Closed-end funds have been in the news recently and not in a good way. One newspaper story has predicted the doom of these funds as the capital market regulator clamps down on mis-selling through this route. Closed-end funds have had a bad history in India and have been repeatedly used by the industry to mis-sell. My introduction to these funds happened more than a decade ago. In 2006, armed with an upgrade in the knowledge of using excel sheets and the workings of mutual funds, I did a series of stories in The Indian Express on the big mutual fund churn where mutual funds and agents were harvesting the high upfront commissions. You can read one of the stories here, the others seem to be lost online. You are being churned if your adviser or agent makes you sell a financial product only to buy something else, with an aim to earn commission on a new sale. The agent wins at your cost. It’s the oldest trick in retail finance. Churning is an industry practice that global regulators frown upon because it hurts investors.