My high yield pick is PHYZX - low expenses of .58, seasoned management, and rated 5 stars by M*.

Among the better junk bond funds and wondered why it has never been on a my radar screen. Now I remember. At Scottrade where I trade it is only available to clients of registered investment advisers only. Maybe not so at other firms. Thanks for the heads up to the forum on a consistently good junk bond fund.
TSP_Transfer Appreciate your posts and keep em coming. But you know me, I never act on what I read but price and only price. But nonetheless I still read all I can on the markets if for any reason to see if there is becoming a consensus. The experts are almost wrong when there is a universal consensus are where particular markets are heading and often times I factor that into price action. Obviously the consensus is still that there is another shoe to drop in that bond category. Jeffrey Gundlach (who many follow blindly because he is an expert and manages billions) was still predicting a collapse in the junk bond market in early February just a few days before it took off on its biggest rally in years. The jury is still out on that call.

Recently started a position in ROAM ETF in addition to my position in Seafarer. Glad for the moment, we'll see...been a hammering the last few years.

I like and old FHTIX (you can find brokerages with low minimum initial investments); VWEAX and HYB. Have held many others over the years and these are the survivors.

Don't know much about the author's record. Matthew Sauer. He reports having spent nine years with Fidelity Independent Advisor (F I A). In 2014, he started a small investment advisory firm in Williamstown, Massachusetts, still home for Don Dion's F I A operation. Sauer has 46 clients and $10 million in AUM. 70% of his AUM is with a pension or profit-sharing plan.
Curiously, his "market perspectives" provide no perspectives. He simply reports a handful of datapoints: markets up, inflation in the Euro zone down, ISM up, some individual stocks up, others down.
(shrugs)
David

Summary From an article earlier this week from Seeking Alpfa looking @ E T Fs in this space
authored byFundGuru Mar. 3, 2016 8:40 AM ET
High yield bonds have performed poorly of late, despite historically delivering equity-like returns with lower volatility.
We believe the recent sell-off provides an attractive entry point for long-term investors.

Recent selloff??? Have performed poorly of late??? Junk bonds were in the midst of their largest rally in years when that article was published. They are now positive YTD.

:)
I'm looking forward to that entire category resurrecting itself out of the funk and the soup and the mud. I've held this fund for over 3 years. I believe in Andrew Foster. I like the fact that he actually knows how to COMMUNICATE. Now, then: Ready, Set, GO!. Please?

Well, this was on a beautiful summer day a few years ago; it just was striking how much nicer it all was than decades earlier. Used to go to Chicago as a kid 60y ago, and then 30y ago for tradeshows.
As someone who attended the UofR, I know what you're talking about there, too.
And as a buckeye I well remember when right at Lake Erie the Cuyahoga River caught fire and burned a bridge and actual water had to be poured on it to put it out.

Oil service stocks have had statistically significant positive outcomes in the winter and biotech in the fall. A sector model that I use, utilizes oil services, biotech, and utilities combined with a risk management heuristic. It has produced decent returns over 30 years. We will sell out of oil services on May 1.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zlgOYdATSzC7YrUE9yE_uY03sHBRTcLUVyKusqqv2tI/edit#gid=113856734

A common refrain I see here, there, and everywhere. By the time the smoke clears it could be a year or longer down the road and the markets that much higher. After the 2009 bottom it was years before many ventured back into the markets if ever. The news is the gloomiest after major bottoms and prices have zoomed higher. So I guess the question is how many feel 2/11 was not just A bottom but THE bottom for oil, stocks, and junk bonds as well as a low in 10 year Treasury yields?

Even better marketing idea - shut it down one month before M* gives it a 1* rating. (It would have been three years old on April Fool's day.)

To return briefly to David's comments on FPACX, which I endorse. Thanks for showing me how to painlessly reduce my too-numerous fund holdings. However, (please note I did not say, "That being said…") I can't see LCORX as an alternative but I would put in a plug for the local (Indiana) talent at the Bruce Fund (BRUFX). It's a relatively large non-retirement position for me and one that's been a keeper for 8-9 years.

