[snip]
”The automated essays "analyzing" those funds where the "Q" is used is utterly comical.”
Yes - They sound computer written. There’s an uncomfortable “sameness” to the composition. They seem to rely a lot on total years of experience of a fund’s management team. And, their overall assessment of the firm seems to weigh heavily in their individual fund appraisal.

Morningstar launched their Quantitative Rating for funds in 2017
and later (2021?) added complementary written reports.
Their objective was to greatly expand the number of funds under coverage.
Machine learning is utilized to mimic how a M* analyst would rate a fund.
I haven't investigated the efficacy of the Quantitative Rating.
However, the corresponding written reports are often nonsensical.
Consequently, I pay scant attention to the "Q" rating.
The quality of the original M* Analyst Ratings varies
and largely depends on which analyst scrutinized the fund.
Link

Few star managers can make the transition to a team much less assume it will be your kid.
Michael Price is another example of a one man show that became problematic after he left.
Another example is Albert Nicholas who ran the Nicholas Fund.
According to Bloomberg Markets in 2015, "The Nicholas Fund, which he has run since 1969, has topped the Standard & Poor's 500 Index by an average of 2 percentage points a year for the past 40 years and [beat] it every year since 2008 [through 2014]."
His son David was in and out of the family company and finally back in, but a quick look shows that he hasn't done nearly as well as Pops.

Uh. Pretty sure NICSX has beat the 500 since David took over after his father passed. He has been on NICSX since 2011. Their stated thesis hasn't changed:

Growth rate of 10% or better
Consistent earnings
Return on equity (ROE) of 15% or an improving ROE
Debt to total capitalization of less than 50%
A price to earnings ratio lower than two times the growth rate
An enduring franchise or brand
Honest, capable management
Significant management ownership of stock
Long-term and short-term business momentum

I sold it out of the my IRA after Ab died. And I wish I hadn't. They have added two new managers to the fund. And David is ten years younger than me. So it's back on my watch list for consolidating the IRA.
David has been running small cap funds at Nicholas since 1993. They don't look so good. But few small caps do these days.

You get into a certain way of operating, and it’s hard to break. Hard to teach an old dog … Like I said previously, roughing it out on a piece of paper works well. Of course, that requires you to know what’s inside each fund you own.
I’ve used Fido’s X-Ray a couple times since it was mentioned here. Hard to uncover on their site. Need to be logged in. Works great. But appears to be only for your holdings with Fido ( I could be wrong). BTW - The Fido results were nearly identical to what I came up with roughing it out on my own.
”The automated essays "analyzing" those funds where the "Q" is used is utterly comical.”
Yes - They sound computer written. There’s an uncomfortable “sameness” to the composition. They seem to rely a lot on total years of experience of a fund’s management team. And, their overall assessment of the firm seems to weigh heavily in their individual fund appraisal.

@hank You can add an external portfolio to Full View and you will then have the option of including that in a Fidelity X-ray analysis.

You get into a certain way of operating, and it’s hard to break. Hard to teach an old dog … Like I said previously, roughing it out on a piece of paper works well. Of course, that requires you to know what’s inside each fund you own.
I’ve used Fido’s X-Ray a couple times since it was mentioned here. Hard to uncover on their site. Need to be logged in. Works great. But appears to be only for your holdings with Fido ( I could be wrong). BTW - The Fido results were nearly identical to what I came up with roughing it out on my own.
”The automated essays "analyzing" those funds where the "Q" is used is utterly comical.”
Yes - They sound computer written. There’s an uncomfortable “sameness” to the composition. They seem to rely a lot on total years of experience of a fund’s management team. And, their overall assessment of the firm seems to weigh heavily in their individual fund appraisal.

@Observant1 posted:
As such, the average bank loan and high-yield bond funds posted solid returns of 2.7% and 1.5%, respectively."

As of June 30, 2023, the total returns of my bank loan and high yield bond funds are doing a bit better than 2.7% and 1.5%, respectively. The conservative, short duration treasury bond funds are returning 2% while yielding 5% yield. (quite different from previous years). And that is good enough for us.

