested, and a return of 0%). I suspect the overwhelming majority of people in the world are more similar to me than you - in that they have minimal interest in spending hours managing their money. For us, mutual funds or ETFs are perfect for this. "You can infer some of the answers to your questions from the BATS exchange's market data page and its associated help page.  (I'm pretty sure a page like this exists on each stock exchange's website; BATS just happens to be the one I'm used to looking at.) The Matched Volume section refers to all trades on a given date that took place on ""lit"" exchanges; that is, where a public protected US stock exchange's matching engine helped a buyer and a seller find each other.  Because there are exactly 11 such exchanges in existence, it's easy to show 100% of the matched volume broken down into 11 rows. The FINRA & TRF Volume section refers to all trades on a given date that took place on ""non-lit"" exchanges.  These types of trades include dark pool volume and any other trade that is not required to take place in public but is required to be reported (the R in TRF) to FINRA.  There are three venues via which these trades may be reported to FINRA -- NASDAQ's, NYSE's, and FINRA's own ADF.  They're all operated under the purview of FINRA, so the fact that they're ""located at"" NASDAQ or NYSE is a red herring.  (For example, from the volume data it's clear that the NASDAQ facility does not only handle NASDAQ-listed (Tape C) securities, nor does the NYSE facility only handle NYSE-listed (Tape A) securities or anything like that.) The number of institutions reporting to each of the TRFs is large -- many more than the 11 public exchanges -- so the TRF data is not broken down further.  (Also I think the whole point of the TRFs is to report in secret.)  I don't know enough details to say why the NASDTRF has always handled more reporting volume than the other two facilities.  Of course, since we can't see inside the TRF reporting anyway, it's sort of a moot point." You can find this in the annual report. Preferred value is not the same as common value. Mutual funds don't have intraday prices. They have net asset values which are calculated periodically (daily or weekly or any other period depending on the fund). How is it possible that a publicly traded investment company's net asset value per share is higher than their share price? Wouldn't you (in theory) be able to buy the company and liquidate it to make a profit of (NAV/share - price/share)*number of shares, ignoring transaction costs and such?   I realize that since part of their portfolio is in private equity, NAV is hard to calculate and hard to liquidate as well, but it doesn't really seem to make sense to me. Would love some input.   The company I'm talking about in this instance is 180 Degree Capital Corp, but this isn't the first time I've seen this. There is a survivorship bias in the mutual fund industry. It's not about individual stocks in which those funds invest. Rather, it's in which funds and fund companies/families are still around. The underperforming funds get closed or merged into other funds. Thus they are no longer reported, since they no longer exist. This makes a single company's mutual funds appear to have a better history, on average, than they actually did. Similarly, fund companies that underperform, will go out of business. This could make the mutual fund industry's overall history appear to be better than it actually was. Most companies don't do this to deliberately game the numbers. It's rational on the part of fund companies to close underperforming funds. When a fund has a below average history, investors will likely not invest in it, and will remove their existing money. The fund will shrink while the overhead remains the same, making the fund unprofitable for the company to run. ACWI refers to a fund that tracks the MSCI All Country World Index, which is  A market capitalization weighted index designed to provide a broad measure of equity-market performance throughout the world. The MSCI ACWI is maintained by Morgan Stanley Capital International, and is comprised of stocks from both developed and emerging markets.  The ex-US in the name implies exactly what it sounds; this fund probably invests in stock markets (or stock market indexes) of the countries in the index, except the US. Brd Mkt refers to a Broad Market index, which, in the US, means that the fund attempts to track the performance of a wide swath of the US stock market (wider than just the S&P 500, for example). The Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Index, the Wilshire 5000 index, the Russell 2000 index, the MSCI US Broad Market Index, and the CRSP US Total Market Index are all examples of such an index. This could also refer to a fund similar to the one above in that it tracks a broad swath of the several stock markets across the world. I spoke with BNY Mellon about the rest, and they told me this: EB - Employee Benefit (a bank collective fund for ERISA qualified assets) DL - Daily Liquid (provides for daily trading of fund shares) SL - Securities Lending (fund engages in the BNY Mellon securities lending program) Non-SL - Non-Securities Lending (fund does not engage in the BNY Mellon securities lending program) I'll add more detail. EB (Employee Benefit) refers to plans that fall under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which