In terms of general tax efficiency, it's like any other short term bond fund - the divs are ordinary income and share price fluctuates mildly.
My approach to handling cost basis with short term bond funds is:

• Send divs to a MMF or bank account (do not reinvest) - to avoid creating a monthly small lot nightmare
• Set the account to use specific lot identification - for full control, to optimize recognition of cap gains
• Sell as needed in mid size blocks and use MMF or bank as buffer - to avoid a nearly daily stream of tiny transactions; identify lots appropriate for your cap gains objective
• Purchase in larger blocks - simplifies identifying lots when selling

P.S. I haven't seen you posting in years. Welcome back.

I think we are at the tail end of early adoption phase. I think all major manufacturers will be getting into this thread as supporting side industries emerge. I own a VW Passat and this year VW stopped selling Passat in the US in favor of their new EV. They still keep Jetta as their high volume gas/diesel vehicle but transformation is happening. It will probably take another 10-15 years before EV become dominant type on the highways. It will need a lot more infrastructural changes (charging stations) all over US.

The landscape for actively managed mutual funds will be increasingly competitive.
Prerequisites for most of the remaining open-end funds (OEFs) will include low costs and good returns.
Some OEFs will continue to exist since corresponding ETFs are not available (this may change in the future).
The shifting landscape will take years to unfold.
Although many mutual funds will be liquidated or merged into other funds, a sizable amount will remain.
I'd argue this is a good development since many unnecessary mutual funds exist.
Investors seeking exposure to a particular asset class or category can analyze OEFs, ETFs, and CEFs to determine the best solution.

Would it be an over simplification to say that you own bond funds if you are afraid that you might panic and sell if there is an equity crash? Is that the primary reason? The market watch article says you own bond funds for safety and not return.
Ignoring the definition of a bond fund for the moment… as PRWCX (an AA fund with a LOT of equities) and HY (junk) bonds are not the same as an FXNAX. Those that held mostly or a large percentage of bond funds in their portfolio in Feb or March 2020 were probably very happy. How did they feel at the end of 2020 when measuring their bond returns vs equities or the S&P Index?
I admit I don’t know enough about bonds and that was the purpose of this post. I read with interest FD’s take: “ Many retirees I know who have enough, including me, don't care as much about performance as they care about volatility.”… Here is my ignorant question… Wouldn’t the superior performance or returns from equities vs. bonds over 2-3 years far outweigh the “safety” and less volatility from bonds? Caveat: If one is relying on living only on their portfolio gains or returns and do not wish to touch the principal from their investments… I can clearly see the need for ballast and low volatility. However, if you can weather a “crash”…and recovery as has always been the case- why wouldn’t you just stay invested in equities? The longest collapse in history was 1929 and lasted 2.8 years. The 2007 recession lasted 1.3 years. I suppose I am obsessed with performance but perhaps there will come a day when I’m not and it will be all about preservation. In full disclosure, I own 2 bond funds and some AA. The bond funds are PONAX and FXNAX but are a very small portion of port.
Note: Coincidently, I wrote this before seeing FD’s post on selling when market crashes and @hank funny response. Thanks @Crash - yes I meant PRWCX -corrected

It's a matter of personal comfort. I used the phrase simply to mean that many of the funds on the list, by design, include more than a de minimis amount of equity. Yes, I'm just substituting one expression for another here without defining them.
Consider the conventional wisdom: everyone including retirees should have some money invested in equity, at least 20%. Taking that literally, that 20% allocation to equity is being viewed as a significant amount that affects the behavior of the portfolio.
Take something like BLADX that has around 15% in equities. YTD VCSH (same bond style box as BLADX) is up 0.08%, and VOO is up 12.74%. Assuming no rebalancing (I'm lazy tonight), a 15% weighting in equities would give a total return of:
85% x 0.08% + 15% x 12.74% = 0.07% + 1.91% = 1.98%
BLADX's YTD return is 2.74%. A little higher than the calculation above, but the figures give you a pretty good idea of where that return is coming from. Nearly all from equity.
In years when bond and stock returns are not that far apart (say, 5% bond vs 7% stock), a modest amount of equity isn't going to make a big difference. But in years like this one, where bonds are returning nothing or are even losing money (BND is down 2.65% YTD), a 10% equity stake can mean the difference between losing 1% on the year and breaking even.
That may not sound like much. Remember though that we're talking about bonds and bond funds, where yields are under 3%. In that environment, a 1% improvement can feel like a lot.

