My apologies. Normally I take note of funds that are still open via direct purchase (e.g. VWELX), but I completely missed this one. I can't even make the excuse that, well, it had been completely closed but subsequently partially reopened. The policy @TheShadow quoted has been in effect since the first day (April 5, 2017) that it partially closed.
RPHYX is definitely open if you are willing to go through the transfer agent (i.e. buy directly from the fund).
Edit: Regarding CBLDX - interesting way to get access to the same lead manager as RPHYX in another short term high yield fund. (Crossingbridge is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cohanzick Management, which manages RPHYX.)
From its prospectus, it doesn't appear to be using the same approach as RPHYX (e.g. buying orphaned securities). Though from its very short average maturity (3/8 years), it's hard to imagine what else it could be holding. It seems to have taken on more credit risk than RPHYX (M* saying its average credit rating is B, vs. BB for RPHYX), while going even shorter than RPHYX.
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2012/01/riverpark-short-term-high-yield-fund-rphyx-july-2011/
As with Zeo, CBLDX is not available NTF. Also, it seems to require a $250K min (there's a ticker for investor class shares, but the prospectus says this isn't offered for sale). If you're going that high, you might look at RPHIX ($100K min).

I thought RPHYX was open on a limited basis?
From the 1/28/19 summary prospectus,
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1494928/000139834419001751/fp0038745_497k.htm
The Fund is currently available for sale on a limited basis. The following groups will be permitted to purchase Fund shares:
1.Shareholders of record of the Fund as of April 5, 2017 (although if a shareholder closes all accounts in the Fund, additional investment in the Fund from that shareholder may not be accepted) may continue to purchase additional shares in their existing Fund accounts either directly from the Fund or through a financial intermediary and may continue to reinvest dividends or capital gains distributions from shares owned in the Fund;
2.New shareholders may open Fund accounts and purchase directly from the Fund (i.e. not through a financial intermediary); and
3.Members of the Board of Trustees of RiverPark Funds Trust, persons affiliated with RiverPark Advisors, LLC or Cohanzick Management, LLC and their immediate families will be able to purchase shares of the Fund and establish new accounts.
The Fund may from time to time, in its sole discretion, limit the types of investors permitted to open new accounts, limit new purchases or otherwise modify the above policy at any time on a case-by-case basis.
I do not want to discourage/disappoint prospective investors who want to invest in the fund.
Also, you may want to look at Crossingbridge Funds. They have a similar type of fund,
CrossingBridge Low Duration High Yield Fund. Investor class is available for $2,500 initial investment. The Fund is managed by Portfolio Managers, David Sherman and Michael De Kler.
From the Crossingbridge Funds website for the Low Duration High Yield Fund:
The strategy focuses on purchasing high yield debt with an expected effective maturity of 3 years or less and a weighted average investment horizon of 0.75-2 years. Our goal is to limit credit risk and interest rate risk.

I am a ZEO shareholder and have never paid a transaction fee. I don't use a broker. My wife invested in RPHYX a few years ago. We think of ZEOIX and RPHYX in a similar way: it's a "better mattress". I've been with ZEO a few years and I have gone directly to the transfer agent. Zeo uses Gemini in Omaha. Simple paperwork. No fee. ZEOIX shares are in a non-retirement account. Next week I'll have an IRA account in ZSRIX. If you want a ZEO fund in a 401k I suppose it might be harder to avoid a broker.

Ireland is just beautiful. My wife and I spent about ten days touring there some years ago... loved the west coast. There's a fascinating island group there, called the Blaskets, somewhat to the north of Dingle. If you aren't able to take a trip out to the islands themselves there's a really good museum on the mainland associated with those islands. There's a wonderful book about growing up on the islands: The Islandman, by Tomas O'Crohan. He spoke no English... only a dialect specific to those islands.
You two have a wonderful time. And MikeM is absolutely right about the Guinness.
OJ

!@#$^&* BONDS !@##$^&^&*
After watching What TIPS wont do, I'm wondering if my investment in VTIPX is completely misplaced. I thought I was diversifying, but now I'm not sure. It's also the only way I own bonds outright other than funds like RPHYX and my balanced holdings.
The reason I went for the short-term version few years back was under the assumption since interest rates have nowhere to go but up and inflation couldn't possibly stay so low for so long, I decided VTIPX would be a better investment than VIPSX and I could have some of my cash earn some income because Bank Savings Accounts weren't, and for the most part still don't yield much interest.
At this time Marcus gives 2.25% interest. WTF I am still doing holding (the bag?) with VTIPX, given it would seem Fed is done raising interest rates. Appreciate if people who hang out with 007 can shed some light, because right not I'm effing shaken, not stirred, not to mention VIPSX did not end up being dangerous as was expected by experts few years back and VTIPX was supposed to be the way to invest in inflation protection securities.

