"It’s time once again for our popular thrilling funds feature.
As you may recall, this is a list I generate with simple, strict screens to narrow a universe
of 15,000 fund share classes down to a short list ranging between 25 and 50.
It’s purely a screen; I don’t make any additions or subtractions."
Here are the tests:
• Expense ratio in the Morningstar Category’s cheapest quintile. (I use the prospectus adjusted expense ratio,
which includes underlying fund fees but does not include leverage and shorting costs.)
• Manager investment of more than $1 million in the fund (the top rung of the investment ranges reported in SEC filings).
• Morningstar Risk rating lower than High.
• Morningstar Medalist Rating of Bronze or higher.
• Parent Pillar rating better than Average.
• Returns greater than the fund’s category benchmark over the manager’s tenure for a minimum of five years.
In the case of allocation funds, I also used category averages because benchmarks are often pure equity
or bond, and therefore not good tests.
• Must be a share class accessible to individual investors with a minimum investment of no greater than $50,000.
• No funds of funds.
• Funds must be rated by Morningstar analysts.

https://www.morningstar.com/funds/thrilling-33

Giroux feels strongly that vast majority (not all) of Trump tariffs will be declared unconstitutional by courts. How will markets react to that if/when it happens?

Well … normally, the “smart money” would have priced that in by now. But I’m not sure there’s any smart money left. :)
I tried to pull up something re Giroux’s political leaning / party affiliation last evening. Drew a blank. “Smart managers” probably try to hide their leaning, since taking a side is a good way to alienate a substantial proportion of clients regardless of the side you favor. I know Giroux attended a conservative college in Michigan. I can say that a couple decades ago TRP had some loose ties to Democrats. Not sure now how that was expressed. And I think they drew some flack for their preference. I do remember that perhaps the best fixed income person they ever had, Mary Miller, left the firm to take a position in the Obama administration. Also, Gary Gensler’s brother was a money manager with TRP for many years. Not sure if he still is.
Thanks @DavidF for sharing DG’s thoughts on the tariffs.

giroux is probably correct on rulings but incorrect on net effect. trump has many paths to tariffs. as long as the gop support grift without repercussions, one should assume delays and rulings will ensure stays for the remaining 4 years.
there is also no sign that the current congress, nor a future gerrymandered one, will uphold their mandate for legislated tariff responsibility.
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/in-house-counsel/here-are-trumps-options-if-tariffs-ruled-unlawful-quicktake

Just looking at a few other funds in PRWCX’s league - perhaps not as good:
From M* 15 year average annual return:
PRWCX 11.96%
GLFOX 10.98%
DODBX 10.24%
10 years
PRWCX 10.86%
GLFOX 9.30%
DODBX 8.76%
5 years
PRWCX 10.94%
DODBX 10.71%
CPLSX 10.42%
GLFOX 10.24%
I’ve owned all 4 over the years. CPLSX, the only one I currently hold, is 9 years old. Surprising, has held its own among this distinguished crowd over that time. It’s a long/short fund with a substantially higher cost. Perhaps a safer bet for us ”late middle-aged” folks. Inception April 2016 / 8% average annual return since.

@yogibearbull
The alleged die-off of alternative funds in the '10s could be evidence of healthy 'wheat from chaff' separation typical of any newly emerging category. Chart in the article ends at 2020, which leaves me wondering whether the improved quality of the offerings and better understanding of the market has led to more encouraging statistics over the most recent 5-year timeframe.
Here is some evidence.
The Globe and Mail: Alternative funds see big jump in flows in first half of 2025 (08-06-25) [paywall]
"Ian Tam, director of investment research for Canada at Morningstar Inc., says almost $9-billion flowed into liquid alternative mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the first half of 2025. A whopping $6.1-billion was invested in the first quarter of the year alone – more than double the inflows of any previous quarter since liquid alts came to market in 2019.
"Alternative funds accounted for 26 per cent of mutual fund sales in the first half of the year, Mr. Bragg says, while liquid alt ETFs made up about 4 per cent of total ETF sales in the first half.
"Performance has been relatively steady across the range of liquid alternative asset funds, which includes alternative credit and equity, market neutral, multi-strategy, and private debt and equity. The average one-year return is 7.4 per cent, the three-year average is 8.1 per cent, and the five-year average is 6.7 per cent, according to data from Morningstar.
"Alternative investments have changed with the times, Mr. Johnston says. They used to mean investing your money for years with no liquidity options, no interim cash flow, and no secondary market, which doesn’t work for the average retail investor, he says.
Now, funds have lower investment minimums, shorter holding periods, liquidity options and a secondary market."

