@Balu: managers of absolute return funds strive to always produce a positive return. Relative return guys want to outperform their benchmark, absolute returns guys want to outperform zero percent.
Their mantras:

• "return of principal is more important than return on principal"
  
• "the best way to make money is not to lose money"
  
• "stocks are worth owning only when stocks are worth owning"

In consequence they tend to have stick absolute value standards (if their calculation of the internal rate of return does not exceed 15%, say, they won't buy where relative value guys will happily snap up "the best of a bad lot"), often strict portfolio weight rules, and would rather hold cash or cash-like bonds rather than stocks that are irrationally valued.
In general, you hope that they'll do great in market crashes and great in the first phase of the recovery, knowing that they will more-or-less quickly hit valuation concerns and begin selling down (or selling off) overvalued stocks. The problem for these guys is that the market can remain irrationally frothy for much longer than the average investor can remain patient, so after a couple years of making 15% when everybody else is making 115%, investors abandon them.
Large firms cannot abide by the thought of money leaving, so almost all absolute return investors work on their own or in boutiques. For lists of such lonely souls, search "dry powder gang" in the main MFO search box. That is, not on the search that looks at the discussion board.
Does that help?

@David_Snowball,
Thanks.
Not to digress but i do not have comprehension of what "Absolute Return" means, though i have seen that term used in fund name and otherwise used in the context of investing.
"They know The Right Way to invest despite being subject to years of ridicule and redemption." I think you meant "They [think] they know . . ." Fund managers are in the business of providing a service that they feel good about and presume there is a demand for. Gathering or inability to gather AUM does not say anything about the managers' abilities within the mandates of a fund. But I know life is finite.

@Balu. Absolute return guys are the planet's most stubborn people. They know The Right Way to invest despite being subject to years of ridicule and redemption. The prospect of getting two of them to agree on a compromise through a merged portfolio / merged funds is a lot like expecting two polar bears to agree on sharing the steak.

I owned it for 10 years or but finally sold it in 2017 when it had sorta done little.
It looks like PVFIX has put up better results since I sold it ( of course!) and gained 24% last year while 50% in cash. Not bad

Here's a companion reading from JP Morgan:

At this interesting juncture, we are pleased to launch the 2024 edition of J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions (LTCMAs). In our 28th year of producing capital market estimates, we incorporate more than 200 asset and strategy classes; our return assumptions are available in 17 base currencies.
Over the years, many investors and advisors have come to depend on our assumptions to inform their strategic asset allocation, build more resilient portfolios and establish reasonable expectations for risks and returns over a 10- to 15-year time frame. Additionally, with each passing year, we aim to readjust our long-run approximations, incorporating new information presented by markets, policymakers and economic data.
In this edition of our LTCMAs, our economic and asset class forecasts generally hold steady.
While the 60/40 stock-bond portfolio remains at the core, it requires extension, expansion and enhancement. The insights presented here aim to help clients identify the right adaptations for their risk and return objectives as they build smarter portfolios for a world in transition.

Assumptions on Bond Returns:
Fixed Income Return Projections
Outlook for Real Estate:

Despite some well-flagged issues in some segments of U.S. commercial real estate and persistent weakness in China, we believe that the outlook for core real estate is strong. In the wider real assets complex, the return outlook remains resilient, with core transport forecasts rising 20bps to 7.7% and core infrastructure up 50bps to 6.8%. In addition to attractive returns, real assets offer a diversifying potential that is especially welcome, given the greater volatility in inflation that we anticipate over our forecast horizon.

On Cash LT:

While high cash rates appear compelling, investors should remember that sitting in Treasury bills might mean collecting 5% for limited risk today, but it misses
out on compounding of returns over the longer run. In short, extending out of cash is imperative. We estimate that a dollar invested in cash will be worth, in real terms,
USD 1.04 a decade from now, whereas in a simple public market 60/40 it would grow to USD 1.54, and in a 60/40 with 25% alts it would be worth over USD 1.60.
So for investors that have already extended out of cash, the capacity to extend further within their asset opportunity set – factor allocation, international diversification, currency overlays, etc. – is not constrained by higher cash rates. Compared with last year, equity valuations are higher and translate to a modest cyclical headwind for stocks. By contrast, elevated starting
yields are a cyclical tailwind for bonds.

