https://smartasset.com/financial-advisor/income-fund
An Investor’s Guide to Income Funds
Investing in the stock market involves two main objectives: growth and income. Growth investments can increase in value over time. Income investments can put money into your pocket consistently. An income fund is one way to cash in on the benefits of income investing in a simplified way.
Treasury
Municipal bonds
Corporate bonds
Junk bonds
International bonds
Income funds can serve a distinct purpose inside a portfolio. As a result, there are several good reasons to include them as part of your retirement strategy. Take time to research different income funds. That can help you decide which of those funds may best meet your investment goals.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/809593/000080959320000021/0131_fye_funds_liquidation.htm
American Beacon Acadian Emerging Markets Managed Volatility Fund
American Beacon Crescent Short Duration High Income Fund
American Beacon GLG Total Return Fund
497 1 0131_fye_funds_liquidation.htm
Supplement dated March 5, 2020
to the
Prospectus and Summary Prospectuses dated May 31, 2019, as previously amended or supplemented
The Board of Trustees (the “Board”) of American Beacon Funds has approved a plan to liquidate and terminate the American Beacon Acadian Emerging Markets Managed Volatility Fund (“Acadian Fund”), the American Beacon Crescent Short Duration High Income Fund (“Crescent Fund”), and the American Beacon GLG Total Return Fund (the “GLG Fund,” and together with the Acadian Fund and the Crescent Fund, the “Funds”) on or about April 30, 2020 (the “Liquidation Date”), upon the recommendation of American Beacon Advisors, Inc., the Funds’ investment manager.
In anticipation of the liquidation, effective immediately, each Fund is closed to new shareholders. To prepare for the liquidation of the Funds, Acadian Asset Management LLC, the sub-advisor to the Acadian Fund, Crescent Capital Group LP, the sub-advisor to the Crescent Fund, and GLG LLC, the sub-advisor to the GLG Fund, may need to increase the portion of the relevant Fund's assets held in cash and similar instruments in order to pay for that Fund’s expenses and to meet redemption requests. The Funds may no longer be pursuing their respective investment objectives during this transition. Each Fund will distribute cash pro rata to all remaining shareholders who have not previously redeemed or exchanged all of their shares on or about the Liquidation Date. These shareholder redemptions may be taxable events. Once the shareholder redemptions are complete, the Funds will terminate.
Please note that you may be eligible to exchange your shares of a Fund at net asset value per share at any time prior to the Liquidation Date for shares of the same share class of another American Beacon Fund under certain limited circumstances. You also may redeem your shares of a Fund at any time prior to the Liquidation Date. No sales charges, redemption fees or termination fees will be imposed in connection with such exchanges and redemptions. In general, exchanges and redemptions are taxable events for shareholders.
In connection with its liquidation, each Fund may declare taxable distributions of its net investment income and net capital gain in advance of its Liquidation Date.
If you own Fund shares in a tax deferred account, such as an individual retirement account, 401(k) or 403(b) account, you should consult your tax adviser to discuss a Fund’s liquidation and determine its tax consequences.
For more information, please contact us at 1-800-658-5811, Option 1. If you purchased shares of a Fund through your financial intermediary, please contact your broker-dealer or other financial intermediary for further details.
***********************************************************
PLEASE RETAIN THIS SUPPLEMENT FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=8b5WXouwOZK6sgXgkb6gCg&q=Rush+to+Invest+in+Municipal+Debt+Pushes+Yields+to+Record+Lows&oq=Rush+to+Invest+in+Municipal+Debt+Pushes+Yields+to+Record+Lows&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-hp.3...3162.3162..4327...0.0..0.106.106.0j1......0....2j1.......0.x4yqGNzH18k
Incognito search for article title
Rush to Invest in Municipal Debt Pushes Yields to Record Lows - WSJ
The new wave of demand Monday pushed bond yields to once-unheard-of levels. Yields on high-grade tax-exempt 30-year municipal bonds fell to 1.627% Monday, 46% lower than in February of last year, according to financial analytics company ICE Data

For those looking for daily Financial News Articles in one place:
streetsleuth.com/#tab1
Here's a good one from today's links that relates to Mutual Funds/ETFs:
https://etftrends.com/smart-beta-channel/how-to-invest-for-the-5g-revolution/
Topic (Cell Tower REITS) led me to this:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4280713-cell-tower-reits-for-5g-4-beats-3

