Karl made the point that he wanted to scale out of ARQ but was...

Karl made the point that he wanted to scale out of ARQ but was unable to do so because it was so illiquid. That's why he's now made high liquidity a factor in future stock selection. According to this new criterion ARQ wouldn't have been picked in the first place, or at least not in the quantities that it was. True, the returns for the last several years have not been great relative to the benchmark but nevertheless I'm sticking around to see whether he can manage a turnaround in the light of his learning experience over the last year. Only time will tell. Of course, it'll take a few years for him to get back to previous highs, if he manages to get back at all. He is capable of turning a dollar, though, so hopefully he'll start doing it soon.

As regards the NTA values, my understanding is that the after tax NTA is the result of the losses made over the last year whereas the pre-tax NTA represents the real current value of the holdings.