Capital & Active Management:

when capital is provided by asset buyers with a financial stability objective, they buy indiscriminately, but when capital is provided by investors with a return objective, they buy selectively. More selective investment means more differentiated asset performance and greater potential for active styles of investing.

Industrials:

The tax incentives in the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) support greener commercial buildings and more efficient air conditioning units, which will benefit U.S. electrical and air conditioning companies. Electricity providers will also benefit from reshoring supply chain policies, as electric grids need to be strengthened. More broadly, reshoring supply chains will stimulate the use of U.S.-made inputs across the U.S. industrial sector, potentially benefiting U.S. manufacturers relative to their competitors in Europe and China. In addition, reshoring should fuel global spending on factory automation to offset higher domestic production costs, a boon to global suppliers of factory-automation software. Finally, rising geopolitical tension is increasing global spending on combat readiness, a clear benefit to defense companies.

Utilities:

The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will benefits renewable...most of the largest renewables developers in the U.S. are European.

Semi-Conductors:

Over the near term, expanding chip manufacturing should benefit the tech companies that provide the required equipment, software and design that support chip production. However, chip tech equipment companies may face competition in the longer term as Chinese companies are incentivized to develop their own equipment.

2024 Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions
Asset Allocation Chart:
Robust portfolio optimization

Bottom Line is a sort of cool "a bit of this and a bit of that" newsletter that covers personal topics from finance to nutrition and scholarship sources. I contribute occasionally. The schtick is that they assess reader interest in various topics and one of the writers reaches out to talk with me. We talk. I share thoughts and data. He filters it through his sense of what would engage readers, drafts an article and the editor sends it back with a "is this about right?" query. Nominally I'm the author. It's unpaid (which is fine) though I do get five copies of the newsletter to share with friends.
The most recent exchange was on microcap funds. You get some idea of the constraints under which the writer works when you realize that the entire article is exactly 250 words, only slightly shorter than the greeting on my voicemail.
The premise is that microcaps are profoundly undervalued relative to a bunch of measures and tend to perform exceptionally well when interest rates begin to fall, since that often signals a period of economic acceleration. I think my screen identified 10 (?) options and Mark picked up on three.
I wish he'd included Pinnacle Value (PVFIX) which is a five-star fund. Shallow observers will say "he's been in the bottom 10% of his peer group four times in the last 10 years." Those who look closer might note that his market cap is one-twentieth of his peer group's and he's posted double-digit absolute returns in three of those four years. 2017 is the only actually bad year. Since inception is Sharpe is 50% above the group's and standard deviation is half of the group's. But John's down to $34 million in assets; as a one-man show he will soldier on, but he deserves more serious attention.
He just shared his latest annual report. He's a laconic guy, so I don't expect it will take long to finish. If there's something cool, I'll post it separately.

I don’t particularly like the arbitrariness of defining what is an emerging or a developed market. Wouldn’t it make more sense for money managers simply to go where they think the best opportunities are. But slicing and dicing is a fact of life, and is to some degree necessary. Owning all US equity, or avoiding EM, is indeed a “slice and dice” decision in itself.
Having said that, I think EM funds can be useful at certain times. Right now (as exemplified in this discussion) there is antipathy for EM investments. And yet, China has recently started up the world’s first Gen-IV nuclear reactor, and designed a battery that lasts 50 years. They also expect to launch a revolutionary space-based telescope next year to make discoveries concerning dark energy and dark matter, and they’ve invented a pair of eyeglasses that allows blind people to navigate their way around. Yeah I know about the political risks and communist party, but I still don’t think this is your grandparents’ China.
Just an example.

"...I’ve already moved a substantial portion of my bond/income allocation to ultrashort bond funds, CDs and money market's. I’m just surprised that intermediate bond funds continue to bleed money. I’ve still a fair amount of money in intermediate funds because I figured they would rebound sooner or later, but later has turned out be longer than I expected. Now that some of my CDs are starting to mature, I’m having to decide whether to continue with short-term investments or start inching back into intermediate bonds."

It will all depend on when the Fed cuts rates, ie if interest rates trend higher as the economy holds up
Who knows? A good rule of thumb is to try to match the yield to the duration. Currently anything out past 5 years could be a problem.
Long term bonds are risky and will probably pay off only if there is a recession.

