Net Asset Value (NAV)
The per-share value of a fund calculated by dividing total assets minus liabilities by shares outstanding.
Net Asset Value (NAV) is the per-unit value of a fund, calculated by taking the total market value of all assets held by the fund, subtracting liabilities and fees, and dividing by the number of shares or tokens outstanding. For an ETF holding $1 billion in stocks with 10 million shares outstanding, the NAV is $100 per share.
For tokenised funds and ETFs, NAV is the fundamental anchor price. The token's market price on a DEX should trade at or very near NAV, with arbitrageurs correcting deviations: if the token trades below NAV, arbitrageurs buy it and redeem at full NAV; if above, they mint at NAV and sell at the premium. This mechanism keeps the spread tight during market hours but can widen significantly outside exchange hours when primary market minting and redemption is unavailable.
NAV is calculated daily for most traditional funds using closing prices. For tokenised products, some issuers provide intraday NAV updates; others only publish end-of-day figures. The lag between the true real-time NAV and the published figure represents a risk for traders of tokenised fund products.