The above is a good discussion and why I keep trading bond funds. If you own higher-rated bond funds you are likely to make 2.5-3% average annually in the next several years.
Trading should not be done by most investors though ;-)

Well, consider this, maybe: I'm retired, wife's not. (That's how we can make expensive Hawaii work for us.) 4% is the figure that might work for us, as long as it amounts to the year's profit we remove from the portfolio, each January--- because, as long as the Market continues to rise, we'll make up that 4% and it will bring the portfolio back up to where it was, LAST January, before the withdrawal. So, we are not "spending down" the principal in the portfolio. I want to leave something behind. She's 19 years younger, and there is my son and her brothers to think about.
We're 36 stocks and 57 bonds and the rest in cash. That recipe is an aggregate of the fund managers' decisions. Of course WE are the ones who decided to be bond-heavy, now. We hold one equity fund (balanced, really) PRWCX, which comprises over 30% of our total. The fund is golden. It's closed, now. Because it's such a sizeable chunk of the portfolio, it produces profit in good years that's rather much higher than our other stuff. We take that 4% from THERE, not from our bond funds.
...WE might decide in days to come to begin to take the bond distributions and use them, but not yet. PRSNX RPSIX and PTIAX. I'm less than pleased with RPSIX, so on Friday last, I transferred a good chunk into PRSNX. These days, our monthly bond pay-outs amount to $300 in a good month. I want to keep growing that until it's worth much more. We have monthly automatic payments going into PTIAX. So we still re-invest all bond dividends. We take 4% (or so) yearly, but do not spend-down what's in the portfolio. We can have our cake and eat it, too.

A home isn’t part of your net worth?
I was taught years ago that it is. Of course, one must exclude any mortgage amount owed against the home. Mass Mutual seems to agree. “Net worth“ is an interesting concept. I found it quite meaningful when it was first explained to me about 30 years ago by a guy who really understood finance. Helped set me on the right path back than.
In a nutshell: It’s better to be positively netted rather than negatively netted - as some unfortunate souls find themselves. Overall, however, it’s not something I pay a whole lot of attention to. Quality of life can be measured against many markers. The Mass Mutual link above is current (2020) and cites some interesting net-worth averages for those of us in the retirement years.

Different types of risk are defined along with metrics from Mutual Fund Observer and Morningstar.
Fifty funds are evaluated over 20, 15, 10, 5, and 2 year periods for maximum drawdown, risk adjusted return (Martin Ratio), risk (Ulcer Index), and total return.
Short term performance for these funds are evaluated over one week, three months and year to date, along with 3 year beta.
Portfolio Visualizer is used to create a portfolio to minimize drawdown for an annualized return of 8% for the past two years.

50 Funds

Welcome to Florida, Bee! We've been living in SW Fl full-time for 11 years. We started out as snowbirds, but that lasted one year before we moved here permanently. We actually like the summers down here...except for hurricanes...because it's a lot less crowded and the golf is inexpensive.

Here's a table (data from M*) comparing the 3/5/10 year standard deviations of several of the funds listed. I've divided it into funds with high grade portfolios and funds holding substantial amounts of junk bonds. Not surprisingly, over every time period the latter have been more volatile regardless of differences in durations.
You can reproduce this data by starting with the M* legacy ratings & risk page for WATFX and then adding (using "Compare") the tickers for your funds of interest:

Fund	3yr	5yr	10yr
DODIX	3.62	3.26	2.93
WATFX	4.00	3.63	3.22
BCOIX	4.11	3.64	3.30
----------------------------
PTIAX	4.65	3.87	3.47
TSIIX	4.92	4.25	4.05
PIMIX   5.58	4.52	4.21

As @hank wrote (third paragraph, above), the funds with better short term performance tended to hold lower quality bonds. Most multi-sector bonds, including the ones above, have average credit ratings of BB. The core plus bonds above (DODIX, BCOIX) are rated A, the core bond fund WATFX is rated AA.
Buying into junk bonds, especially with cash, is a bet that the economy won't sink into a recession, or if it does, the government will bail out companies that were already shaky.
Here's a table showing past performance other than very short term. I've added a column, 3yr(2019) that gives annualized performance figures over the period 2017-2019. That gives a sense of more recent multi-year performance while excluding the unusual ups and downs of 2020.
As above, the table is divided into funds with high grade and with junk bond portfolios. Over extended periods or periods excluding 2020, higher risk (junk) has done better. Over the past year or three years if one includes 2020, it has not.