@Tarwheel: My bond funds are all at the short-end, but not ultra-short. TUHYX = 3.48 years, and PRCPX = 3.08 years. Both junk. Together, I am at least breaking even with them now. The larger one is TUHYX, and I bought at the WORST time. I have been riding it up and out of the low-point of its funk. Without trying to do it, I bought PRCPX at the very BEST time to do it. The point is that my dividends (still reinvested) are all "gravy," now. No use switching horses in midstream. Unless a recession does finally arrive. Then I'll move to MM or I.G. bonds.
"...REBOUND SOONER RATHER THAN LATER, but later has turned out to be longer than I expected."
I know the feeling. And I know it's "apples and oranges," but I have to constantly remind myself why I still hold BHB, my regional bank. As far as I know, the institution is completely solid. But investors want lower interest rates before Financials will go anywhere. (Yet today, my single stocks bucked the trend downward, with the exception of PSTL. Strange.)

It will all depend on when the Fed cuts rates, ie if interest rates trend higher as the economy holds up
Who knows? A good rule of thumb is to try to match the yield to the duration. Currently anything out past 5 years could be a problem.
Long term bonds are risky and will probably pay off only if there is a recession.

My problem is that bond funds that I bought 3 years ago are still losing money, even with higher yields and additional shares bought every month through automatic reinvesting. It is hard psychologically to keep putting money into investments that keep losing value. In theory, I should be lowering the risk of my portfolio, but my bond fund returns seem to show otherwise.

Rebalancing is hard. The winners seem to keep winning, and the losers keep losing. If I had kept all of my winners over the years and sold the losers, I’d be much better off, but certainly less diversified. Bond funds are supposed to add stability to a portfolio, but they seem to have lost that ability. Just another source of volatility.

@Old_Joe ...yep. I do think though that the emerging market classification of a dozen years ago is very different than those of today...still with significant political risk, but they do have largely functioning economies. Past EM funds are more similar to the "Frontier" markets of today.

What can I say?
Devesh, who worked as a high-level professional in the options industry, begins a two-part series of options (in general) and options as an OEF/ETF portfolio tool. The work arose from a request by an MFO reader and accelerated as Devesh discovered the relentless flow of assets moving in that direction.
Lynn pokes around in an area that he's paid relatively light attention to, the world of active ETFs, and comes away sort of impressed, I think.
Shadow digs through the corpses and the industry's other bits for us.
I spend a little space making a contrarian observation - perhaps it's time to start paying attention to GMO's projections again- and offer a half dozen strategies (and a dozen funds) that might help investors navigate a world in which they are, for the first time since about 2009, quite right.
In reviewing the funds in registration as the SEC this month, I was struck by the ongoing interest in launching "disciplined" and "disruptive" funds. Since they seemed to represent very different ways of thinking, I decided to investigate how well discipline and disruptiveness have played out. Hmmm ... let's say that over the past three years, it's been a pretty one-sided debate in terms of performance, if not of cash flow.
Berkshire Hathaway takes up a fair slice of the publisher's letter. I was touched by Buffett's encomium of Munger; it was less "he was my friend" and more "he made more of a difference than you could imagine." Buffett, sincerely I suspect, describes Munger as Berkshire Hathaway's architect while he, Buffett, got the plaudits but was mostly its general contractor. It was a thoughtful, adamant essay. Berkshire also played a role in a billion dollar gift to a small medical college, a far better use of money than the impulse to give it to Harvard. (I growl just a bit there.)
Hope your find nuggets at the least,
David

Here is the data from MarketWatch which is more current than Fido. No changes to YTD data. And the data per MW ties to M* - both are as of 03/01/24.
YTD_1_3_5_10
FXAIX_7.97_32.11_11.32_14.78_12.77
GSIHX_11.85_33.70_9.24_13.00_N/A
NEAGX_15.64_43.34_12.25_24.13_14.37
GQGPX_9.27_38.07_1.06_10.18_N/A
So in effect, using more current MW and/or M* data, the relative performance of GQGPX is not any better!
Bottom Line_1: 2023 and 2024 may very well be the go-go years for EMs, or at least for GQGPX!
Bottom Line_2: Which of those funds would you have rather owned for those periods? Was venturing into a DEM worth your additional risk? Here's the biggie - Would you have stuck with GQGPX during its DOWN years?
Bottom Line_3: Was diversifying to a top-performing FLG or SCG fund a better option than diversifying to a top-performing DEM?
Bottom Line_4: It's SO HARD to consistently beat or at least track with the S&P but some funds do it. DEMs generally do not but GQGPX is worth a shot if so inclined to try.

