So Presumably we're aware that various old school mutual funds Are muppets when it comes to operations & pricing So .. hands up please Who's arb'd some of the dumber funds vs related index futures.
Since old school mutual funds are likely to be fairly illiquid, so arbbing them doesn't make much sense. Now using futures or options to hedge your mutual fund position makes sense. Just do a correlation analysis of the price of the mutual fund vs. the various indices that are tied to futures. Even better, with options, you could assemble a basket of symbols to match the movement of the mutual fund.