Just type bond funds into the google news search, and you should be able to get to the article on The Financial Times.
The thesis of the article is that the corporate part of Bloomberg/Barclays Aggregate is riskier now that it's over half BBB, with lengthening durations:

Ultra-low interest rates have led to a massive increase in debt issuance by US companies, which has surpassed $13.6tn over the past decade, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, a trade body.
This has been accompanied by a deterioration in the quality of the corporate bonds held by the Agg, with more than half rated as BBB at a time when US companies’ capacity to service their debt from earnings has weakened

GMO is quoted on the gloomy side:

“The Agg is a portfolio that has turned prudence on its head,” said Peter Chiappinelli, a member of GMO’s asset allocation team.

And Vanguard is more sanguine:

"Expected returns for fixed income are modest, but this makes it all the more important to remember why you hold bonds in a portfolio in the first place - as ballast for portfolio’s equity risk. This hasn’t changed,” said Josh Barrickman, Americas head of fixed income indexing at Vanguard.

It's just my guess that Barrickman is contemplating the mountains of government debt out-weighing the risks from the corporate side.
Lots of money wrapped up in mutual funds, and ETF's, that seek to replicate that index. Buying a cap-weighted debt index never has made sense to me. Buying the ETF version makes even less sense.

Just as a quick update:
we had a very long talk that covered a lot of ground.
The shortest version of his investment strategy is to buy and hold "global champions," which he defines as companies whose pricing power is supported by a network effect. A simple example would be MSCI. The more that investors get used to seeing MSCI benchmarks for their investment products, the more valuable the MSCI brand becomes. That means that more firms will have an incentive to use MSCI and MSCI will have the ability to raise fees as above-market rates.
"Global champions" are good compounders, because they tend to be high quality businesses committed to sustaining long-term relationships with clients (which is what accounts for the consistent and consistently rising income flow).
Options are a small but valuable part of the portfolio. The casino mentality that we see in the equity market also rules the options market; lots of people are trying to use options to create leveraged bets in the hopes of getting rich quick. As a result, options sell as a premium. He reports that the long-term return of equity options is about 200 bps above the long-term return of equities. He might buy an option on a stock they were already thinking of buying or sell one on a stock they were already thinking of selling. The net effect is cheap upside in the one case and cheap downside protection in the other.
The apparent over-exposure to the financial sector is sort of illusory. A bunch of "finance-lite" companies, such as MSCI, FTSE, insurance brokerages, payment processors, operate as virtual global duopolies with low capital costs, a network effect that serves as a barrier to entry and consistently growing income. They don't have a lot of interest rate / credit risk exposure but do get classified as "financials."
Finally, his strategy is to remain fully invested because he's not good at timing the market and doesn't believe anyone else is, either. He holds a lot of cash occasionally, but only when the returns on cash exceed the projected returns on stocks. (He cited 2007 as an example.) The mantra is "if you're looking to buy great companies with good long-term prospects, the best time to invest was ten years ago, the second-best time is now."
Thanks, too, to Dennis Baran for ferreting some of this stuff out in advance of the interview!
For what interest that holds,
David

One of the first things I do when considering a new (to me) fund is to examine the portfolio, particularly the sector makeup and top holdings. Discovering a 43% allocation to the financial sector, close to 11X the allocation to the tech sector was quite the surprise. I'd be curious as to what brought them there. Interesting.

It’s not hard to access the story incognito. If you have the Duck Go browser downloaded on your device it will get you in. Re TRP: They were #20 in the main ranking of fund houses (for 2919). Following those overall rankings (about 55) they provided additional (smaller) sub-sets of rankings, (tax free bonds, etc.) Frankly, it wasn’t worth my time to dig into all that.
One year performance is just that. May or may not be representative of the firm’s quality. I think front-office interaction can say a lot about the depth and quality of a company. I owned some Strong funds in the late 90s. There were ominous signs in dealing with them (like nastiness from phone reps and confirmed trades not being executed for several days or not at all) that caused me to bail out early - about a year before the scandal broke. And, they continued to boast some pretty hot funds during that time - even though the old man was later found to have had his fingers in the til. So the small stuff like that can say a lot. In the case of T Rowe, they tend to be a bit more cautious on average with your money than many. I expect they’d rank a bit higher than last year during a down year, or even a “more average” up year.
D&C wasn't among the top 55 from what I could tell. Yet they were favorably mentioned in the accompanying narrative. Likely, they stood out in one or more of the sub-sets I alluded to. Like the Kipplingers listings earlier this year, the Barron’s ranking amounted to good “financial porn”. No harm in looking at it. But I thought that for a low budget publication, Kipplingers had the better story.
EDIT: There are 5 and 10 year rankings underneath the feature story. TRP did substantially better on those. #4 and #5 for 5 and 10 year periods respectively.