The spread has been slightly higher within the past decade (2.57% in early Oct 2012 and in mid March 2013), and hasn't dropped below 1¼% since then. The non-inflation-adjusted portion of the TIPS yield in that time frame was similar to today's -0.8%. So while we're close to extreme values, this isn't something we haven't seen before.
Given that negative yield, if one is willing to forgo short term liquidity, ISTM I bonds would be the better investment. They are never sold with a fixed rate under 0%. After a year, you can redeem and forfeit 90 days interest. After five years, you can redeem for the full value.
They're more like CDs than bonds - aside from forfeiture of interest, you won't lose money. That differs from bonds where early "redemption" means selling on the secondary market where you could lose principal. Like CDs, you can ladder I-bonds to generate an income stream. That's something you almost have to do because you're limited to $10K/year/SSN and $5K/year/tax return (joint or individual).
Here's the Fed graph from the Investopedia piece, with the 10 year Treasury yield curve and the 10 year TIPS yield curve overlayed. The original curve (the spread) is just the difference (height) between the two overlaid curves.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=EmIE

Sorry - I can’t make a prediction like that. Thought you might find this article of interest.
From the WSJ: May 26, 2021
“Ford Motor Co. shares rose to their highest level in nearly five years after the auto maker outlined a tech-centric strategy to electrify much of its vehicle lineup …
“Ford said it plans to boost spending on electric-vehicle development to $30 billion by 2025, roughly one-third more than it forecast earlier this year. The increase in spending—a total that includes some money spent in the past few years—is driven by Ford’s plans to eventually begin manufacturing its own batteries, including at two future U.S. battery-cell factories …

“Ford executives told investors during a virtual presentation that they expect 40% of the company’s global sales to be fully electric by 2030 … Shares rose 8.7% to $13.92 in trading Wednesday, their highest level since at least mid-2016.”

It used to be that Vanguard provided access to institutional class shares of several funds at lower mins than at other brokerages. That's still true for Columbia funds. But other things have changed.
Vanguard offers Pimco institutional class shares (e.g. PDIIX) with a $25K min. This used to be better than other brokerages. Schwab used to require $100K. But now Schwab requires only $2.5K ($1K for IRAs).
Consider TIBIX. It has a $2.5M min,. That's what Fidelity requires in taxable accounts. But Fidelity sells it to IRA investors with a $2500 min. Schwab requires that same $2500 in a taxable account and just $1K in an IRA. Vanguard's mins are $100K (taxable and IRA).
For several years Fidelity has been making institutional shares of many funds available for low mins in IRAs. That's not documented - you have to ask or set up test trades to find the funds. More recently, Schwab lowered mins on many funds including some institutional class shares.
For the most part, the trend at brokerages is for more choices at lower cost/mins. Beyond that, it's hard to generalize about one brokerage vs. another, as they're always in a state of flux.

Vanguard has a good deal on availability of Pimco's cheapest institutional shares (I as opposed to I-3). That was the only semi-regret I had when I moved out of Vanguard several years back.

@Crash, yes and no. Someone can do pretty well with minimal changes. I held PIMIX about 7-8 years. I held one HY Muni for 3 years. In the last several years I invested mostly in HY Munis + special securitized bond within Multi/NonTrad.
So, I babysit it because I love it and it works pretty well but someone can make 1-2 changes annually and still do well. Many have no problem trading stocks/ETF/CEFs many times annually but somehow it can't be done with bonds or believe that bonds have only one category.
Bonds are the true simple mainstream ballast to stocks and when you go deeper into several bond categories you will find they can do even more and have different correlation too.
Sure, I used to be many years in stock funds at 85-100% but as I got older and especially in retirement I learned a lot more about bonds.

My usual comments:
Not all bonds are higher-rated bonds. Bonds have several unique categories with different ballast, volatility and market conditions.
Treasuries are a great ballast but terrible in rising rates. Bank loans are much better in rising rates. Munis are not as "safe" as treasuries but behave differently + give you Fed free tax. HY Munis is another option. Several Leveraged CEFs have similar risk/reward to stocks. Then you have Multi sectors funds where the managers MAY maneuver market condition better. So why all/most analysts/articles talk about treasuries is beyond me.
On the other hand stocks globally are correlated a lot more.
Many retirees I know who have enough, including me, don't care as much about performance as they care about volatility.
So, it depends on what you want to achieve and your style/goals. My portfolio is mostly bonds all the time except quick stocks/CEFs trading, something like 10/90. My portfolio performance in the last 3 years exceeded our need by 3 times with SD=2.42. I never lost more than 1% from any last top for at least 3-4 years.
Easy example: for 6 months...VBTLX(US Index) lost -2.3%...NVHAX(HY Muni shorter term) +7.55%...NHMAX(HY Muni longer term) +8.8%.
Bottom line: when someone tells you bonds are bad, they obviously don't know enough about bonds.