Fund	YTD	1yr	3yr	3yr(2019)  5yr	 10yr
WATFX	6.63%	7.56%	5.56%	4.91%	  4.95%	 4.53%
BCOIX	7.02%	7.70%	5.55%	4.66%	  4.92%	 4.50%
DODIX	6.73%	7.40%	5.39%	4.52%	  4.98%	 4.34%
------------------------------------------------------
TSIIX	5.71%	6.71%	4.85%	4.94%	  5.32%	 5.42%
PTIAX	3.34%	3.42%	4.49%	5.45%	  5.05%	 5.83%
PIMIX   1.54%	3.38%	3.57%	5.68%	  5.26%	 6.86%

FMIJX really reminds me why we have to look at fund history over a long period of time. This was a top tier fund for most of its history and the management team seems intact. The funds value tilt hurt it in recent years...but my guess is if look back on this one in 2022 or 23 we will see this period as an aberration as both value and growth will revert to their mean. I'm holding while also maintaining my position in JOHAX though I've been tempted to go all in on JOHAX.

Your home may not be a great investment but it is certainly a decent investment, comparable to safer investments in returns. Some people get lucky and buy homes at a great price or in neighborhoods that spike in value, but that’s often not the case.
We bought our home with a 15-year mortgage and paid it off about five years before retirement. Having our mortgage paid off made a huge difference in being able to retire when we did because our living expenses were so much lower. It also enabled us to ramp up our retirement savings the last few years of working.
Owning a home has many intangible values, if your neighborhood is desirable and you enjoy working in the yard or doing home improvements. For example, we live next a large city nature preserve where we can hike and walk the dog. On the downside, you never really pay off a home because of ongoing maintenance and repairs.

You may be thinking about the SEC rule that requires an investment company (fund) having "a name suggesting that the company focuses on a particular type of investment (e.g., an investment company that calls itself the ABC Stock Fund, the XYZ Bond Fund, or the QRS U.S. Government Fund) to invest at least 80% of its assets in the type of investment suggested by its name. "
https://www.sec.gov/rules/final/ic-24828.htm
This only applies to funds that have suggestive names. So while Templeton Foreign Fund (TEMFX) must have at least 80% of its portfolio in foreign securities, Tweedy Browne Global Value (TBGVX) doesn't have to meet this requirement, even though it typically does (currently 83.3% foreign).
AFAIK, the SEC hasn't set any rules saying that "core" has any meaning. So funds with "core" or "core plus" in their names are relatively free to invest however they please, subject to what's in their prospectuses.
Average years to maturity (short, intermediate, long) is another matter. There, the SEC has set boundaries:
https://www.sec.gov/rules/final/ic-24828.htm#average
Ultimately it comes down to who is categorizing these funds. For example, M* considers Loomis Sayles Investment Grade Bond Fund, LSIIX, a core-plus fund. Lipper calls it a corporate BBB bond fund. (79% of its bonds are rated BBB or better, and another 9½% are unrated.)

Sometimes a certain amount of luck is necessary with respect to real estate timing. We got an early start to financial stability with the purchase, with another young couple, of a four unit apartment house at a good location in SF. What an experience! A whole lot of really hard physical work for the four of us, and certainly not for the faint of heart.
But the timing worked out, and after three or four years we sold into a steeply rising real estate market. That early profit provided the start of our financial success.

Hi VintageFreak,
Great post! Most people only want to talk about their winners, so this longneck's for you, big guy! So,.....to the losers.....
FMIJX: the best part of this fund is the quarterly reports 'cause the fund stinks! GLFOX: I owned this for years. Right now, it sucks. Also sold ROGSX. It's a lagger. It got new PMs......still lags. One I still hold down 10+% right now. FSDAX: will buy more as it falls. Funds I would own again, just not now: FNSTX, GIBLXX, PTIAX, YCGEX, FARMX, RAANX. Moves that paid off. Many on buying the crash......lol. I want another one, please.
God bless
the Pudd