@stillers ..."GQGPX is actually UP 9.36% over 5 years."
According to M*, GQGPX has returned an annualized 10.18% over the last 5 years.

GQGPX is actually UP 9.36% over 5 years.
EDIT_See corrected, more current data below thanks to @PRESSmUp. Thank you!
It lags the S&P in all regularly shown interim periods and was very poor for the past 3 years.
It is currently being fueled by its large stakes in India and Brazil, but also by its ~5% stake in (say what?) Domestic NVDA! Strip NVDA's parabolic TRs out of there and I trust you will have different TRs.
YTD_1_3_5_10
FXAIX_7.97_30.45_11.90_14.75_12.69
GSIHX_11.85_20.58_7.82_11.95_N/A
NEAGX_15.64_28.34_10.39_22.37_13.16
GQGPX_9.27_26.41_0.31_9.36_N/A
EDIT_See corrected, more current data below thanks to @PRESSmUp. Thank you!
If it doesn't consistently beat or at least track with the S&P, and carries and ER of over 1% (1.2%), we are generally NOT interested. FLG GSIHX's ER at 1.14% and SCG NEAGX's at 1.85% are our two exceptions. But we believe their two HIGH ERs are reasonable given their results. (NEAGX is noted here as IMO SCs are a much more attractive play in 2024 than EMs and NEAGX's performance supports that notion.)
Of course Domestic LC and even MC/SC can and do have indirect EM exposure. That's a given. But their respective performances are generally NOT driven by that exposure and are usually nominal to negligible. An investor really doesn't get much EM exposure unless they are holding DEM, Global and/or Foreign funds.
And while many investors may not be aware of their EM exposure, having invested directly in EM stock and bond funds for a coupla years, we keenly are. (FNMIX was a favorite when John Carlson was the PM.) We have some direct EM exposure via GSIHX (mainly India and Brazil) but negligible, if any, in all other funds.
Several years ago on the M* forum, stock and bond EMs were dissected ad nauseum. What I remember most about all that activity was a large group of retired investors, ourselves included, determined that there really is no need for direct EM stock or bond exposure in a retiree portfolio. The reasons: Why bother having to track and attempt to understand EM exposures? Why add that extra level of risk, when the TRs were not worthy of it?
For adventurous and perhaps younger investors (and also for expert market timers-raise your hands), EMs can be a viable playground when the EM cycle is in the UP mode. But the risks are clearly elevated and the DROPS can and usually do shake out weak hands at just the wrong time. The Callan Table that I previously posted is a clear visual of the feast or famine inherent to this category.
YMMV.

My portfolio has become unbound, surpassing its all-time high achieved in 2021. It was close at year’s end, but blew past the previous peak in late January— despite two years of modest withdrawals since 2021. The usual suspects (Mag 7) have accounted for much of the recent growth but long time laggards have started to pick up as well (eg, small caps, value and foreign stocks.) Bond funds continue to underwhelm.

Of course this assumes the Commies learned their lesson in the last few years that to run a modern economy you have to lighten up on market manipulation.

Yes this is the crux of the China investment problem. China isn't investible until their government decides that outside investment is a priority, instead of their need for total control. So far, not. So far, guessing if things will change, or that they need to change, is a bettor's game for now. BABA and BIDU should be excellent investments on their own merit, but...
Agree, India has run up quite a bit. Maybe to fast.

Dipped my toe into China. Just a little bit. India is getting all the attention but seems pretty expensive, and when 40% of investors in a survey believe China is "uninvestable" sentiment seems like it can hardly get worse.
Sentiment is so negative and BABA is trading at 8 times free cash flow and it's ratio of free cash to market cap is 35%. Of course this assumes the Commies learned their lesson in the last few years that to run a modern economy you have to lighten up on market manipulation.

EM bonds have outpaced EM equities for THIRTY YEARS. Nuthin' like waiting for the turnaround, I guess. Of course I got suckered in myself a few times. What an opportunity cost . . . .
https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/when-bonds-beat-stocks-emerging-markets