Ann: Daily Fund Update, page-5

MOT's current 6% premium to NTA is a bit perplexing. It could simply be a supply and demand situation. True, many monthly income trusts no longer trade at a discount to NTA and many trade at a slight premium. For example, MOT's comparable (though less risky) fund MXT is trading on a 1.7% premium to NTA. Ironically, MXT offers a better risk adjusted return currently. MXT is currently yielding (total earnings) 9.4% whereas MOT is yielding 10.4%: those values are on NTA. Based on MOT's share price ($2.28), the current earnings yield is 9.76%. So, there's relatively little difference in the current return profile, even though MXT is a materially less risky investment, as it holds around 50% investment grade/cash assets, whereas MOT is essentially entirely non-investment grade assets.

Final point: MOT currently holds 18% equity/equity-like assets. Might there be soon to be accounted capital gains on those assets that the public doesn't know about yet? That happened a couple of years ago; but you could see the NTA increasing rapidly over a couple of weeks when that occurred.