@BenWP, that's an excellent point about checking the total assets for which the manager has responsibility. In addition to other funds (to its credit, M* appears to list offshore as well as domestic funds), managers may also be responsible for private institutional/wealthy client accounts and/or pooled investment vehicles. You can find that information in the SAI.
"5 [other funds] $4.8 billion; 21 [pooled investments] $21.8 billion; 243 [other accounts] $2.5 billion"
(That's in addition to the $6B in MGGPX.)
M* analyst reports sometimes give a little more information: "in 2006, the firm entrusted him to launch the Global Opportunities strategies and form his own team in Hong Kong. ... After adding two more funds to their coverage in 2020, the seven-person outfit now manages seven strategies. The supporting cast also lacks notable shared tenure ..."
Something else (if one wants to get really deep into the details) is how much overlap there is in the different charges. For example, years ago, Fidelity closed Contra FCNTX (Danoff) while keeping open the much smaller New Insights (FINSX). While the funds focused on similar parts of the market, the size difference was so huge that New Insights was able to benefit from smaller companies that Contra couldn't touch, at least in any meaningful way.
All that said, I agree it would make sense for MS to consider closing some of the sibling funds also.

@msf: I don’t know how to avoid the fees, either. MS certainly complicates matters by offering multiple share classes and, even more confusing for me, giving their funds names that are so similar. Here are some of the names: Global Franchise, Counterpoint Global, Global Advantage, Global Concentrated, Global Permanence, Global Sustain, Global Core, etc.
From my perspective, MS may be closing Heugh’s Global Opportunity fund in all of its disguises, not so much because the fund is huge, but because the same manager has so many other funds to manage. M* provides the additional fund responsibilities of a PM. After selecting “People,” click on the blue bar representing the manager(s)’ years at the fund in question. The list for Heugh is long.

The single biggest variable longer term IMHO on bond funds is fees. Especially today, investment grade bond funds aren’t going to produce large returns (consistently anyway) without taking a large amount of risk. So, fee differences mean more with bond funds than with equity funds.
At .45% ER, WATFX is competitive on fees along with DODIX. Generally, that’s a low or reasonable fee for a core managed bond fund. The best source I know of on bond funds‘ holdings and performance history is Yahoo. I’ve entered your fund there and than clicked on:
“Holdings”
For interest rate sensitivity, look at “Duration” on the right. The fund is at 7 years on duration, a bit on the long side by today’s (cautious) standards - even for an intermediate term fund. By contrast, DODIX (mentioned in this thread) is a bit over 4 years on duration. WATFX should have fallen a few percent over the past 3 weeks as rates spiked. The benchmark 10-year bond‘s rate rose from below 0.60% a few weeks ago to 0.80%% today. (Rates up. Bond prices down.) The longer the duration, the more drastic the move. On the good side, your fund should be able to reinvest maturing issues at higher interest rates which will feed back into your proceeds. A caveat, however, is that investors might choose to flee. In that case, it’s harder for the fund to “self-correct”.
A second important ingredient in bond performance is credit quality. It looks like WATFX is weighted toward the middle or upper range relative to its peers. Ironically, it’s been the lower rated bonds (BB / BBB) that have had the nicest ride up in value since March due to the unprecedented actions of the Federal Reserve in buying-up (essentially backing) corporate bonds as low as BBB quality before they could fall further into junk (BB) territory. Nobody could have foreseen that action on the part of the Fed. Likely, this sharp uptick in value for lower rated bonds is temporary. But that, along with the longer than average duration, helps explain a lot about your fund’s recent behavior.
Rather than comparing performance (“chasing” per msf) I’d recommend thinking about the type of bond fund that best fits your long term style of investing and overall portfolio. What you have now is a core fund, weighted a bit on the long end of duration and hewing toward the higher quality end of the credit spectrum. The biggest advantage is it should help hedge equity losses in the future, as high quality longer duration bonds tend to rise a bit when equities tumble (though that wasn’t the case last week). Longer dated bonds also command higher rates of return. Your fund invests in higher quality credits. So, should junk and lower quality bonds decline, your fund should stand up better.
Bonds today really represent a “Catch-22.” Rates are so low that it’s unlikely bonds will reward investors for the risk they’re taking for a good many years and until rates are significantly higher. But that’s just a guess on my part. The experts have been predicting the “end of time” for bonds for at least the last decade. Generally, they’ve been wrong in that assessment. I’m 74 and retired. I certainly don’t want 100% invested in equities. Nor do I want to play much in the junk bond area. So, somewhat begrudgingly, I have about a quarter of assets in intermediate duration investment grade bond funds. A younger investor need not be as cautious.
Good luck.