I like good news:

The good news is that, as we describe below in detail, we still see a lot of value in the “great unloved,” or the middle part of the market that actually looks attractively priced against today’s low interest rate backdrop, particularly if significant operational improvement can be implemented.

International Markets:

Non-U.S. markets are now cheap enough that, even with their flawed compositions (which is why we prefer Private Equity to Public Equity outside the U.S.; see below for details), they warrant investor attention for at least a cyclical “catch-up trade.” Also, central bank liquidity trends are now generally more in favor of international markets.

The Asian Millennial:

this year we want to allocate additional dollars to vehicles that are capturing the explosion in buying power that is being unleashed in Asia. By way of background, there are now a total of 826 million millennials in Asia, compared to 67 million in the United States. Because of this segment’s heft, total consumption in Asia actually passed that of Europe in 2011, and it is poised to exceed the U.S. by 2022. How should one invest behind this theme? See Section IV for more details, but personal financial services, healthcare services, wellness/beauty, healthier foods, and food safety should all be major long-term beneficiaries of the environment we are envisioning.

For your investing and reading pleasure:
https://kkr.com/global-perspectives/publications/play-your-game
Where will growth be over the next 5-10 years?
https://screencast.com/t/CKZuBjabnHWa

A would suggest pick a target date fund for the year when you will need it and fund it to meet that need. If you are saving for college...what year will your kid enter and how much will you need? If you are saving for an income source when you retire...what year will that be and for how long will you need to fund that income and most importantly how much will that fund need to have in it? I think target date funds can serve many target date needs...not just the generic approach of picking a fund according to what year will you retire?
If you don't need the money at retirement ask yourself the questions:
- when will you need it? and,
- for what? and,
- how much will you need?
I can imagine someone selecting many target date funds that meet many target date (financial) needs. Just align the date of your financial need with a target date fund.
Not a bad approach to managing risk/reward/asset allocation at a reasonable price.

Hi @hank
You noted: "- I contended a while back (some other thread) that worker contributions tend to increase when markets are richly valued. Fidelity’s observations might support that."
Based upon my observations regarding 401k/403b plan participants over many years; the participants have a chosen amount of money placed each pay period into their plan, regardless of what the markets are doing.
One may suspect there is a very small percentage (less than 5%) of these participants who actually pay attention to the markets. Those who do pay attention may alter some of their allocations periodically; but not likely the contribution amount, unless there is a change in their overall financial circumstance.
My inflation adjusted 2 cents worth
Catch

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/vanguard-research-finds-financial-advice-145000852.html
Vanguard Research Finds Financial Advice Improves Portfolio Diversification For 9 in 10 Investors
PR NewswireFebruary 11, 2020, 8:50 AM CST
VALLEY FORGE, Pa., Feb. 11, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- In a new Vanguard white paper, The value of advice: Improving portfolio diversification, researchers Cynthia Pagliaro and Steve Utkus demonstrate the material impact of financial advice on the construction of individual investors' portfolios. Analyzing the asset allocations of more than 44,000 Vanguard self-directed investors who adopted Vanguard Personal Advisor Services, the researchers found the implementation of advice improved portfolio construction for nearly 90% of the investors by addressing equity risk-taking, increasing international exposures, and reducing cash holdings.

