@stillers - I pulled this off Fidelity's Fixed Income research site:
"Municipal bond volume will finish the year above $400 billion for the fourth time since 2010 and third time in the past four years.
“Considering how slow the year started, no one had that number or thought we would get there,” said one New York trader. “We were one pace for only about $330 billion six months in and then boom, all of a sudden all the taxables hit and here we are.”
The muni market saw $433.27 billion back in 2010, $444.79 billion in 2016, and a record high $448.61 billion in 2017.
“Expectations are high for next year volume wise,” he said. “Buyers should still be eager to buy munis as a true taxes safe haven, with principal, interest and callable bonds that should amplify demand as well. Munis are poised for another big year."
There are no deals on the calendar until the week of Jan. 6. The New York MTA is scheduled to sell $1.5 billion in two separate competitive sales on Monday, Jan. 6. They are then scheduled to jump back into the market on Thursday, Jan. 9 when the authority is expected to sell a total of $939.555 million of green bonds in three separate sales."

https://www.bondbuyer.com/news/municipals-poised-for-big-year-in-2020?position=editorial_1&campaignname=BB_Daily_DailyBriefing_Test_NonPaid-12262019&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BB_Daily_DailyBriefing_Test_NonPaid+'-'+12262019&bt_ee=6xDRiBdbmXsKTnOsUFN43QBpoDTPTVYDzFJZMshHtNhVeVAi1WqYbBH6KClbYWoE&bt_ts=1577358077086
Munis poised for big year in 2020
By Aaron Weitzman
Munis finished above $400 billion for the fourth time since 2010 and fourth time in the past three years.

FD: "Why would any reasonable retiree go for a long term of 3% performance for their whole taxable account?"
FD, my statement above was: "I have generally wanted funds in my taxable account, with an average total return history of over 3%." Some funds in my taxable account have a total return history (at least 5 years) of close to 5%, some have a total return history of close to 4%, and some have a total return history of a little over 3%. BTMIX and DBLSX had a 2019 performance of over 3% (the only year I owned them, but there longer term history is not as good as other funds in my taxable account, and I am not counting on them to exceed a TR of over 3% going forward, so I am considering replacing them.
Secondly, I would request that you not engage in criticizing, or questioning, any poster on this thread, including me. Each investor has their own personal reasons for why they hold certain bond oefs, and it is not my place to tell anyone they are doing anything wrong, or that they are somehow not a good investor because they pick funds different than I pick. I would like to request you follow that principle in your commentary on this thread, and cease being critical of what others are doing. I

dtconroe: I have held BTMIX for all of 2019, and it had a good year, but it averages below 3% total return over its history. I have generally wanted funds in my taxable account, with an average total return history of over 3%. Both BTMIX and DBLSX can have TR years of over 3%, but they usually revert back to their "safe" but lower TR. I have held NVHAX periodically in the past, but it is more volatile and risky than BTMIX"
FD:Looking at short-term duration Muni funds NVHAX,BTMIX,VMPAX,ORSTX. For 3 year performance, Portfolio Visualizer (link) shows that NVHAX performance is 2-3 times better and it's SD=1.5 was worth it and why NVHAX Sharpe ratio + Sortino are much better.
dtconroe: I have already stated the "reason" why we are looking at very conservative bond oef funds for my wife's IRA."
FD: My post was about your use of BTMIX in a taxable account per your post earlier.
BTMIX had a good year? YTD it made only 3.96% while NVHAX made 7.65% and many inter-term Muni made over 10%.
Why would any reasonable retiree go for a long term of 3% performance for their whole taxable account?

I am grateful for learning about mutual thrifts from reading one of Peter Lynch's books many years ago. He listed a large number of these thrifts (usually savings and loans) in his book. I was also able to identify around 100 more on my own, and as a result I went on a mission of becoming a depositor/part owner of several thrifts that eventually went public, offering their depositors the opportunity to participate in their IPOs. I never lost money on any of these IPOs. Thank you, Peter Lynch. (Unfortunately, this game has essentially run its course now that only a handful have not gone public.)

