Can't find a good page on this now, but there are only two reasons I know of to hold long term treasuries.
One is immunization. If you like the current yield and there's something you're saving for many years down the road, buying a long term treasury or a few to get the right duration blend is a reasonable strategy. Similar to buying a CD for a targeted purpose.
The other is speculation. If you believe interest rates are going down, you would want to own the most interest rate sensitive, i.e. longest term, bonds. This is considered a speculative strategy - a bet on interest rates - because the difference between 10 and 30 year yields otherwise tends not to justify the additional risk.
Right now 10 years are yielding 0.69%, and 30 years are yielding 1.43%. Is it worth it to you to lock in a 1.43% return, a 3/4% difference in yield, for 30 years in order to bet on interest rates going down further?
OTOH intermediate term bonds can still have a place in a portfolio as a backup for cash in one's decumulation phase. For example, one can keep 3 years in cash or "cash like" investments, and another 4-6 years in intermediate term bonds, with the rest in longer term investments. This is effectively using a bond immunization strategy, not for a long term purpose, but for a midrange one.

Whenever a new technology takes off, it almost inevitably requires learning a new language.
Think of how our vocabulary has expanded as the internet has evolved over the last several years. There was a time when “smart phone”, “mobile app” and “opt-in” felt foreign and unfamiliar. Today those words are as much a part of the modern lexicon as “live streaming” or the “Internet of Things (IoT).”
Which brings us to cryptography, a once obscure computer science that is now in the spotlight. The word crypto is derived from the Greek “kryptos”, which translates as “hidden, concealed, or secret”.
Understanding the Language of Digital Assets
Simply put, cryptography is a method of writing code for storing and transmitting data in a form that can be read and processed only by those for whom it is intended. Cryptography has been commonly used for decades in securing government, military, and commercial communication and data centers.
More recently, cryptography has been instrumental in developing what are popularly referred to as “cryptocurrencies”, a new but maturing asset class that represents a significant leap forward for digital technology and for money itself. Thus far cryptography has been used predominately to secure access, creating a private pipe between sender and receiver, such as HTTPS websites. But this technology is far more powerful, and cryptocurrencies combine the technology in new ways.

https://fidelitydigitalassets.com/overview

Hello @Art & @Puddnhead,
Thanks for stopping by and making comment.
I should explain a little about the yield metric. Years back investors did not have all the fancy dancy ways to measure the market. One metric that my late father used was he followed the yield on the stocks he owned. When the yields got thin it was usually that the stocks he owned were at, or towards, their 52 weeks highs ... if not setting new highs. With this, he would trim the position and await a pullback where the yield would again rise as the stock price fell usually through a seasonal trend pattern.
In looking back through my data that I keep on the S&P 500 Index the recent high yield on the Index took place on (week ending) March 20th at 2.53% with a reading of 2305 and the recent low on February 21st at 1.79% with a reading of 3338. With this week's close the yield on the Index is at 1.9% with a reading of 3130. With this, and from a yield perspective, the Index is becoming pricey. In addition, TTM earnings are reported to be falling ... not rising. Based upon the blended earnings approach that the barometer uses puts the P/E Ratio for the Index at around 24. With this, This the earnings yield computes to about 4.16%. In comparing the 4.16% earnings yield to the yield of some of my multi sector bond funds ... Well, the advantage is now with some of the multi sector income funds from this yield perspective. Take the widely held PONAX (Pimco Income) is producing an income yield of 5.67%. With this, the yield advantage now goes to some bond funds ... from, my perspective.
Should the Index reach a near term yield of 1.8% Old_Skeet will most likely trim his equity allocation back to it's baseline allocation of 40% equity from the current 45% equity. Not long ago, I trimmed from around 50% equity back to 45%. Remember, I bought the downdraft and when the updraft came this put me equity heavy from the upward price movement as the rebound progressed.
Take care ... and, again ... thanks for stopping by and making comment.