Hi @Derf,
For me, I'm fully invested within my asset allocation of 20% cash, 40% income and 40% equity. Following my rebalance policy I can hold up to plus (or minus) two percent form the threshold weighting. With this, I can hold up to a 42% weighting in either my equity allocation or income allocation, or both, while letting cash float before having to do a forced rebalance. This means cash could fall to the 16% range, or below. For equities, I can tactically overweight by up to 5% from the 40% threshold, if felt warranted. So, cash could get as low as 13% and I still would be within my allocation guardrails.
Just this past week, I bought a little in one of my global equity funds that has a monthly distribution with a yield of 3.4%.
Remember, stocks usually go soft during the summer months. For me, being a long term investor and (if) wanting to add to my equity allocation I'd average in through the summer months. But, I'd also govern with caution and spread my buys out in a position cost average step buy approach based upon the price movement of the S&P 500 Index.
An example of my step buy approach would having me buying, from the recent high, at 2850, 2770, 2680, 2590, 2500, and so on and so forth. The deeper the Index falls, in retreat, I'd increase the amount of each step buy. The way I'd, most likely, step out of these positions would be to sell the 2500 step when the Index had moved upward reaching the 2680 mark. This would afford me about a 7% return for this step. Likewise, I'd step out of the 2590 position somewhere around the 2770 mark with a gain of just short of 7%. Through the years this is how I have managed my spiffs (special investment positions). Sometime I buy the equally weighted S&P 500 Index fund (VADAX) and sometimes I buy an equity mutual fund that has a good dividend yield such as EADIX or INUTX. Going the good dividend route pays me while I await the upward turn along with any capital appreciation that I would also make.
Remember, most A share funds can be exchanged into other A share funds through most mutual fund companies through a nav (net asset value) exchange program commission free. I'd did this many times moving between a bond mutual fund like (ABNDX) to an equity mutual fund like (AGTHX) and then back into a bond fund in the American Funds family for years without paying any commission for these exchanges whatsoever. This is one of the advantages of A share mutual funds that often times get overlooked by investors.

Looking at even this fund's ten year record is misleading. It used to be a player in an even narrower niche - e-commerce. (Think about this fund launching in Sept. 1999 to get a sense of how far off Landis was.)

Effective April 30, 2010, Firsthand Funds will change the name of Firsthand e-Commerce Fund to Firsthand Technology Opportunities Fund. ... The new name, however, reflects the adoption of a broader investment strategy by the Fund. Beginning on April 30, 2010, the Fund intends to invest at least 80% of its assets in high-technology companies in the industries and markets that the Fund’s investment adviser believes hold the most growth potential within the technology sector. After that date, the Fund will no longer be restricted to investing that portion of its assets in securities of e-commerce companies. ...

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/917124/000139834410000302/fp0001430_497.htm
A couple more blasts from Firsthand's past:
The Street, Firsthand Funds Again Swings the Ax, July 15, 2002

Assets in the ( TVFQX) Firsthand Technology Value fund, once among the most high-profile of the category, have declined from some $2.5 billion at their peak to $948 million today, forcing the firm to retrench for the second time.
Friday's layoffs, which included three research analysts, brings the firms total head count to 33 people, including three analysts. Firsthand first reduced its workforce on Sept. 24, 2001, when it let go 15 of its 65 workers, including two analysts. ...
The Tech Value fund, which was down 51% year-to-date as of Friday ...
Other funds in the Firsthand family haven't fared all that well of late, either. Its ( TIFQX) Technology Innovators fund is down 54% year to date. ( TLFQX) Technology Leaders has fallen 36% since the start of the year, and ( GTFQX) Global Technology is down 40% year to date.

Marketwatch, Former Internet-fund superstars, 10 years after the dot-com bust, March 8, 2010

What separated Kevin Landis from other tech-fund managers in the mid-1990s was that he'd actually worked in Silicon Valley and knew about semiconductors. ...
"They were industry insiders who had buddies who were in the same hot tub as the venture capitalists, and therefore were going to lead them to the next new thing," Kinnel [Morningstar] said. "It was more hype than reality."
In 1999, though, it was the returns of Technology Value and smaller sibling Firsthand Technology Leaders TLFQX that were unreal, up 190% and 153%, respectively. Had you split $20,000 evenly between these two funds in January 1997, you'd have been sitting on $115,000 just 26 months later. Fast-forward 10 years: The two investments were worth about $32,000. ...
Landis was ebullient as well about Firsthand e-Commerce Fund TEFQX, +0.23% which came to market in September 1999 and didn't have a positive year until 2003. "Our timing couldn't have been worse," he said, but pointed out that the e-commerce fund's performance for the past five years has been strong, posting a 10.1% annualized gain that puts it at the head of its class.