Not a particular judgement on the funds, but simply matter of not wanting to pay taxes because of all my put income this year. Some of them have indeed stunk up the place, though. In a market they are supposed to excel, they have been found wanting.
Would like to hear from others which funds they gave up on because I don't want to land in those funds without having the full picture.
At this point completely out of these funds
BPRRX, BGRSX (to cut a long story short ...no pun intended)
APPLX (selling each of last 3 years...what the effing F)
GRSPX (meh...)
MDISX, MQIFX (last of the funds I fell in love with the idea of owning, gotten over that the day I sold HSGFX)
All Artisan funds I owned with "value" in the name but looking to buy back (still one I own, see below)
RPHYX, RSIVX, WMCNX (Sorry people, I can do better selling puts)
PRIJX (hoodwinked into the emerging markets value will do well idea, was in my MILs account)
PVFIX (found alternative, see below)
Funds I sold partially and still hold
FMIMX
ARTKX (if I sell it will generate capital gains)
COBYX (my condolence to the manager's family who passed, but really when are you going to turn around?)
Funds looking to sell at least some off to capture tax loss, hard decisions
IVWAX (my bad luck has to be excellent, manager has to leave, and with all that cash still stinks)
VGPMX (not "golden" any more)
VSIAX (bad timing)
WHGIX, FEVAX (not too worried, but since I don't reinvest dividends, have a loss on cost basis)
Moves that paid off
TMSRX (For MILs account)
PVCMX (Mr Cinnamond, you are not allowed to closed and then re-open new fund any more, it's illegal)
VLAAX, VALIX (lucky timing)
ONERX (Jeff Wrona found God. M* says NEGATIVE. F Them. Rock On)

First, I don't list all my funds and I don't follow all the funds.
Second, I list the ones that have done better for 1-3 months but still make some choices.
PIMIX is on the list under Multi.
WATFX is a good fund but I prefer GIBLX which is better for 1-5 years.
Your question is more complicated. What kind of investor are you? do you need a ballast fund? is it for 3 months or 3 years? are you retired? how much risk/volatility you want to take? how the other portion of your portfolio look like
Sure, PIMIX did better than WATFX last month because rates were up and Multi did better.
You need to tell me a lot more before I can post my ideas.
PIMIX is a pretty good fund but used to be a great fund until 01/2018. I prefer TSIIX for longer hold. If you need more ballast, I like PTIAX.

Awesome fund. This site helped me find this a couple years ago.

I need to further clarify - on M* discussion forum we have had a challenge for a number of years of which I have tallied the results for the past two years. Due to some problems with M* I am exploring a couple of other forums to see if the group would prefer switching. I started this topic here without posting the rules that are on M*. Basically participants are given $1,000,000 at the start of the year and participants post there buys and sells in a timely manner. At the end of each month each participant post there total at the end of the last trading day of the month and I post results after hearing from every one. Participants can join at the start of any month by introducing there self and giving there purchases. I choose to post my results on all three forums to see the ease etc. of doing so. Others may post only on M* but I will post the results on all three. We are getting close to the end but would welcome Crash joining us for the mad rush to the end. Just post your beginning portfolio for the month of November. Some members are retired with conservative portfolios and others more aggressive. Others are in the accumulating phase. Portfolio does not have to match a real portfolio but perhaps test ideas. Not truly a contest since we have different goals with our test portfolios. Also I have some indexes in the results to measure against.
Rich

During the pandemic, energy demand for transportation and traveling has reduced considerably to a point that layoff are increasing among large oil companies. Many fracturing firms have bankrupted in spring as oil prices fell below $40/barrel.
https://fidelity.com/news/article/top-news/202010301003RTRSNEWSCOMBINED_KBN27F22N-OUSBS_1
FAANG stocks have dominated the market in recent years. My growthier funds are doing well while the value oriented ones are trailing badly. This year in particular the difference is over 20% ! At some point in the future everything revert back to the mean.

Interesting group of funds thus far presented here. A quick and dirty review suggests SVARX has for me provided the most appealing combination of total return and downside protection from this group during its lifetime (7 years).....September saw me moving ~5% of my portfolio from bond funds to utility stocks. Will include SVARX in my thinking about possible changes among the bond funds.