FD, I don't disagree with your statement above. The government bond oef category is a very high investment grade category, but within the category you do find some variance regarding duration and interest rate risk. Most of the intermediate duration bond funds above, had total return in 2019 in the 5.5% to 6+% range, but their 3 year performance is slightly below 3%. Interest rates have been very very low since the 2007/2008 financial crisis, and then we started seeing spikes in interest rates in the 2015/2016 period, and since then there has been a steady pressure to raise interest rates, with 2018 being a tough year. In 2019, we saw the Feds decide to take a "pause" in raising interest rates, and it appears they will continue that policy for most if not all of 2020. It is hard to predict rates, as you noted above, so I am of the general opinion that you need to know the difference between one year performance, and longer history of performance of at least 3 years.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1116626/000111662620000006/gtfstatsticker2720-20202.htm
497 1 gtfstatsticker2720-20202.htm
T. Rowe Price Global Technology Fund
Supplement to Prospectus Dated May 1, 2019
Effective April 1, 2020, the T. Rowe Price Global Technology Fund, which was closed to new investors on September 29, 2017, will resume accepting new accounts and purchases from most investors who invest directly with T. Rowe Price.
Accordingly, effective April 1, 2020, the first sentence under “Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares” in Section 1, and the first four paragraphs under “More Information About the Fund and Its Investment Risks” in Section 3, are deleted in their entirety from the prospectus.
Financial intermediaries and other institutional clients should contact T. Rowe Price Financial Institution Services or their relationship manager to determine eligibility to open new accounts and purchase shares of the fund.
The date of this supplement is February 7, 2020.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/etfs/top-real-estate-etfs/?utm_campaign=quote-yahoo&utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=referral&yptr=yahoo
here are the best reit etfs
Real estate exchange-traded funds (ETFs) hold baskets of securities in the real estate sector, providing an investors with a way to investing in an otherwise high-cost area. These funds often focus specifically on real estate investment trusts (REIT), securitized portfolios of real estate properties which offer income potential associated with real estate as well as the liquidity of traditional stocks. Some of the major names in the REIT space include Vornado Realty Trust (VNO) and Welltower, Inc. (WELL). Investing in these and other REITs allows investors to receive dividend distributions. While the financial returns could be lower than owning an entire building and was able to pocket all the income, there is less risk.

@mcmarasco - acknowledging that the financial (cash flow?) situation will be different for everyone I chose to pay additional principal when I could to cut down the term. Why? You could call my chosen profession (carpenter) seasonal at best with a ride of great years and the not so great resembling a roller coaster. A steady savings account was not possible because of those down years using up the overflow from the good years. Over the 30-yr, $140K, initial 8.25% mortgage I was able to buy two better (read: reliable) vehicles while each time refinancing my original mortgage to include funds to pay off the vehicles which were at much higher loan rates. By year 10 I was looking at two newer vehicles and a now 15-yr, $115K mortgage at 4.35% which I disposed of in 10 years.
I hate owing anybody anything so the whole point of my exercise was to be fully aware of my fluctuating income while not falling behind on my debts. By including my trucks into my mortgage payment I saved on the interest for those loans while also taking the worry of 2 monthly payments off my mind. When there was excess cash it went toward the principal. If your income is more reliable and consistent I guess you have more leeway to play. I absolutely wanted no mortgage debt in retirement.

The durability of our low interest rate environment caused me to make some small initial investments in individual REITS over the past year or so. Time will tell if doing this winds up helping or hurting my overall portfolio performance. Anyway, this M* article takes a balanced look at REITs and why it is worth considering them as part of a balanced portfolio. Here is a brief excerpt and a link to the article:

As of the end of 2018, the U.S. commercial real estate market totaled an estimated $16 trillion, compared with about $45.8 trillion for equities and $39.2 trillion for outstanding debt based on 2017 data from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. In other words, real estate translates into a roughly 16% slice of the total market pie. Not coincidentally, pensions and endowments often target 10% to 20% of their total assets for real-estate holdings....Given that real estate is both highly cyclical and subject to periodic downturns, though, I’d hesitate to recommend investing quite that much.