It doesn't have to be big numbers, a 3.1% core inflation for years can be very bad. Just as 2.7% headline can be bad over the long run. Especially cumulatively, on top of the last inflation shock. We WILL get lower rates, and that will add to the inflation as well. Companies are going to slowly roll out price increases, like boiling a frog.
Also, as mentioned in my other post, institutional money and the FED are watching "supercore" CPI - minus food, energy and housing. It is presently a little over 3.2%.

Interesting comments & additional materials. Thanks all!
Inflation: We all know what it is. We can see it in the prices of things we buy. But how do you measure / quantify it accurately? Is that even possible?
Life in the 1800s was a lot different than in the current century.
Transportation : Horse & buggy / In1869 you might have traveled coast to coast by rail.
Medical care: The country doctor who visited your home.
Food: A lot of it home grown
Entertainment: Reading by oil lamp at night. Late in the century you might have purchased an Edison “victrola” (hand-cranked) and have listened to some scratchy sounding tunes. In 1880 the first motion picture arrived.
1900 - There were a few cars now (electric mostly). In 1908 you might have been fortunate to own a Model T Ford. In 1914 the first commercial flight took place (Tampa / St. Petersburg). In 1920 United Airlines began service. Electricity in homes became a popular “must have”. It became common in urban homes in the 1930s. Rural areas lagged. Under FDR a program to install electricity in 85% of homes was completed in 1945. Autos became popular. The interstate highway system initiated under Eisenhower was built in the 1950s. Entertainment: (Commercial) AM radio first aired in 1920. WNBT NYC began broadcasting images (via television) in 1941.
2000s - What a leap in standard of living just a couple hundred years! Today - Fiber optic and satellite based broadband. The advent of commercial space tourism. Self-driving / nearly self-driving autos. Virtual reality. Computers in our pockets. 24-hour always connected (always “breaking”) news.
The problem: How can you compute a meaningful “cost of living” tracker when what constitutes “living” itself is in such a constant state of flux?
People always needed to eat. That hasn’t changed much. You can compare the price for a pound of your favorite steak in 1800 with today I suppose. Supermarkets didn’t exist then. 60% of us lived and worked on farms. Was a pound of top-sirloin the same in 1800 as now? (flavor, freshness, packaging, availability?). A gallon of oil in 1800 oddly enough cost about $2.00. Don’t panic, however, as you’d be most likely to use only a little to light your evening lamp.
Home heating costs? Most homes in 1800 were heated by wood burning stoves or fireplaces. How to get a meaningful “home heating” inflation figure here when the process entailed daily back-breaking work splitting & carrying logs? Move on to 1900 when homes were largely heated by coal burning stoves or fireplaces. How to determine the “inflation factor”? Today’s N/G or electric systems are so much cleaner, easier to operate and more reliable.
How about the cost of air travel? Is a “tourist class” seat on AA or United the same product today that it was 40-50 years ago (I say not.) Do the CPI calculations take that into consideration? Do the figures even attempt to factor in things like number of connecting flights or frequency & length of delays? OTOH: One might argue that the same flight today at a higher (much smoother) altitude in a faster plane, over a shorter time is indeed “more product” then aboard a much louder slower moving flight on a twin-prop plane 50+ years ago. Are variances like that factored into COLA?
Cars? There is no resemblance really. How do you figure out how much car prices have “inflated” from an era (early 1900s) when you stood outside and hand-cranked the engine for a start to today’s product? Is it fair to incorporate things like air bags, A/C, run-flat tires, better lighting, automatic lane-keeping into the price and thereby determine cars haven’t really gotten “more expensive” because you’re just buying “more car” for the added price? It’s quality adjustments like these which BLS numbers attempt to factor-in that cause those published inflation rates to “bite” less than what we as individuals feel in our pockets,
Maybe that’s the reason gold holds the allure for some. It is possible to compare its price over the centuries.

Thank you. One has to wonder why Vanguard would venture down the internal fund path while the survival rate is truly terrible. One of the graph indicates 90% of alternatives survive 1-3 years.
Yet many university endowments have sizable allocation to alternative funds and private equity including the former David Swanson’s Yale University.