There's always the option of filing Form 2210 Schedule AI with your tax return. This lets you pay estimates based on the income you actually made each "quarter", rather than paying the same amount on each estimate.
Regardless, you never have to get ahead of yourself and pay higher estimates YTD than you would have had you paid 1/4 of your taxes on each estimate.
Using this form entails keeping pretty good records about what income (including investment income) you received when. I did this for a few years. But I haven't since interest rates on cash dropped so low that it's no longer worth the effort just to defer paying a few bucks for some months.
Nevertheless, this method is available as a backup in case you get hit with a lot of 4th quarter income.

https://www.schwab.com/resource-center/insights/content/stock-market-performance-presidential-election-years?cmp=em-WHY
Stock Market Performance in Presidential Election Years
By Michael T Townsend
Interest in the next presidential election and its potential impact on the market increases exponentially as we approach Election Day. While the outcome is uncertain, history does reveal some interesting trends
Don't think article is posted
Sorry if its repost

For me, this is not the type of bond fund that counts as bonds in a typical "60/40" portfolio. To make room for this fund, I sold some equity. That was in part to many bond managers saying equities were overpriced, but some bond segments still looked attractive. Volatility has not been big YET and it held up very well in March, but still, this is obviously an aggressive fund that goes into an aggressive part of a portfolio, long term money.
I prefer some exposure in segments of illiquid positions to exploit the inefficiencies. That's largely due to many years of following Howard Marks. I was in the DoubleLine LP for many years. That only had quarterly redemptions, which could be denied. I like closed end funds and interval funds. Most of my portfolio is in liquid stocks and bonds, but I do allocate a section for illiquid things just because that's the only place left to fund value sometimes.
FPA's closed end fund, SOR, recently changed their fund to allow it to invest in more illiquid fixed income in private credit. Just because it's illiquid doesn't necessarily mean its junk. It might be small or of an alternative structure that prevents others from wading in.
With MWFSX, for now the managers are by far the largest owners. Redemptions would not affect liquidity, especially with their 23% cash position. As AUM grows, that could be a concern, but they would most likely move to more liquid positions over time.

Thanks for the suggestion. Certainly the CMBS portion of the portfolio is one of the most likely candidates.
Almost all the CMBS holdings are derivatives and I really didn't want to get into estimating their yields. So I started with the assumption that within CMBSs, yields would tend to be similar. Thus I looked at the more basic securities.
My source of prices was the annual report that valued the securities as of March 31, ISTM any bargain basement purchases in March were already priced in. For example, there's a non-agency CMBS, BBCMS Mort. Trust, Series 2020-C6, Class F5TB 3.69%. (In the BBCMS Mort. Trust prospectus, it's Class F5T-B.) With principal of $75K, its current value (March 31) is given as $46,675.
Fund Annual Report
BBCMS Mort. Trust Prospectus
This security represents a mortgage on a single property, F5 Tower in Seattle (built 2019, 100% occupied), with an anticipated repayment date of January 6, 2030 (final maturity in 2033).

The prospectus gives the average weighted life as 9.91 years (about 119 months). The security was issued in mid February. That's close enough to the March 31 date of the fund's annual statement not to worry about the difference in dates.
The annual statement gives the principal amount as $75K and the current value as $46,675. With this information (and the info in the SEC filing) I could approximate the yield going forward.
To figure out the monthly payments received (principal and interest) I used an amortization calculator, and 119 months. (Outstanding principal doesn't change enough in the month from Feb to the March annual report date to worry about adjusting this.)
$75K principal, 3.69% average weighted rate (per SEC filing) gives monthly payments of about $754.
Since the fund valued the holding at $46,675, the question becomes: what would the rate be on a $46,675 mortgage (119 months) to require payments of $754? The answer is about 15%.
That's in line with the fund's yield. Good, but not enough to compensate for the lower yielding securities held by the fund, let alone its large cash position. The bottom line is that I still agree that the CMBS derivatives are a good place to search for the higher yielding securities.

I still hold all three; however, I sold WAEMX, WAIGX, and OBIOX after holding the initial fund for many years, the second and third for several years as well as one other laggard. Bought LLSCX with the proceeds. The four I sold are performing about as well as LLSCX so it appeared to be a wash based on performance.

During the down turn, I didn't really sell equity funds but I did rearrange my International holding back in early April. I always hold my breath when I swap funds but this time it paid off. Wondering if anyone else did the same.
I held SFGIX as my EM fund and FMIJX as my International holding for many years. I don't like to hold to many funds in a category so I decided to swap all or some of both funds for one fund that recently became available after being closed for a while, ARTYX. I sold all my SFGIX and put it into ARTYX. I held SFGIX from the start and I think became married to it. But, with a historically better performing fund available I made the switch. I sold all of SFGIX and put it into ARTYX. As I watched this new fund perform I decided to sell most but not all of my FMIJX and add that money to ARTYX. Sooooo happy so far. I held out a long time expecting better results from SFGIX and FMIJX that never came.
Anyone else make adjustments fund-for-fund like this. Again, I held SFGIX and FMIJX for so long and defended their poor performance the past few years. But I bit the bullet and divorced them.
since April 1st:
ARTYX +38%
FMIJX +14%
SFGIX +19%
Anybody else trade like-funds?