I am with both TDA and Vanguard for many years. Assuming TDA NTF funds will also be available at Charles Schwab, it is better than Vanguard as far as funds availability, especially NTF funds. For example, Artisan funds are TF funds at Vanguard, whereas they are NTF at TDA.
Of course, I hear the argument TF does not make much difference if you have a large portfolio and do not make changes to your asset allocation very frequently.

Many small investors are beating Wall Street pros at their own game.
“A basket of stocks favored by individuals has outperformed the broader market since March of last year, according to Vanda Research. This group, which includes behemoths like Apple Inc. and Tesla Inc. alongside electric-vehicle maker NIO Inc. and digital-payments company Square Inc., has gained 68% since the beginning of March 2020 through Monday, far outpacing the S&P 500’s roughly 36% climb.
“And meme stocks popular with individual investors have been on a tear again. Shares of movie-theater operator AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. jumped 36% Thursday, continuing a string of double-digit gains that pushed them to $26.52, their highest close in four years. The recent rally in AMC shares has catapulted them above levels recorded during the initial retail-driven frenzy in GameStop Corp. and other stocks this January. On Thursday, AMC was the most actively-traded stock in the U.S. market, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
GameStop has advanced 46% this month, far outpacing the S&P 500’s gain of 0.5%. Shares of Hertz Global Holdings Inc. have nearly tripled in May. Short sellers who bet against GameStop, Hertz and AMC—a group targeted by many smaller investors who have favored these stocks—have lost almost $9 billion this year, according to data provider S3 Partners.”
The Wall Street Journal - May 28. 2021

A somewhat dated piece from The Finance Buff, reiterating what I wrote above - you're not getting advice from these assigned reps or assigned teams.
https://thefinancebuff.com/vanguard-fidelity-large-account.html

don’t mistake the Flagship rep [now the Flagship "team"] for an advisor. The Flagship rep is still in the customer service role. If you need advice, ask the Flagship rep to arrange a meeting with an advisor.

And from a related Finance Buff piece:

Customer service reps are in an execution role. If you want to do X, they will do X for you. ... Ask them whether they offer X or how to do X at that institution. Research and decide on your own whether you can or should do X.

https://thefinancebuff.com/customer-service-questions.html
At the end of the day, they're just doing what salespeople are supposed to do: present product and services, walk the customer through the process of getting those services, and above all Keep the Customer Satisfied. How well they do that is another question.

I do not know what you would get if you signed up for "management services" for a fee.
I do. I have a relative who had an Investment Advisory Program account (wrap fee, discretionary) with TIAA for a few years, and moved it to Vanguard PAS (also wrap fee, discretionary) upon my recommendation.
At TIAA (with a much higher fee) this person worked with an individual adviser. Based on the relative's assets and future plans, the adviser worked up a plan for investing, for managing a mix of IRAs, taxable accounts, inherited assets, etc., for drawing how much from which accounts in what sequence, etc. A good customer-facing adviser.
Actual investment decisions and execution were handed off to a back end team that traded mutual funds and ETFs somewhat frenetically. So much so that they "harvested" a loss in the taxable account that they irretrievably washed out with a replacement purchase in an IRA. The antithesis of personalization.
In contrast, Vanguard PAS preserves non-Vanguard assets if they have high unrealized gains, and it offers some flexibility in keeping them regardless. The market swoon was an opportunity to move some of those into Vanguard funds without taking a tax hit. That's when the portfolio became somewhat more "cookie-cutter". The service even allows a fair amount of tweaking by the customer (e.g. expressing a preference for actively managed funds or more corporate bonds or ...), but then why have a discretionary account?
They review and discuss the portfolio with the customer quarterly and on-demand as the customer's needs change. They keep customers informed of any upcoming changes in the program. When my relative's adviser decided to take another position within Vanguard (it was something he was interested in doing and the opportunity opened up), he contacted my relative.
If you're interested in what you would get if you signed up for "management services" for a fee, it's all laid out in detail in the Vanguard Personal Advisor Services Brochure
https://personal.vanguard.com/pdf/vpabroc.pdf