One school of investing advice (from professionals who get interviews or write columns -- some of them, anyway) for past x years has recommended forgetting about "age in bonds" and entering retirement with a high equity allocation to help prevent running out of money much later.
I would expect quite a variety of reasons for the high equity allocation, including inertia, not wanting to sell on the way down (hope for the future), and a reluctance to part with funds that have stood the test of time in one's portfolio, in addition to all those reasons already mentioned in this thread.

I do not have access to WSJ but it would be interesting to know if Covid had anything to do with this behavior.
For example, many retired (or forced to retire) suddenly, with no immediate plan to retire when Covid struck. These retired folks need something to do with their time.
Also, a lot of Baby Boomers (among my friends and family) with more wealth than they need are investing for their kids many of whom find it stressful to invest large sums. I know many at 100% equity.

So much negative news the last couple of years regarding FI. I believe that many just hve learned to dislike bonds and want to be where the action is in equities. While we may not be at the bottom it is certainly a good time to buy discounted bond funds now. I have several in the 3-4% TR range for YTD. At least buy some treasuries.

LB "your repeating qualified subjective statements regarding what’s most important to people economically over and over again doesn’t make them true."
FD said "The 2 biggest items for most people are housing and transportation."
Most people spend the most on housing and transportation.
And generally, most people continue to have a very tough time keeping the lifestyle they had in the last several years. More Gov spending on top of the trillions we already spend isn't the solution.

Perhaps the scare tactic of repeatedly telling retirees that they could outlive their money forces them to lean into equities. Advertisements seem to push this narrative - it's as if we will all live to be at least 95 years old.
Also, we all need at least $4M to retire....and gold is a fantastic (hedge) investment. Buy some now!

I think they dumped the strategy for individuals years ago. They have slowly dismantled almost everything.
You have to assume they have focused on advisors and large firms. Almost every brokerage house buys their stock research to provide an "alternative" to in house experts. ( I wish I knew of a study looking at how successful their targets and recs are)
Their portfolio/indexes are aimed at mid level advisors who I assume use them as they are cheaper or they get kick backs
They must have determined that these professionals didn't use mutual fund research, as they switched to that stupid quantitative model.
Most of the live commentators seem like broken records.

Marketplace is a suite of daily programs about economics, culture and politics. That is, they talk about politics through the lens of its interplay with economics. The tone tends to be breezy and accessible, though the analysis and guests are pretty consistently solid and non-ideological. (The lead host, a former Navy fighter pilot and Foreign Service officer, remains stunned by Mr. Trump and his followers but that tends not to bleed into coverage the way it might with MSNBC or Fox.)
Yesterday's "that's cool!" moment was a really clear description of the cause of an imminent crisis in $20 trillion commercial real estate. David Sherman thinks the crisis will be monumental but didn't walk through the issue. Marketplace did: commercial RE loans are typically for five years. A record number of loans are due for renegotiation in the next year. Almost all of those loans will be at higher rates and many of those loans will be for smaller amounts. Lenders will grind more on borrowers' cash-flow assumptions and crisis management plans. In consequence, a bunch of deeply indebted borrowers may have to go into fire sale mode for some of their properties, either slashing rents to maintain near-full occupancy or selling properties for whatever they can recoup. This will not be a good thing.
That walk-through helped a lot.
You might find it worth your time to look into Marketplace. It is not NPR though, like NPR, it is listener-supporter. (I contribute monthly.) The flagship show is Marketplace. The daily chat between hosts is Make Me Smart. The program to help kids understand money is Million Bazillion. The show about how money messes with our lives is "This is Uncomfortable."

Few star managers can make the transition to a team much less assume it will be your kid.
Michael Price is another example of a one man show that became problematic after he left.
Another example is Albert Nicholas who ran the Nicholas Fund.
According to Bloomberg Markets in 2015, "The Nicholas Fund, which he has run since 1969, has topped the Standard & Poor's 500 Index by an average of 2 percentage points a year for the past 40 years and [beat] it every year since 2008 [through 2014]."
His son David was in and out of the family company and finally back in, but a quick look shows that he hasn't done nearly as well as Pops.