BigTom, I do see this fund as aggressive for a bond holding, but I think there is room for aggressive bond funds within an overall portfolio, especially when managers like Scott Minerd are saying stocks are priced for perfection but there is still value in certain sectors of fixed income.

That's correct. It depends on your style, age and goals. I use mostly bond funds and doing pretty good.
In the biggest meltdown in the last 10 years, MWFSX peak to trough was about 6%, VCIF was about 13%, BND (US bond index) all investment grade was about 6.5%. It shows that MWFSX managers did a great job. Is it a guarantee? of course not.
BTW, the Portfolio Composition(Characteristics,Sector Weight,Credit Quality,Duration Maturity) for MWFSX is as of 5/31/2020 based on real data. See (link).
Another observation, the monthly yield keeps getting smaller in the last 5 months.
So, only you can make this decision after gathering all the information.

M* and 'dying' has been synonymous with me for several years now ... which is why I am no longer a member of the premium site, a newsletter subscriber, and left their forum last year.

You should have patented your face mask!

M* and 'dying' has been synonymous with me for several years now ... which is why I am no longer a member of the premium site, a newsletter subscriber, and left their forum last year.

I've followed MetWest for years, and heard some of their managers speak in person. I do have faith in their integrity.
On the commercial bond side, there looked to be a good amount of junk. But even that junk didn't seem to be yielding that much (maybe 10%-15% if I was doing arithmetic correctly).
I mentioned above that I've got some pure speculation - I'm seeing a lot of derivatives and floaters. I haven't thought through their impact on yield. That goes down a rabbit hole I'd just as soon avoid, unless I want to prep for a job on Wall Street.

“Ultra Short Bonds Recently Offered Unusually High Excess Yield with Limited Credit Risk.”
Yes - But not before investors were shaken by an unprecedented drop in NAV in March /April. I have to believe many fled these funds before they rebounded. TRBUX dropped over about a month‘s time from above its benchmark NAV of $5.00 to near $4.85 - a huge loss for this cash-like holding. Since than it’s soared to well over $5.05. Federal Reserve buying of corporate bonds had to play a part in the rebound, though I still don’t fully understand what caused this turmoil at the short end of the curve in the first place. The rush to cash was about as nutty as the hoarding of toilet paper.
Just a thought based on quick look at John’s link. I’ll perhaps add more. No better or worse, I suspect, than what you’d come across elsewhere. It begs incredulity to think this short term stuff - yielding a percent or less post expenses - is suitable to grow your nest egg. Constitutes more of a holding pattern to perhaps avoid future losses.
Selected Excerpts (slightly edited / condensed)
Moving Back Into Investment Grade and High Yield: Multi-Sector Bonds
“Similar to what we saw in the ultra-short market, credit spreads widened substantially across investment grade, high yield, and securitized product sectors in February and March. That was followed by a strong, though somewhat uneven rally since late March, as not all segments of the market participated in the recovery equally. We believe this has created potential opportunities for active managers to identify attractive relative value opportunities. We would also note that high yield spreads remain nearly 200 basis points (bps) above the levels seen earlier this year, based on the ICE BofAML U.S. High Yield Index. In an environment where the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield has jumped by 30 bps, but remains below 1.0% (based on Bloomberg data), the credit markets may offer sources of higher income and the potential for greater total return over Treasuries.”
Historically, Convertible Bonds Have Outperformed in Market Declines
“Those looking to increase equity exposure but concerned about the potential for another pullback in the stock market may want to consider convertible securities. As we have previously noted, the asset class historically has generated compelling risk-adjusted returns over the long term. One other noteworthy feature, in our view: Convertibles historically have participated in the upside of rising equity markets, while offering some degree of downside protection during most market pullbacks.”
Innovation Equities
“One way to prepare the equity sleeve of an investment portfolio for the longer run—and further potential ups and downs of economic cycles--may be through increased exposure to innovation equities. These are stocks of those companies whose leading-edge products or services may position them for strong growth in the months and years ahead. ‘Innovation was already leading the market in terms of return, and growing size in the economy, even before we headed into this pandemic crisis,’ says Brian Foerster, Lord Abbett Investment Strategist.’Cloud technology, artificial intelligence (AI), biotech and medical devices, e-commerce, and a new area that we've classified as ‘virtual empowerment,’” were among the industries that displayed the most resiliency during the recent downturn’ he adds.”
Nothing very deep here folks. Looks like “Innovation Equities“ is the new buzz-term for what we used to call “Tech Stocks“. :)

I can't figure out how the yield is so high, 18%. ... It has about 57% in investment grade bonds, mostly mortgages and corporate credit ... Seems to good to be true, what am I missing?