https://morningstar.com/articles/964406/time-for-a-second-look-at-reits

Re “links to human writers”
It appears @JohnN fell for the same trap I did last week. While I knew sites like Yahoo republished news stories from other sources (for the most part faithfully and with proper citation), I hadn’t realized there are now offshore sites that actually rewrite those stories with / without proper attribution. I don’t know if it’s machine written. Appears to be a very bad human rewording / translation, perhaps dictated to machine. Why ... ? (1) Might be an effort to alter original wording enough to evade copyright law. (2) Might be an attempt to simplify or shorten the original article to attract more readers. (3) The re-publisher could be working from a previously translated copy of the original.
In my case last week, I attempted to link a perfectly well written story I’d read in the FT so readers here could access it. The FT is very hard to link, so I went with what appeared to be the same story republished by “Newslagoon”. Bad mistake on my part. Here, John is citing something calling itself “Invest Records.” Their story appears to be a poor regurgitation of a story that appeared on the BBC’s website: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51347497
From BBC: “China urged citizens to wear face masks in public places ...”
From Invest Records: “China advised voters to placed on face masks in public areas ...”
(Likely the English terms “citizens” and “voters” bear resemblance to one another in another language and are easy to confuse by those with poor English skills.)
It appears “Invest Records” is mixing into its recap more than one source, whereas “Newlagoon” simply reworked one source.
THIS IS WRONG: These after-market news sites are profiting by stealing stories from reputable sources and putting them out on the web to attract readers to their advertising (and probably planting lots of tracking cookies on our devices as well). All of us, John and I included, need to track down the original source of any article we come upon and attempt to link to that original source. Let’s not feed these vultures by posting their regurgitated crap here. *I’d like to learn more about these re-write shops and how they manage to so mangle the stories they’ve plagiarized. If anyone knows more or has pertinent links please share.
PS - In John’s defense, it’s my understanding English is his second-language. So, I’d cut him a little slack here. But, he should try in the future to track down the original source of news / financial articles before posting.

Welcome to the “It’s not the Super Bowl without the Steelers, but it’s great that Troy was recognized as a first-ballot Hall of Famer” edition of the Mutual Fund Observer which is posted at https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/issue/february-2020/. Highlights include:

• my publisher's letter takes a swipe at robo-writers, and reports on an unusually fervent hug between Rob Arnott and Cliff Asness. Good news: the long-time sparring partners have agreed on something important. Bad news: it’s that 10-year returns look uniformly low. Both point you toward the long-unloved emerging markets, while Mr. Asness offers a version of “it’s time to be a bit grown-up” financial advice.


• a long-overdue profile of FAM Dividend Focus (FAMEX). Over the past year, we’ve done a series of data-driven articles that focused on equity-oriented funds that thrive when all others falter, but that still make decent returns. FAM Dividend Focus has earned its way into more of those articles than any other single fund. It was time to say just a bit more about it.


• Edward Studzinski has been meeting with, and sparring with, some very fine independent fund managers. He shares what he's learned about researching management strategies, the changing landscape, hubris and managers' insistence on tripping themselves up.


• “Getting More Bang” explores high capture / low downside capture equity funds. Capture ratio is a sort of “bang for the buck” measure: funds with a capture ratio over 1.0 are delivering more of the market’s upside than its downside. By picking a downside target (“I’m willing to take 90% of the market’s losses, but no more”), you can use the capture ratio to identify the funds which offer the greatest return for the risk you endure. It’s a simple and intuitive way to create your due diligence list. We offer the top 20 domestic and international funds.


• Lynn Bolin continues to explore the six rules of successful investing. This month: knowing your investment environment.


• Charles Boccadoro has responded to user requests for more fund portfolio data at MFO Premium; traditionally, we were analytics-rich but portfolio-poor. As he explains, that changed on February 1st.


• on a bright note, several first-rate funds have reopened to new investors, including RiverPark Short-term High Yield (RPHYX). RPHYX seems forever maligned because its portfolio doesn’t fit neatly in any box. RPHYX had the distinction of having the highest Sharpe ratio of any fund in existence for years. It's a low volatility / low-risk fund that's best used as a strategic cash fund. (I've owned it for a long time and use it in lieu of a savings account.) It has averaged 3.1% annually with a maximum drawdown, lifetime, of 0.6%. David Sherman's current reading of the market, bond as much as equity, is that it's time to maximize caution and his funds are positioned commensurately.

Liquidations, 74 manager changes, a dozen new names, two retirements and more …
The long scroll version is available at https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2020/2/.
As ever,
David

(From John’s link) “In a recent survey, Schroders Investment Management questioned 1,004 men and women aged 45 to over 70 about retirement planning. ... Some 55% of respondents admitted they didn't know how their assets were allocated.”
This might explain that: Vanguard: More than half of DC participants investing solely in target-date funds Story
Makes sense to me that if someone who is not financially inclined defaults to their 401-K (or other employee plan’s) target date fund they would not be able to explain the “ins & outs“ of how that fund invests. Seems to me those funds are designed for precisely that kind of individual.
It would be nice if they all became fund junkies like most of us here - but that is not the reality. I don’t think any amount of citizenry education is likely to alter that. However, as one moves from contribution years to distribution years it’s likely their interest in financial matters grows. Experience on this forum testifies to that subtle transition,