I have been out of bond oefs since 2022, but maintain watchlists of various bond categories. Just a few observations I have had is the overall 2023 performance strength of FR/BL funds. If I should decide to transfer some of my CD money back to bonds, this would be the category I would look at first. Some of the traders on this forum seem to be questioning whether this category has been overbought, and that is always a concern worth considering. PRFRX, MWFLX, and SAMBX are 3 well known funds I tend to follow most closely, but almost everything in this category is doing well.
I have also noticed that Corporate Junk bond funds have been doing pretty well--RSIIX is the fund I follow most closely in this category, but CSOAX is doing particularly well this year.
Then EM bond funds are doing well, but I have not invested in this category in many years. DBLEX is the fund I followed most closely, but AGEYX is doing very well in that category.
Then I will just note that SEMMX/SEMPX is having an excellent year in the nontraditional category--focusing on junk mortgages. I know this fund scares investors because of its recent downmarket performance, but it sure seems to be doing well this year.

Ok, here's a question. I've owned GPGOX since inception, close to 12 years. The last few years are not stellar, but over all I've always thought of it as a buy-and-hold fund and no need to be concerned. The M* ratings don't really agree with my view. The fund is 5* for 10 years, 4* for 5 and 3* over the past 3 years, indicating maybe the best years are behind it.
So, my question, is there a better global small-mid cap management house or specific S/M global fund than Gradeur Peak? Wasatch maybe? I've been loyal to this team from the start, but I don't want to be married through thick and thin. The last few years have been rocky.

The 2 biggest items for most people are housing and transportation. They increase 40+% and vehicles are up 30+% since 01/2020. Do you know many who got a 30% salary increase?
Are most better off now than four years ago? the answer is clear, it's not. https://apnews.com/article/biden-poll-economy-survey-jobs-inflation-b3c77cb208f96f9b039cf48cbc4fb67b
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

I'm uncertain as to how to read WABAC's post. Stillers, if I interpret him correctly, seems to have understood it as WABAC having sold, or tried to sell, short term CDs before maturity.
I read WABAC as saying that he has tried holding short-term CDs, but didn't like that. No indication that he tried to sell them prior to maturity.
Left undefined in all of this is what exactly is the definition of "short term CD" as being used here.
While I agree with Stillers regarding the correct way to use CDs, I really don't appreciate his condescending style- apparently he's attempting to emulate a certain FD person.

"Stillers, if I interpret him correctly, seems to have understood it as WABAC having sold, or tried to sell, short term CDs before maturity."
Did I say that? No, I did not. I made general comments about holding CDs to maturity that YOU misinterpreted. Go back and re-read my post and show me EXACTLY where I said what you THINK I said.
--------------------------------------
"While I agree with Stillers regarding the correct way to use CDs, I really don't appreciate his condescending style- apparently he's attempting to emulate a certain FD person."
C'mom man! Are you serious?
TRY to take my post to FD at face value. His self-aggrandizing post about trading bond OEFs has NOTHING to do with this topic, and any poster worth his salt tries to STOP the BS that he daily spews. Well, not daily on BB as FD's been banned there for about two more months.
I (as do many poster who have borne witness to FD for 10-15 years) know that FD can't be stopped. I simply do my part to TRY to control him.
----------------------------------------
On the latter, FWIW, AFTER I made my post to FD I received a PM from a very reputable poster who appreciated my on-going containment efforts. So please STOP with BS accusations. Saying that I am "attempting to to emulate...FD" sounds a wee bit, well, nuts.

"Anyone investing in bond funds?"
@hank put it very well. Our situation sounds very similar:
Having both pension and SS, I view investments mainly as a growth asset - an enhancement to an already comfortable subsistence. If it were all I had to live on, I’d probably view them more as an income generator. Those aren’t mutually exclusive. But it does, I think, highlight two very different perspectives. The other side of the coin is that folks with pensions paid for that during their working years, whether by regular payroll deductions or by working for lower compensation than they might have received elsewhere where a pension did not exist. So it’s likely the “non-pensioners” retired with a much greater nest-egg to safeguard - provided skill-sets were similar.
My old-style pension is a godsend. With the crapola, frustration and all of the obstacles and junk along the way, I'd say I "earned" every penny. My own pension rises a bit each year, but not necessarily tied to the inflation rate. Normally it's 2+ percent, and in good years, 4+ percent. It all depends upon how well the denomination's portfolio has performed. It's a rather safe balanced mix.
Yes, since this thread was initiated, I'm still in junk.
As for stocks, I prefer off-the-beaten-track, more un-crowded trades. But I'm not a trader. My regional bank stock is killing me in 2023, but I'm sticking with it. Speaking of stocks that are killing me, that pretty much goes for my entire single-stock sleeve. My funds are by far the majority of my money. They are doing pretty well this year: 2023.