FYI: Gautam Khanna’s philosophy of “respond instead of react” is one he learned as a teenager mountaineering in the Indian Himalayas. “When you’re going into the elements at very high altitude, above the tree line, and snow-capped year-round, it’s all about preparation,” says Khanna, who moved to the U.S. after high school. “It’s understanding the risks and understanding how are you going to handle those risks when they arrive.”
The same can be said for fixed-income markets, where unexpected economic news or government policy can trigger losses. Khanna, who has been the lead manager of the $606 million BNY Mellon Insight Core Plus bond fund (ticker: DCPAX) since its 2010 inception, credits a rigorous investment process for the fund’s consistent returns. Its institutional shares have returned an average of 3.2% a year over the past five years, better than 92% of intermediate-term bonds. (Retail shares became available in 2018.)
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/bny-mellon-bond-fund-51559273407?refsec=funds
M*Snapshot DCPAX:
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/XNAS/DCPAX/quote.html

https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/retirement/T037-S004-6-steps-to-snare-higher-yields-in-retirement/index.html
Steps to Snare Higher Yields in Retirement
Income investing is supposed to be like watching a predictable movie that you’ve seen a dozen times before. But lately, it has been full of plot twists. Over the past few years, most income investors settled back with their popcorn for a long period of rising interest rates, believing the Federal Reserve would slowly but surely hike rates back to more normal levels. For bond investors, that would mean some temporary pain—when rates rise, bond prices fall—but it would also bring the welcome relief of higher yields.
Couple funds mentioned in article
Vmmxx
Vfstx
Baird Core Plus Bond (BCOSX
Dodge & Cox Income (DODIX, 3%)

Bit of a misnomer in the article title - these aren't all (or any?) 'monthly' dividend payers. I think the article is talking about 'steady streams of dividends' during the year. You could roll the dice and pick 12 other stocks to do the same thing - find 12 companies that pay dividends so you have income each month. (The only one I own is J&J, btw) This guy probably just scanned for high-yielders but 6/12 of these holdings are REITS? Clueless about allocation, I think.
BTW I find Forbes investing advice/blogs have really gone downhill in recent years into mostly andom click-baity pablum. Several Seeking Alpha contributors and commenters offers more useful information (it really does!) than Forbes! To wit: A running gag in the tech world is how Forbes would always have headlines saying "IOS X.X Contains a Nasty Surprise....." like clockwork whenever a new version was released -- yet those posts were devoid of anything remotely 'nasty' in terms of IOS problems.

