publicly-traded fund

A fund with a fixed number of shares outstanding, and one which does not redeem shares the way a typical mutual fund does. Publicly-traded funds behave more like stock than open-end funds: closed-end funds issue a fixed number of shares to the public in an initial public offering, after which time shares in the fund are bought and sold on a stock exchange, and they are not obligated to issue new shares or redeem outstanding shares as open-end funds are. The price of a share in a publicly-traded fund is determined entirely by market demand, so shares can either trade below their net asset value ("at a discount") or above it ("at a premium"). also called closed-end investment company or closed-end fund.