Cornerstone Total Return Fund Inc. (The) Common Stock (CRF)

FairStock Score: 53/100 — MIXED

Key Financials

AI Analysis

AI-generated, general educational analysis — not personal investment advice.

Cornerstone Total Return Fund is not an operating business but a closed-end equity fund managed by Cornerstone Advisors. It invests across U.S. sectors, all market caps, and other closed-end funds and ETFs. As a value investor, I start with what I can trust: at the 2026-10-13 close of $6.24, the FairStock-calculated P/E is 5.67 and P/B is exactly 1.00, so I am not paying an obvious premium to stated earnings or book value. The Graham Number of $12.44 and 49.84% margin of safety suggest the price could be low relative to those figures. The FairStock-calculated ROE of 17.32% is attractive, and an Altman Z-Score of 612.58 implies no conventional balance-sheet distress on this data. But the negatives are serious. ROCE is -0.01%, the Piotroski F-Score is 0/9, and I have no filed revenue or profit growth. The Lynch category is none because there are only 0 years of filed results, so there is no durable track record to classify. The 22.62% dividend yield is the loudest signal: either a remarkable bargain or a warning that distributions exceed sustainable investment earnings. A beta of 1.25 means the fund likely moves more than the market. With the price near the bottom of its $6.05-$8.16 52-week range and a FairStock score of only 53/100, I would call this a speculative asset-value and income situation, not a wide-moat compounder. The moat is essentially absent; the fund's results depend on manager skill and market returns.

In plain English: This is a closed-end fund that invests in U.S. stocks and other funds. Its price looks cheap compared with its stated profit and accounting value, and it pays a very large distribution. But the data also show weak financial-strength signs and no growth history, so the picture is mixed rather than clearly strong.

The full AI analysis, bull and bear case and key monitorables are in FairStock Pro.

Data as of 2026-10-13 close · note generated 2026-10-15 · model deepseek-flash

Fundamentals from company filings and market-data providers; prices are end-of-day, not real-time. AI-generated analysis is general and educational — not personal investment advice. Scoring methodology · Score test · Disclaimer