Thanks to @msf for the SEC link. It’s much better than the (SEC) one I uncovered about an hour earlier - but still time-consuming and difficult to navigate. I managed to pull-up perhaps eight or ten reports for PRWCX. And thanks to @Sven for the opportunity to go back and do all the reading. :)
- Most significant is this reference to covered call overwriting by David Giroux in PRWCX’s Semi-Annual Report of June, 2013. (Since he references the last five years I saw no need to plow back through those earlier reports.)
“Before we review the portfolio, we want to briefly discuss the Capital Appreciation Fund’s covered call overwriting strategy, which we have employed for more than five years. Covered call overwriting involves buying a stock and then selling a call option—a contract whereby we agree at a future date to sell the stock at a predetermined (strike) price. In return for selling this call option, we are paid a premium (typically a 2% to 5% annualized incremental yield) that provides extra income to the fund. While the strategy caps our upside in an individual stock (usually 10% or higher), it provides incremental income that can enhance total returns, lower our downside risk, and generally has produced excellent risk-adjusted returns. Over the last five years, this strategy (a return combination of underlying stocks, calls, and dividend income) has generated a stronger return than the fund itself and has done so with less risk. However, in the first six months of 2013, this strategy produced subpar total and risk-adjusted returns mainly due to poor stock selection. Given the excellent long-term risk-adjusted returns of this strategy, we believe it will continue to play a meaningful role in your fund. As of June 30, 2013, we had calls written on about 14% of our equity holdings.”. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/793347/000120677413003000/srcaf_ncsrs.htm
- Another interesting reference involves futures positions in his Annual Report from December 2014:
“In addition, we have initiated futures positions in two European indexes that give us exposure to the European equity market, but we have effectively hedged much of the currency risk associated with these investments so that we have generated local currency market returns (and thus have a better risk-adjusted return for U.S. investors). The combination of these investments is still relatively modest at only about 3% of your fund’s assets and is unlikely to become greater than 5% under most circumstances.”. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/793347/000120677415000583/arcaf_ncsr.htm
- A breakdown of the fund’s positioning included in this (above) report shows -1% “options”. Adding up the numbers suggests that this -1% represents a short position in some security.
- There’s a reference to investing in leveraged loans in his June, 2017 Report. I don’t have knowledge of how risky these are - but it’s not something I’d normally have thought the fund a big player in:
“Our high yield and leveraged loan holdings have declined from 17.9% of assets at the end of 2016 to 13.1% at the end of June due to a combination of selective sales, maturities, bonds being called, and choosing not to consent to repricings of leveraged loans. While we are continuing to buy a couple of high-quality, idiosyncratic high yield bonds, we would still expect our exposure to decline in the second half of the year—in the absence of a correction in spreads.”. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/793347/000120677417002589/srcaf_ncsrs.htm
- On a final note, a recent move into Amazon was (by Giroux’s admission) far outside the fund’s normal (valuation driven) approach. My suspicion (only a suspicion) is that fund bloat may be one driving force behind this purchase:
“We readily acknowledge that Amazon is not a classic Capital Appreciation stock, as it lacks the traditional valuation support and easily quantifiable downside found in almost every other equity investment that we have made ... While Amazon is not classically inexpensive, the size of the market opportunity available and Amazon’s sustainable competitive advantage in both cloud computing and e-commerce make it unlike anything in which Capital Appreciation has invested before either. We strongly believe that our ownership of Amazon is in the best interests of our shareholders ...” . (December 2016). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/793347/000120677417000506/arcaf_ncsr.htm
PS - Getting late. If any of the above links don’t work or are inaccurate, let me know and I’ll make appropriate corrections.

I have read Vanguard's article several times. My question is when will the EM investment opportunities reflected into markets, i.e. translate in equity gains. What is being observed in last several years is high volatility especially in severe drawdowns. I am okay to maintain some exposure to EM equity but argue that US equity (large caps) also have sizable revenue in the EM countries. Asian markets is taking a beating lately with strong dollar and the trade war.

@Sven - Just a follow-up to my above comments. I’m unable to locate the fund reports for PRWCX prior to 2018. The options strategy is not mentioned in the two most recent reports. If someone can help me find all the reports for PRWCX going ten years back I’d be glad to read all of them and highlight where the options strategy was discussed by Giroux. What I have provided below, and which might help, is an excerpt from the current PRWCX Prospectus which highlights writing call options as one of the risks the fund may undertake. I do recall mention of the options strategy bring beneficial to the fund’s performance sometime during the past 3-4 years - as well as in earlier years.
Re: “fancy footwork” - probably overstated on my part. But in reading his reports (even the one from Dec. 2018), an “opportunistic” and ever-evolving approach seems clear.
(Excerpt from Prospectus - PRWCX): “Options risks - To the extent the fund uses options, it is exposed to additional volatility and potential losses. Writing call options exposes the fund to the risk that the underlying security may not move in the direction anticipated by the portfolio manager, requiring the fund to buy or sell the security at a price that is disadvantageous to the fund. Certain call options carry a potentially unlimited risk of loss.” https://www4.troweprice.com/pcs/pcs-literature/mvc/USMFConsultantProspectuses/CAF/active/us/en/retrieveSingleDocument

@johnN, Ted posted an interesting article from Vanguard that is worth reading on that subject. In a nutshell, International, which I assume includes EM, should outpace US over the next 10 years, 8.5 to 5 percent. So, seems like over weighting international/ em may be the way to go.