I am a few years out but now I am a “young” retiree so I will now have 5 years before my first RMD. Plus the chart gets reset so those taking RMDs already will reset lower next year.

Gary: "...you may not need to start RMDs for your wife next year. Depends on when the SECURE Act kicks in."
At Fidelity, at least, it apparently already has. I had mine setup on auto pilot through Fidelity to start in 2020. One 5-min phone call was all it took to move it out 2 years.

Hi catch22, thanks for posting. Yes, we are aware of the various options for how you take the RMD. I have been taking RMDs for several years, and have done it a couple of different ways. When we transfer the RMD money to our taxable account, we have a variety of fund options in our joint taxable account, where the money can be invested and grow with minimal to no tax consequences, or we may choose to use that RMD transfer to pay for some large expenditures that are due at the beginning of the year for us. There are pros and cons to the various strategies of how you harvest the RMDs, so I certainly see why various individuals choose the approach that best fits their particular situation. With regard to what my wife and I are considering for her Traditional IRA, we have not yet decided what we are going to do, but diversifying a little more is what we are now looking at.

I missed much of this conversation--had a family Christmas gathering tonight. I just started posting on this forum, after years of posting on M*. This thread is very much in line with two recent threads I started at M*, in which I used the same posting name. I made a post at M* that I was going to start posting on the MFO forum, and invited others to join me, including Gary1952 and Craignw. MikeM asked what OEF stands for--Open End Fund. Craignw, nice to see you posting here and hope ZEOIX works well for you. Mona, thanks for the kind words. For those who do not know me, I look forward to getting to know each of you, and look forward exchanging ideas and sharing information.

Hi,dtconroe
Back in late November 2018, you spoke about several funds, of which ZEOIX was one. Usually high yield is too volatile for my investing choices. I researched this fund and found it to be in my wheel house after all. I bought 5000 shares in November of 2018. It has posted a return of 5.33% ytd. The fund has a low volatility with a duration of 0.88 years. My nav in the fund is up since purchase, with a nice monthly yield.....thank you for the heads up on this fund.
craignw

Yeah, for a firm that has always said "we want the returns of our foreign investments to reflect our stock-picking ability rather than currency fluctuations" this makes little sense. They've essentially decided to come out with a fund that's subject to increased volatility. In view of the fact that asset flows in the original fund have been pretty flat for a couple of years, I'm not sure I foresee a lot of demand for the new one. OTOH, maybe the folks at FMI are expecting a big drop in the value of the dollar, in which case this new fund might perform better than the existing one.

syzygy--I agree. A couple of years ago I owned VMPAX and ORSTX--very similar funds that served me well at that time. If you are looking for lower risk Muni funds, these are funds I continue to maintain on a watchlist of funds.

One issue I am evaluating is how much, and what kind, of bond oefs, I want to hold in my taxable account. I have held BTMIX for all of 2019, and it had a good year, but it averages below 3% total return over its history. I have generally wanted funds in my taxable account, with an average total return history of over 3%. Both BTMIX and DBLSX can have TR years of over 3%, but they usually revert back to their "safe" but lower TR. I have held NVHAX periodically in the past, but it is more volatile and risky than BTMIX. I have a few shares of SEMMX in my taxable account, and it has a history of averaging close to 5% over it history. SEMMX is not tax efficient, so if I increased it in my taxable account, I would restrict the portfolio percentage in a smaller amount. Another fund I do not hold, but interests me, is ZEOIX. In my taxable account, I prefer to hold several different kind of bond oefs, for some diversification benefits. Holding a Muni fund, a nontraditional bond fund, a short term bond fund, and a short duration HY bond fund, would be a nice, but low risk diversification mix. Any thoughts on the benefits of holding a diverse array of bond oefs in your taxable account?