are a set a laws that govern employee pensions and retirement plans. This is simply BNY Mellon's designation for funds that are offered through 401(k)'s and other retirement vehicles. As I said before, DL refers to Daily Liquidity, which means that you can buy into and sell out of the fund on a daily basis. There may be fees for this in your plan, however. SL (Securities Lending) often refers to institutional funds that loan out their long positions to investment banks or brokers so that the clients of those banks/brokerages can sell the shares short. This SeekingAlpha article has a good explanation of how this procedure works in practice for ETF's, and the procedure is identical for mutual funds: An exchange-traded fund lends out shares of its holdings to another party and charges a rental fee. Running a securities-lending program is another way for an ETF provider to wring more return out of a fund's holdings. Revenue from these programs is used to offset a fund's expenses, which allows the provider to charge a lower expense ratio and/or tighten the performance gap between an ETF and its benchmark. "That share class may not have a ticker symbol though ""Black Rock MSCI ACWI ex-US Index"" does have a ticker for ""Investor A"" shares that is BDOAX.  Some funds will have multiple share classes that is a way to have fees be applied in various ways.  Mutual fund classes would be the SEC document about this if you want a government source within the US around this. Something else to consider is that if you are investing in a ""Fund of funds"" is that there can be two layers of expense ratios to consider.  Vanguard is well-known for keeping its expenses low." No, they do not. Stock funds and bonds funds collect income dividends in different   ways. Stock funds collect dividends  (as well as any capital gains   that are realized) from the underlying stocks  and incorporates these   into the funds’ net asset value, or daily share price. That’s why a   stock fund’s share price drops when the fund makes a distribution –   the distribution comes out of the fund’s total net assets. With bond funds, the internal accounting is different:  Dividends   accrue daily, and are then paid out to shareholders every month or   quarter.  Bond funds collect the income from the underlying bonds and   keep it in a separate internal “bucket.”  A bond fund calculates a   daily accrual rate for the shares outstanding, and shareholders only   earn income for the days they actually hold the fund.  For example, if   you buy a bond fund two days before the fund’s month-end distribution,   you would only receive two days’ worth of income that month.  On the   other hand, if you sell a fund part-way through the month, you will   still receive a partial distribution at the end of the month,   pro-rated for the days you actually held the fund. Source  Also via bogleheads: Most Vanguard bond funds accrue interest to the share holders daily.   Here is a typical statement from a prospectus: Each Fund distributes to shareholders virtually all of its net income   (interest less expenses) as well as any net capital gains realized   from the sale of its holdings. The Fund’s income dividends accrue   daily and are distributed monthly. The term accrue used in this sense   means that the income dividends are credited to your account each day,   just like interest in a savings account that accrues daily. Since the   money set aside for your dividends is both an asset of the fund and a   liability, it does not affect the calculated net asset value. When the   fund distributes the income dividends at the end of the month, the net   asset value does not change as both the assets and liabilities   decrease by exactly the same amount. [Note that if you sell all of   your bond fund shares in the middle of the month, you will receive as   proceeds the value of your shares (calculated as number of shares   times net asset value) plus a separate distribution of the accrued   income dividends.] "I think the key concept here is future value.  The NAV is essentially a book-keeping exercise- you add up all the assets and remove all the liabilities.  For a public company this is spelled out in the balance sheet, and is generally listed at the bottom.  I pulled a recent one from Cisco Systems (because I used to work there and know the numbers  ;-) and you can see it here: roughly $56 billion... https://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=CSCO+Balance+Sheet&annual  Another way to think about it: In theory (and we know about this, right?) the NAV is what you would get if you liquidated the company instantaneously.  A definition I like to use for market cap is ""the current assets, plus the perceived present value of all future earnings for the company""... so let's dissect that a little.  The term ""present value"" is really important, because a million dollars today is worth more than a million dollars next year.  A company expected to make a lot of money soon will be worth more (i.e. a higher market cap) than a company expected to make the same amount of money, but later.  The ""all future earnings"" part is exactly what it sounds like.  So again, following our cisco example, the current market cap is ~142 billion, which means that ""the market"" thinks they will earn about $85 billion over the life of the company (in present day dollars)."