I use SNAXX in my IRA account. When the market tanked a few years ago, I sold all my bond oefs in my IRA, and invested over $1mil in SNAXX. A few months later, I started withdrawing funds from SNAXX and invested in CDs. I now have far less in SNAXX than $1mil, but I can still maintain SNAXX as long as I don't liquidate it. I also use SWVXX in a taxable account and in my wife's IRA, which never had enough money to qualify for SNAXX. I live in Texas so state taxes are not an issue for me.

I'm using M*'s chart page (a tab found on any fund/ETF page) such as:
https://www.morningstar.com/etfs/arcx/fltr/chart
Set the Frequency to Daily and the Data Type to "Growth w/Dividend". That gives you total return and scales each fund charted comparably (total returns relative to $10K start).
If you set a date range of not more than 20 years or so, you can see where the peaks and valleys are. (You won't see much of anything if you look at the lifetime of VWELX, as that spans 86 years.) Mouse over spots to get approximate gains (losses). Or spend a couple of minutes zooming in on the exact start point you want. Then M* will calculate the exact gain on each subsequent date.
Over VRIG's lifetime (starting 9/20/16) FLTR has outperformed, though barely: 34.17% vs. 33.82% cumulative.
Zooming in to 2/1/20 through 4/1/20, one sees that they both peaked on 2/19/20. Setting that as the start point, one sees VRIG hit bottom on 3/26, losing 13.0437%, and FLTR hit its bottom on 3/18/20, losing 17.8062%. Other dips are similar though much smaller and not worth worrying about.
VRIG lost 1.3786% from 11/14/18 to 12/21/18; FLTR lost 1.8535 from 11/13/18 to 12/21/18.
VRIG lost 2.2798% from 1/21/22 to 6/16/22; FLTR lost 3.0049% from 2/7/22 to 6/16/22.
VRIG lost 0.7763% from 4/2/25 to 4/7/25; FLTR lost 1.9253% from 4/2/25 to 4/4/25.
YTD, FLTR has outperformed 3.11% vs 3.03%.
Overall, neither FLTR's small outperformance nor its slightly deeper short term losses seem consequential. This slight difference is mirrored in FLTR's slightly higher standard deviation. FWIW, M* gives FLTR a risk score of 3 (out of 100), and VRIG a 2. All of this is just splitting hairs.
I don't recognize what's in the CLO ETFs either. Another potential risk there.
Finally, I'll add that I keep looking at CBLDX. My concern here is that unlike Sherman's RPHIX, it doesn't mitigate risk by buying "money good" debt. Still, the numbers (stability of returns) impress for somewhat longer term cash.

A very thorough comprehensive discussion of some cash-like alternatives by @msf …And thanks!
I had thought JAAA was “good enough” for my less stringent needs and held a lot going into the late March / early April market drop. But when the initial “mini-crash” occurred (the first of several bad days) and I sold a large portion of JAAA to reinvest the money in rapidly falling equities, guess what? JAAA was down more than 0.50% (intra-day) at the time. So the equities I ran to weren’t as “cheap” for me as they would have been with a more stable cash substitute. JAAA did recover in following days. The question remains: “Where were you when I needed you?”
I didn’t own or track NEAR at the time, but my observations have been it holds up much better during those brief times when equities (and a lot of other stuff) are rapidly selling off. That’s the reason I no longer own JAAA - but may someday find a spot for it or PAAA which @msf has pointed out seems a bit more stable. Some may also wish to look at VNLA. I owned some then, and it held up better during the selloff than did JAAA.
Note: The “gamble” one takes with NEAR (ISTM) is the small sensitivity to rates. Over longer periods that shouldn’t be a problem, but near term (1-3 years) it will outperform or lag cash based on how rates in the 1-3 year part of the curve are moving. As far as quality goes, it doesn’t get much better.

One has to be comfortable with a large amount of hi-yield fare in RPHIX. I ended up with CBUDX instead. Information on the composition of the funds is near the bottom of the links. Two funds near their range of M* standard deviation would be JPST and FLOT.
This is what makes AAA CLOs so interesting. We've seen that no matter how an investment is structured (AAAs being first in line from a whole pool of debt) nothing will protect you if the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. That's what happened with CDOs in 2008.