A good but incomplete history of Fidelity and its famous star managers.
Post Tsai, a young Ned Johnson III (of course related to Johnson II) ran a private/in-house Fido fund called Magellan from 1963-71 with quite spectacular performance. Ned would have been a star manager if he just stuck to being a fund portfolio manager, but he had other and bigger ideas. After a few years, Magellan (now a listed FMAGX) was handed over to Peter Lynch (1977-90) who became even a bigger star than Ned Johnson III, and in fact, among the most famous portfolio managers ever. But to the regrets of many, Lynch decided to retire at 48 and is still with Fidelity as consultant and mentor.
Actually, Lynch wanted to retire even earlier, but the crash of 1987 intervened. Lynch didn't want to leave the "huge" fund ($20 billion, peanuts by today's standards) that was under heavy redemption to somebody else, so he stuck around for a while until 1990. He lamented later that the management of Magellan under redemption was very different from what he was used to during its explosive growth period.
Magellan's assets did peak at $100 billion, but has languished under managers that followed Lynch; the AUM is only $27 billion now. An ETF FMAG hasn't yet reached $50 million in 2.5 years. That is another lesson - don't count on past history or successes for the ETFs.

I am risk adverse by nature, but without a pension ( except SS) I knew my wife and I would have to depend on our investments for living expenses, vacations weddings etc when we retired.
Much of what I read pointed out that retiring into a multi year bear market would be a big problem, so we reduced equities after 60, and two years into retirement we are about 40%. If there is a significant pull back will increase it. After two or three years into retirement I am more comfortable knowing our basic living expenxes etc.

@sma3 - While some esteemed posters appear to disagree with you, the expert from Schwab I linked earlier would appear to agree:
As you put together your retirement portfolio, you also need to think about the role your savings will play in your overall income plan. For example, how much income do you expect from guaranteed sources like annuities, pensions, and Social Security? - "If these guaranteed income streams will generate enough income to cover the majority of your expenses, you might be able to maintain a more aggressive stance with your portfolio well into retirement … Conversely, if you'll rely on your portfolio for the majority of your income, you'll need to take a more balanced approach with your investments”
https://www.schwab.com/retirement-portfolio
Having both pension and SS, I view investments mainly as a growth asset - an enhancement to an already comfortable subsistence. If it were all I had to live on, I’d probably view them more as an income generator. Those aren’t mutually exclusive. But it does, I think, highlight two very different perspectives. The other side of the coin is that folks with pensions paid for that during their working years, whether by regular payroll deductions or by working for lower compensation than they might have received elsewhere where a pension did not exist. So it’s likely the “non-pensioners” retired with a much greater nest-egg to safeguard - provided skill-sets were similar.
-
PS - I’m actually somewhat more aggressive today than when I retired 25 years ago. Those 25 years didn’t go to waste. I read Fund Alarm and Mutual Fund Observer and learned immensely from those people. And, in retirement there’s time to read about and study the markets that you didn’t have while employed. I suppose to an extent the more advanced technology and “at demand” information flow has helped, although that one’s a 2-edged sword.

My wife and I both have pensions, but they are not necessarily the great deal that some people think they are. Our pensions are with the state of North Carolina, and have no inflation adjustments. So we are totally dependent on our Republican controlled legislature for any increases to cope with inflation. Guess what, the legislature has made zero inflation adjustments since we retired 6-8 years ago, aside from a few minor one-time bonuses. So, our real income from our pensions have declined by at least 15% since we retired.
Fortunately, we both held off starting Social Security payments, and those are adjusted for inflation. Plus, we have sizable investments in IRAs that are invested about 60% in stocks. Our IRAs are essentially functioning as in inflation adjustments for our pensions that are steadily decreasing in value. I like having the pension payments because it frees me from worrying about the stock market, but they are like having annuities with no inflation adjustments.