You and me both.

I called TCW. They said it is because the asset base is so small. They have been able to buy a smaller number of bonds trading at a discount, therefore increasing the yield.

As it is stated, this doesn't make sense to me. (Perhaps they are talking about odd lot pricing?) For a given type of bond and a given credit rating, there's a market rate of return. The price of a given bond is determined by that market rate and its coupon rate. The lower the coupon, the higher the discount, so that YTM (and thus SEC yield) comes close to market rate. IOW, the YTM of a bond is generally independent of the size of the discount.
When looking at current yield, i.e. coupon / price rather than YTM, a discount bond will have a smaller yield. It's true that the discount will decrease the denominator. But the coupon (numerator) will also be smaller than with a bond selling at par. This latter effect dominates. So generally current yield goes down, not up, as market discount increases.
(Left as an exercise: compare current yields on two ten year bonds, one with a 2% coupon selling at par, and one with a 1% coupon.)

25% of portfolio is cash/treasuries so that's like 1-2% tops. Maybe some bond gurus on this site can figure out this mystery?

Precisely the point. It's easy enough to look at the full portfolio for this fund because it is so small. Given that the average yield is 15%, 18%, somewhere around there, we need to be able to find lots of bonds with yields well over 20% to counterbalance the cash, let alone other lower yielding bonds.
In our search for these bonds we can ignore all premium bonds paying less then, say, 15% coupon. This is because the YTW of a premium bond is even less than its coupon rate. Pretty much none of the premium bonds have coupons high enough to contribute to the high average yield.
A quick and dirty approximation for yield of discount bonds is:
[discount (as fraction of current price) ÷ years to maturity] + coupon rate
For example, we can approximate the yield of $10K of bonds with a current value of $6K, a coupon of 5%, and a maturity in 10 years as: $4K/$6K ÷ 10 years + 5% ~= 11.6%
Without going into gory detail, I'll just say that few bonds pop out as having high yields (20%+). The ones I could find (this assumes they're performing):
Corporates:
Intelsat Jackson Holdings: $13K @ 22% and $22K @ 21% (using approximation described above)
Antero Resources: $5.7K @ 40% and $3K @50%
Lots of junk yielding 10%-15%, but even those hurt, not help boost the average.
So the help from the corporates comes from $44K in total assets.
Non-agency MBS (assuming not paid off early):
Bombardier: $51K @ 26%
GSAA Trust, Series 2007-3, Class 2A1B: $13K @ 43%
So the help from non-agency MBSs comes from $64K in total assets.
All in all, about $100K of value in a $9M fund. Certainly nowhere near enough to pull the average yield up to where the fund says it is. I have a few more thoughts but they're in the way of pure, uninformed speculation. So I would rather hear from the bond mavens.

In the Multi sector bond category it has the best year to date performance + great volatility + very high yield. The fund has about 50% in MBS/securitized and about 55% in IG(investment grade) bonds, duration about 2.7.

This is the second post giving a figure of 55% - 57% in investment grade bonds.
Consider that the same managers run another TCW fund that has only 35% in IG bonds. M* rates the average credit quality of that fund as AA. If you'd prefer, SIRRX is another multisector bond fund with 57% of its portfolio in IG bonds, and M* likewise rates its average quality as AA.
OTOH, PUCZX is a multisector bond with half (50%) of its portfolio in IG bonds while its average credit quality is BB. So one can tell virtually nothing about the credit quality of a fund from the figure being given, IG bonds as a percentage of AUM.
I'm reasonably confident that M* would rate MWFEX's portfolio as BB or possibly worse. While a somewhat larger percentage of the bonds in MWFEX are IG than in PUCZX, the junk bonds are of lower quality. The effect on average credit quality, as M* explains in its methodology, is nonlinear. So a few really bad bonds can drag down the whole average.
Moving on to convexity. This is another risk of this fund, where the convexity is almost nonexistent (0.09). While there are various techniques for pushing down duration some of them also drive down convexity. This is undesirable, as it tends to mitigate the benefit of shorter duration.
Finally, when people make statements about volatility, it would be nice to see hard numbers (standard deviations) included.