@Sven,
I’ll try to locate my earlier source / reference on the derivative strategy sometimes used by PRWCX. It may take a day or so to dig that up. But it was primarily a strategy to generate income using stocks in some type of mutually beneficial contract with another party. The buyer of the option received a chance for upside potential should the stock increase in value. In return, PRWCX sacrificed some (or all?) of the stock’s upside potential in return for downside protection plus income. It was first mentioned 5-7 years ago by Giroux in a fund report. I haven’t read his reports recently. But just glanced at one tonight. While I can’t answer your question directly at the moment, how’s this excerpt (from Giroux) for honesty? It’s from the December 31, 2018 Annual Report for PRWCX. (It sounds like he’s being taken to “the woodshed” - and yet has nothing IMHO to apologize for.)
“We were disappointed in our investments in industrials, such as Middleby, a manufacturer of commercial food service equipment and high-end residential kitchen equipment. We bought it because the valuation and stock price had come down, management had a very good long-term track record on M&A, and, given higher labor costs at restaurants in a tight labor market, we felt that Middleby’s sales would benefit from a movement to substitute equipment for labor. From a process perspective, we made multiple errors that we do not intend to make again. First, we bought the stock without having met management. Assessing the quality of a management team is a very important part of our investment process. Second, earnings quality had deteriorated, with free cash flow conversion to net income dropping below 100%. Third, while capital allocation had been positive over the long run, recent acquisitions in the high-end residential kitchen equipment space had performed poorly.
“With GE, we started buying the stock right after the announcement that Larry Culp would become CEO. We bought too much too quickly given the risk profile of the company, and this hurt returns in 2018. We believe in GE and its new CEO and consider their aviation and health care businesses to be fundamentally solid. However, the initial position size should have been smaller, and we should have built the position more slowly. Again, we hope to avoid these mistakes in the future.”
https://prospectus-express.broadridge.com/m_document.asp?clientid=trowepll&fundid=77954M105&docid=2205655&doctype=ann&docdate=20181231&back=1

Putting everything into their perspectives - being cheap is relative. If the prolong scenario plays out these stocks can continue to slide lower. That is the risk of investing in EM. It is best to have either long horizon (20+ years or longer) or hire a skillful money manager.

@Edmond, my opinion is EM is one of the categories where returns will be better with a managed fund. Just my opinion, but also everything I've read agrees with that thought. Actual results will only be known 20 years from now.
My biggest argument when considering my own portfolio right now (being 65) is do I even need an EM fund. I hold SFGIX because I believe it is the least volatile approach to EM investing. But frankly, I don't believe SFGIX will outperform FMIJX (my 1 international fund) in most any time frame over 3 years.

That is a very interesting quote.
I don't have an interest in a portfolio manager who is happy to invest a lot of his AUM in China, but then (perhaps in a second of candor) seems to be agnostic as to the possibility of a crash in Chinese equities.
If one TRULY has a 20-year time horizon and is unconcerned about equity crashes, why not just invest passively? -- An investor can passively endure equity crashes without paying a useless management fee. For 20 years.

So a while back, Foster wrote an article saying that for a ~ 20 year horizon people need to load up on Chinese equities (or something along those lines). So that may dictate where him and his team will be investing. I know that FPIVX (not an EM dedicated fund) bought a lot of Brazilian equities a little while ago. Just an FYI. I hold both SFGIX, SFVLX and FPIVX. Foster also mentioned that if China does crash, then people (again with a 20 year horizon) should buy even more Chinese equities.

When something looks too good to be true (here, that's similar long term performance for 100% stocks or 60/40 mix, and even better for 70/30), one has to ask what's going on. Either something new has been uncovered or something has been hidden (inadvertently or not).
For the past 40 years, yields have been declining. So bonds have benefited from both appreciation (as yields drop, prices increase) and higher yields than now. At "best", yields have flattened out (as opposed to beginning a multi-year ascent), so one will have neither the appreciation nor the better yields of years past.
That's one factor hidden in plain sight.
Another factor, one that was better hidden, is the mix of large/mid/small cap companies that the market started with in 2000. If we take the current mix (using VTSMX as a proxy), that's 77/17/6. With no rebalancing, it returned 6.61% annually, for a final value of $34,462. With annual rebalancing (as done in the article with the hybrid portfolios), the pure equity portfolio returned 6.45% annually, for a final value of $33,465.
Both are significantly better than the $31K or less returned by the portfolios in the article.
But here I'm just as guilty of slight of hand as the author. I split the 100% equity fund into large/mid/small cap, but didn't do the same thing for, say, the 70/30 portfolio.
If one does that (54/12/4 and 30% bond), the 70/30 fund ends up with $32,785 (rebalanced). Still clearly inferior to the pure equity portfolio, but significantly closer. Without rebalancing, the 54/12/3/30 hybrid fund does not fare as well, ending with just $31,384.
The point is that there can be more going on than the numbers convey, even when the numbers are legitimate. Bonds served several purposes in the past (though less than the article suggests); it is more questionable whether they continue to serve them now. Though one cannot deny their psychological, "sleep at night" benefit.

Well, when it comes to the quality of their brokerage platform what he says is true -- in fact, everyone else is years ahead while Vanguard's seems mired in the 20th century.