What’s especially notable is that slight differences between CLOs and CDOs have given CLOs more resistance to economic downturns. In fact, a [White & Case] report notes that CLOs were minimally affected by the same troubles as CDOs during the Great Recession. A shift toward CLOs and away from CDOs could benefit traders, investors and lenders without forming a bubble that would inevitably burst.

https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/10353-cdo-financial-derivatives-economic-crisis.html
I'm not ready to pull the trigger on AAA CLOs just yet. Let's see what happens over the next few months. Even then, I'd look at just the best of the best - the most "pure" AAA CLO fund. That seems to be PAAA. Though JAAA serves as a good reference for how AAA CLOs have behaved over a few years. And JBBB serves as a good comparison for seeing how the quality of the tranche (AAA vs BBB) matters.
An ETF I haven't seen mentioned that's somewhat in FLOT's space is VRIG. FLOT and FLRN hold about 2/3 of their assets in corporate bonds (the rest in gov bonds) and track each other closely. VRIG takes a different path, splitting its non-gov bonds evenly between corporate and securitized. This seems to result in slightly more risk but with commensurate rewards.
VRIG has a longer (but still miniscule) effective duration (0.23 years vs. 0.01 years); lower credit quality (A+ vs. AA-), worse 3 year std dev (0.99 vs 0.57) resulting in a lower Sharpe ratio (1.34 vs 1.81). On the plus side, VRIG comes with better long term performance.
It also seems to do better with short term jolts:
Feb-March 2020: both dropped around 13% (daily data);
March 2023: both dropped around 1½% through March 13 but FLOT continued dropping another ¾% over the next few days;
April 2025: VRIG dropped ¾% while FLOT dropped twice that.
Some have used the word "gamble". I'm still looking for how best to spread my bets.

I remember that Gabelli Funds were fined because they just posted some reports online and skipped mailing.
This dumbing down of prospectuses began many years ago when some info was moved to SAIs. Now, we have Summary Prospectuses (dumbest), Prospectuses (not yet dumb) and SAIs (with some useful info well hidden in routine boilerplate disclosers).

PVMCX still has pretty good but too short reports. The manger has a more or less monthly blog where he opines about investing, but for the last few years it is "everything is too expensive
Unfortunately since everyone else is getting away with it, even previous loquacious mangers must figure "why bother"?
Buffet and a few others of his ilk, mainly private investment mangers, still publish yearly letters, which are very interesting, but they usually do not discuss all of the firm's holdings.
Bloomstran at Semper Augustus publishes a free annual report that is masterful, but only discusses a couple of his holdings
https://www.semperaugustus.com/clientletter
Vitaly Katsentelesen runs a similar "value oriented " investment firm and has a good newsletter
https://imausa.com/about-us-personal-investment-management/
It is interesting but I wish he would talk more about his stock ideas and less about life lessons etc.

”I miss the shareholder letters from the portfolio managers …”
So how did the SEC manage to remove those - or some of them anyway?
After buying OAKBX couple months ago (which had been a stalwart of mine under Studzinski), I tried to pull up the letters to shareholders with the annual / semi-annual reports. In the old days they were pure gold. Now a joke. Wow. I sold the fund when my 60-day holding period was up, partially for that reason, but also because unlike the OAKBX of older years which used AAA credits as an equity hedge, the newer version has loaded up on lower quality bonds. What a change.

A few observations about this FoF, and replicating it on your own:
Unlike Vanguard that uses expensive share classes of underlying funds, AQR uses its cheapest (R-6) share class for acquired funds. In replicating this FoF, one would only have access to N class shares - adding 0.35% to the cost. That's still less than the 0.44% that QDSNX charges, but it is close.
Shorting is not cheap. One can see this in the underlying fund QMNRX. Its offical ER is 4.55%. When M* backs out the cost of shorting, it comes up with an "adjusted" ER of 1.23%.
M* says that the managers add value by tactically varying the weights of the underlying funds. I'm not so sure.
I took what appears to be the nominal weights by rounding the current weights. Over the past five years (nearly the whole lifetime of the fund), from end of July 2020 to end of July 2025 (60 months), M* says QDSNX returned 11.76% annualized. Portfolio Visualizer concurs exactly. But the DIY portfolio (annual rebalancing) returned 11.95%.
Portfolio Visualizer five year comparison
Unfortunately, after subtracting 0.35%/year to use the more costly retail shares, one falls a little short of the QDSNX return.
To address @hank's concern about this fund being too new, you can take the PV model, and set it for max timeframe (PV is limited to ten years). The static mix I used to approximate QDSNX did not distinguish itself over the ten year span. Perhaps the actual QDSNX would have done better with its managers resetting weights than with this static mix.
I also added a second portfolio, a blend of Wellington and cash, that gave similar performance over the past decade.
Portfolio Visualizer ten year performance

