The price of misunderstanding price

In three decades of interacting with mutual fund investors, I have faced many surprises as to the kind of misunderstandings that people can have about the mechanisms of how mutual funds work. Unfortunately, NAV and dividends, which are the two most basic parts of the mutual fund, are the subject of the most misconceptions. With dividends, SEBI has recently made a start by abolishing the word altogether and renaming mutual fund dividends 'Income Distribution cum Capital Withdrawal'. That's accurate but a rather large mouthful so the common term is going to be IDCW. That's accurate, even if it will take some getting used to. However, NAVs are a different as well as a much bigger problem. A few days ago, I came across a stunning example of how the t