Nice post @davfor - I was thinking of doing the same the evening before your post went up just based on how my balanced funds, along with few I don’t own, have done this year. But your colorful and complete graph tells the whole story.
Aside from small amounts in some specialty funds, my equity exposure is thru balanced type funds: PRWCX +24.5%. The other two, RPGAX and DODBX are up close to 20%. My benchmark, 40/60 TRRIX, is a real surprise. Up nearly 16%. I’ll refrain from posting personal performance data, other than to restate as said previously, that most years I tend to track TRRIX quite closely. Those who are into tech and equity-centric funds have done better. But I won’t look a gift-horse in the mouth either.
Last year was a downer for most of us. As far as 2020? Might as well throw darts blindfolded. Who really knows? What is a bit uncommon, I think, is that bonds have held up reasonably well in this still very low rate environment. Nat. resources also seem to be coming around at long last. I guess I agree with Stanley Druckenmiller that equities are in some sort of bubble, but that this could last for years or even decades more - so he stays invested. Good Druckenmiller interview on Bloomberg last week. Tried to link the clip but couldn’t make it work.
:) @Mark has just posted the Druckenmiller article & video below. The cool thing about Stanley is that his dead-pan delivery would easily qualify him for a slot on late-night comedy TV should he decide some day to get out of the investment business.
Thanks @Mark

I don’t make predictions about the markets or pay attention to those made by others. The returns in 2019 have surprised me, but I’m always surprised by particularly good years. I disagree with the characterization of 2019 as the best year ever, but certainly hasn’t been the best for my portfolio. For example, returns in 2009 were much better for me. I’ve been investing for more than 30 years and there have been many years during that period with comparable or better returns.

Hello dtconroe. I have similar thoughts to your investing style. But I have a 50% allocation to equities so my bond OEF allocation may be a little more "conservative". 50% of my bonds are in DBLSX and MWCIX and 50% is in what I call "higher yield". My higher yield contains SEMMX, IISIX, VCFAX. I am not as structured as you. I plan to hold these long term (hopefully years) unless the bond market crashes as some people are expecting.

By far PRWCX which ranks for performance at M* for 1-3-5-10-15 years at 1-3% top funds.
Instead of POAGX you can own QQQ which made more money + better risk attributes. See (link).

This has been a very nice exchange of ideas and facts. Thanks to Bee for initiating it and to everybody who added to it. This kind of conversation is one of the major strengths of MFO.
It made me curious about how Fidelity (where I do almost all of my business) handles fees on TRP funds, so I checked.
Most, but not all, charge no fee.
PRWCX is NTF (but closed to new investors).
TMSRX has a 49.95 fee
PRSCX (one of my favorites since I owned it for years in my 403b) is NTF. I think I prefer FSCFX now.
PRHSX is NTF
PRDGX is NTF
PRFRX is NTF.
There are many more ...
David

@Sven. I've held SFGIX since it opened. Owned his growth and income fund, MACSX, before that. Foster's writing is compelling and hopeful and I'll keep holding his fund as a less volatile EM option for diversification purposes. But I'm not a hot fund collector or one to jump on the band wagon of other peoples thoughts. Those days are long past.
All I'm saying is people have been predicting Asia (edit: China in particular) taking over the economic world for decades. Nothing new today. Things are different? That was said then too so lets wait and see. Asia was a huge topic on the FundAlarm board in the late 90s' early 2000s'. Even had it's own daily updated post. I'll ask you this, if hypothetically you could only invest in Asia or the US right now and have to keep the money there for the next 20 years, which would you choose? I guess that would be the answer to really believing the hype that Asia is the future, because of course that would imply the US is not. In my opinion, that's not happening in my life time.

I tend to agree with hank. Peter Lynch was an outstanding money manager of Fidelity Magellan fund in the 80's. He managed to outperform the S&P index for a number of the years. He left his money manager role and took on other duties while staying at Fidelity. Since then Magellan have had a number of managers and the fund never recovered the old glory. I say that was a lot of luck and the timeframe of the 80's before the digital age when information was not readily available to the general public.
If you read Peter Lynch's books, they are all about how he outdo the market. Quite a contrast if you read Warren Buffet's books.