Fred said ”However, my bottom line is a fund's risk/reward profile, not its fees”
I think there.’s a good case to be made for that line of thinking. More true I think in “frothy” markets like today or for someone in their “golden years”, more concerned about “not losing a lot” rather than with “making a lot”.
I’ve looked at QDSNX before and decided it’s not for me. Too short a track record for my comfort level. But the numbers are amazing since the fund opened in 2020.

Hank,
Miss the Contrarian Chronicles from 20 years back on MSN Money.
“It became a must-read for investors burned by the dot-com bubble and wary of Wall Street's pervasive optimism. The column stood as a stark, often witty, counterpoint to the prevailing market narratives of its time”.
Need the Chronicles today!

I started reading Fleck’s commentaries online in the mid 90’s. They were free then - I believe on a site hosted by Jim Cramer - but might be wrong. They saved me some money as they led me to lighten up before the .com crash. This informational link appears quite dated. I missed Bill’s spirited market take for many years, but dug a little deeper and pulled up his $100+ yearly site 7-8 years ago.
Not sure how well being a contrarian works in today’s heady markets. Bill was correct on gold 5-10 years ago when few saw the worth. But his persistent bearishness on the broader equity market hasn’t worked over the same period. You’d have made a lot of money on gold but forfeited a lot of the gain in equities had you followed him over the past decade.
The problem being contrarian is expressed pretty well in the old cliche: “Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”

I do not own VTAPX but have considered it as well as several other inflation-protected funds. I have also looked at NEAR before but did not invest. Being pretty risk-tolerant, I was just curious about the logic of picking one over the other, so thanks to everyone for the discussion.
My personal expectations are based on the assumption that Powell & Co will bend sooner rather than later. We will then get a rate cut this fall and, perhaps, another one early next year with Christmas season being weaker than expected if tariffs stay in place. In this case, I would expect MM yields to fall and inflation to drift up.
So, I have been trying to come up with a good place place to shift some of my MM holdings in such a scenario. Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
P.S. RPHIX looks like an excellent option (alas, misunderstood by M* just like PVCMX I am so fond of). Too bad I did not come across it a couple of years ago, I would have put some money into it instead of USFR.

Generally speaking, how does a fund like RPHIX compare to a moneymarket fund like SUTXX?

I spend (waste) the next couple of paragraphs below going through this year's returns because RPHIX has been a bit of a disappointment in 2025.
YTD (in just over 3/5 of the year) RPHIX has returned 2.80%. That extrapolates to about 4.7% for 2025, or about 4¼% after taking out, say 10%, for Calif. taxes. That's still subject to Fed taxes.
Through July 31, SUTXX has returned 2.42%. Its current yield is 4.12%. Converting that to a daily yield and compounding that daily yield over the remaining 5 months (153 days) gives an additional return of 1.75%. Combining 2.42% and 1.75% (i.e. taking 1.0242 x 1.0175 - 1), the expected return for the year is 4.2%. So for 2025, the two funds should, after taxes, return about the same amount.
Over most stretches of time, RPHIX has fared better, even after taking out state taxes. Here's a link to a Fidelity page (no login required) that compares RPHIX to FSIXX (Fidelity's equivalent fund to SUTXX).
But you are adding volatility with RPHIX, along with bookkeeping nonsense. Since the share price of RPHIX fluctuates, each buy or sale generates a cap gain (or loss). In addition, if you're reinvesting divs, then you're subject to wash sales. For this reason I recommend not reinvesting divs, or if you do, suspending reinvestment a month or two before you expect to make a withdrawal. This is a concern with any bond fund, not just with RPHIX.
I think the two funds (RPHIX and SUTXX) can be used well in tandem. SUTXX to hold at least a few months worth or even a couple of years worth of cash, and RPHIX for longer term cash.
RPHIX also carries a transaction fee, though Schwab has introduced an Automatic Investment Program (like Fidelity's) that lets you buy additional shares of some TF funds for $10/purchase. Look for AIP on Schwab's pricing page.
https://www.schwab.com/legal/schwab-pricing-guide-for-individual-investors