Russia Followup

I had a post up on Tuesday about the ING Russia Fund (LETRX). There was a question that I am tardy on answering but better late than never, maybe?

For now there is no ETF for Russia. There are a couple of CEFs including Central Europe (CEE) and Templeton Europe and Russia (TRF) as the reader notes. TRF seems to always trade at a huge premium to NAV and CEE usually maintains a small discount. CEE outperformed for two years and three months while TRF outperformed for one year and six months. The difficulty in buying TRF is the premium. If you buy it when the premium is 35%, vs. 18% now, you tend to run in to trouble. I don't think there is a realistic way to predict what the premium will do in the future.

I own CEE for one client, consistent with a particular mandate, but it is not an ideal product. It may be the best way for now (of course I may be wrong about that) but it is flawed. I have to think that an ETF, if it ever comes could be a better vehicle.