Quote from David Rosenberg's newsletter "Breakfast with Dave":
Wealth-Track_Breakfast_with_Dave_2020_06_24.pdf

1.High yield rates “should be” trading closer to 11.0% than 6.4% to compensate for default risk. And that’s for today’s default rate — we haven’t even hit the peak yet. A no-brainer assessment of how mispriced this asset class is at the moment. In fact, when you look at the 50-year history of the data, you will see that the norm is for the average coupon in the high yield market to be about 500 basis points above the prevailing default rate at any given moment of time. Today, the two levels are dead-even — and another case to be made that appropriate compensation for the inherent default risk is much closer to 11% than it is to 6%.
2.The high yield market seems to be pricing in a default rate of 3.25%, which is half today’s level. Instead of discounting a recessionary default rate, the market is pricing in a default rate we typically see three years into the economic recovery.
and,
To be sure, the stock market is way too overpriced for my liking. But the future earnings outlook is a source of debate, and the bulls have stated their case.And I get it. But high yield bonds —come on, it’s as plain as day. It’s about default risk and getting the compensation you deserve as an investor. But you see — it is the debtor, the borrower, that the Fed is most concerned about... creating this massive gap between the current artificial price and true intrinsic value will not, in the end, serve anyone very well.

@Junkster - Are you drinking from this punch bowl?

VTI/SPY performance was higher than BND in the last 10-20-30 years. Nothing new. What is going to be in the next 10-20 years? probably the same.
That was easy.
If you don't care about volatility then you should be in 100% stocks, in fact, you should take a margin, interactive brokers charge only 1.5% on $300K(link)
So, why do you need bonds? for ballast. Many retirees who accumulate a large portfolio and need a low withdrawal rate (think under 3%) could invest a large % in bonds if they like a lower volatility portfolio.

Same type of articles about bonds for years. HY Munis made over 6% since mid May. Bonds made me a lot more than inflation + 1%

Please don't misunderstand me. I like the idea of reverse mortgages if obtained at reasonable cost and rates for a well defined purpose, as I wrote above. They have gotten a somewhat undeserved bad rap, and they've been improved significantly. They're likely superior for a variety of well defined purposes.
But @bee raised HECMs as a great way to hedge sequence of return risk. For that particular well defined purpose, they may not be the better product. ("Hedge" = "insurance" or "protection".)
Sequence of return risk is the risk that one's decumulation (spend down/retirement) phase may begin during a market downturn. It's not a risk of ever having a market correction. So a hedge against this risk is protection that's needed during the first few years of retirement. This has a few implications:
1. Sequence of return risk is not concerned with what happens after, say, 10 years. So it doesn't matter that a HELOC only enables you to draw against your line of credit for 10 years. Like term life, that's the period that you're "insuring".
2. Since you're only "insuring" for a relatively short period (say, 1/3 of your anticipated retirement period), the fixed (up front) costs of the line of credit weigh more heavily. They are amortized over just a few years, as contrasted with closing costs on a traditional 30 year mortgage. (They also weigh more heavily because you pay these fees even if you never need to draw upon the line of credit.)
3. The amount of protection you need is capped by your anticipated expenses over the first few years of retirement. So the fact that a reverse mortgage credit line grows doesn't matter. (The fact that it might shrink with a HELOC does matter, however.)
4. Since this "insurance" is needed at the point of retirement, one might be able to apply for the line of credit shortly before retirement, thus making it easier to qualify for a HELOC.
In a sense, the whole question of how easy it is to get a HELOC is irrelevant to the question of which one is better. If you cannot get a HELOC then there is no choice to be made.
Permit a metacomment here: I've been fastidious in citing objective third party sources: the FTC, HUD, the CFPB. Pages from provider products can be informative and accurate, but still incomplete. This is something to watch for not just in this thread, but generally.
The Reverse.Mortgage page purports to be presenting information on reverse mortgages generally. But then it quietly slides into features that apply only to HECMs, such as being federally insured. You have to flip to another page to find out that this feature costs 2% of the total line of credit up front, plus 0.5% of the outstanding balance annually.
The comparison chart says that HELOCs become due (balloon payment) after ten years. Some do. But the chart is deceptive here. The Fed writes: "Many existing HELOCs are structured such that when they reach the end of the draw period, they convert from open-ended, non-amortizing lines of credit to closed-end, amortizing loans."
What is best depends on your intended purpose (including risk tolerance) and the terms (including special features) offered.