Over the years the responses of the "discount" brokers have gotten more and more generic. This is especially true at Vanguard where 15 years ago I had one specific person who I got to know well. However, Vanguard replaced him twice without notifying me, and now I just get a "team" that is faceless. Their website is more and more difficult to use for self directed investments. They clearly want everyone to use their funds in cookie cutter allocations. I do not know what you would get if you signed up for "management services" for a fee.
My advisor at Schwab is still there and a nice guy who helps with stuff, although I am not on a fee basis with him. Still even there I am usually shunted off to an unknown in Orlando
My parents used a full service broker at Morgan Stanley who I have gotten to know well. He will still sell you stocks on a large commission ( $150 to$200) but really would rather sign you up for their manged portfolios ( chosen by a committee) at 1% a year, and then review it with you a couple of times a year. I notice he is rarely in the office after 3 PM.
Even people at firms with minimum account requirements of $5,000,000, tell me they have had portfolios changed from individual stocks chosen by their manager, to cookie cutter allocations, chosen by a committee.
On the other hand my sister has had her new broker at Morgan Stanley walk though all of her accounts with her, help her combine them all into one with her new inheritance, and then will sit down with her to go over her options. I do not think this broker is a novice, and I assume she is running a fair amount of money overall, but the fact she will go to such lengths for a new client is impressive.
I guess like most professions, there are many people who try hard to do a good job, although the structure of the industry is working against them.

Returns on energy stocks have sucked for many years, and I suspect that investor concerns about climate change has accounted for some of the poor performance. Although many conservatives consider climate change a hoax, the scientific data doesn’t support their views. And when their money is at stake, apparently many investors are paying attention to the science.

From CBC. Conclusion:
"...rising fees, while evidently annoying, are of small economic consequence."
.........But not after years and years of cuts in service and constantly rising fees, to my mind.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/banks-pandemic-profits-pittis-1.6040739

Amazon is buying Bonds (James that is.) Story
I like some types of bond (funds) in this wild environment. Risk assets climbing to the sky. Bonds will hold some water for you should most everything else go to hell in a hand basket. Who knows? Depends on your age, risk tolerance and what else you happen to own. Be careful with the BBB and lower grade paper. OK to own some and to speculate in the shorter end (1-2 years) I think. Anything out 3+ years go with the highest quality you can get. Don’t plan on getting rich. You won’t with bonds today. But might make a nice life raft if waters turn violent..

Thank you David, I have few years to figure out several options.

Whatever else, must protect cash position from the 60-day STT fee. Maintaining the cash allocation in their cash management account would work, as they exempt money markets from that fee. BTW - Is there a ticker symbol for the cash fund at Fido (where my liquidated assets from TRP should land)?
The .44 YTD loss would be least of my worries. Essentially, it attempts to track an index. Might be that it’s avoiding the overvalued TIPS market.

If your concern is to be able to withdraw cash quickly, be aware that ETFs have two-day settlement periods, during which time the cash value must stay in the account. (A margin account could float the money for a day if that's really critical.)
Cash in your core account or in another Fidelity MMF is available for withdrawal "immediately" (don't recall whether that's literal or end of day since even MMF shares must be sold). Cash pulled from an internet bank is usually available within a day, though you're advised it could take longer.
I mention internet banks again because the shorter the trigger, the more important low volatility/preservation of capital becomes.
"Track an index" IMHO doesn't say much without examining the index. This index is untested, dynamic, and proprietary. Its objective is to improve "both returns and risk ... relative to traditional U.S. IG floating rate note indices." It invests in a mix of "U.S. corporate floating rate notes with less than 5 years maturity and U.S. Treasury Notes with 7 to 10 years maturity." From its statutory prospectus. It's not avoiding TIPS because they're overvalued but because it can't invest in them.
It's hard to find a reason to prefer FLDR to JPST. The latter has lower volatility (std dev 0.80 vs. 1.13 over the past year) resulting in better Sharpe ratio (2.54 vs. 1.61 over past year), smaller bid/ask spread (0.02% vs 0.06% median over past 30 days), longer history, similar ER (0.18% vs 0.15%). The smoother curve in the graph below is JPST.

You can invest in MMFs in any Fidelity brokerage account, it doesn't have to be the CMA account. The only advantage I can find to the CMA account is that it provides unlimited US ATM rebates on its debit card. AFAIK, all its other features are available in any brokerage account.
EDIT:CMA accounts use a bank sweep as their core account. This is not available in other some other brokerage accounts.
https://www.fidelity.com/bin-public/060_www_fidelity_com/documents/fdic.pdf
The "ticker" for Fidelity Cash is FCASH. It is kept as a general obligation of Fidelity; in essence you are lending the cash to Fidelity, which can use it for general business purposes. It is one of three choices you have for your "core" (transaction/checking) account inside a taxable brokerage account. Catch gave the tickers for the other options.
https://www.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/fidelity-funds/money-market-funds-fcash

On another note, I hadn’t realized that a TIK “insulates” your fund’s value during the process so that the holding neither gains nor looses value. Dug that up this morning. Casts a different light on everything.

You can think of "transfer in kind" as picking up the fund shares (electronically) at one institution and transporting them to the other. So you can gain or lose value in transit, since you always retain "real" ownership of your shares.