@willmatt72: FYI: U.S. News & World Report ranks FGMNX #1 in the (IGB) Fund Category. In 30 years the fund has had only two down years, 1994 and 2013. HSCSX is ranked #8 in the (SCB) Fund Category. Bob Young's fund ranking system is based soley on momentum.
Regards,
Ted
FGMNX:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/intermediate-government/fidelity®-gnma-fund/fgmnx
HSCSX:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/small-blend/homestead-small-company-stock-fund/hscsx

XLP and RHS have been "staples" of my portfolio for the past three years, RHS has done a bit better. They seem to work well together.

I enjoy Max Funds as a quick-take. May not be current and certainly not the full story. I don't know of any other sites that even attempt to evaluate hot money. That has a big effect if you're a long term investor. Killed MFLDX (along with a lot of other problems).
Added 3/4: (1) I've held mostly the same 8-10 core funds for anywhere from 10-25 years with a few good firms. (2) I'll also take an occasional long-shot (speculative play) on a very badly beaten up fund as I did with OPGSX in September '15 and PRLAX 6-8 weeks ago. These spec plays are not intended to be held more than a few months to a few years - time to bounce a lot higher if the educated guess works out. (Yes - they can also fall, so weighing potential upside and downside is crucial)
The point here: For neither of the above types of purchases is the opinion of Max Funds, *M or MarketWatch useful or given much consideration. For the first type (core holdings) I want low fees, stable competent management, good service and annual reports that are comprehensive and readable. For the second (speculative plays) I want a fund that's been hammered hard over several years (probably down 25% or more over the last year). And Nobody loves it anymore. Than it's a matter of trying to become educated on the the fund's investments, reasons for its poor performance lately, macroeconomic conditions that might help going forward - and than taking a plunge, usually with only 2-5% of total holdings.
Sorry so long winded. Guess I've strayed from Max's original point on Max funds. But my point is you need to take all these with a grain of salt. Don't expect them to always point you in the best direction. Use your own pointer.

For anything less than 5 years, don't bother as there's too much that could go wrong. Another question would be, how much experience do you have? This question is related to what would you do in the midst of a downturn. We all believe we can take the heat, but as Mike Tyson once said, 'Everyone has a plan til they get punched in the mouth'.
Of course, the amount you're proposing to invest would also factor in.

Better to Inquire about investment ideas @ M F O than some of these advisors !
There's a phrase no one wants to read in a sweeping report about the financial advisers who handle their savings: economy-wide misconduct.
By Bloomberg News | March 1, 2016 - 4:28 pm EST
A new working paper by business school professors at the University of Chicago and University of Minnesota found that 7% of financial advisers have been disciplined for misconduct that ranges from putting clients in unsuitable investments to trading on client accounts without permission. That's a troubling mark for an industry that relies on the trust of clients. And some large, well-regarded firms have misconduct records that far exceed the average.
Many fired advisers end up moving to firms that have higher rates of misconduct than their previous employer did, and they become repeat offenders. "Prior offenders are five times as likely to engage in new misconduct as the average financial adviser," the study found.
"This is eye-opening and suggests not only that some firms have a high tolerance for misconduct on the part of their employees, but that their very business model is to attract the broker who can generate high revenue at the cost of repetitive disciplinary violations," said John Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School in New York. "FINRA needs to focus on this."
Many cases of misconduct arose around the issue of the "suitability" of investments. That would mean, for instance, that an adviser should not suggest that a 75-year-old client put most assets in a high-fee, aggressive-growth mutual fund. Often, the report found, investments involved in reported misconduct cases were insurance products.
The first-of-its-kind study names names, listing 10 advisory firms with the highest misconduct rates, as well as those with the lowest.

http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20160301/FREE/160309989?template=printart
@Shostakovich
I own this fund in the Global Bond space you mention.DHGAX
Assets for the Fund
$2,133,975,285
Holdings
206
Dividend Frequency
Quarterly
Morningstar Category
World Bond
Lipper Category
Global Income
Average Maturity
8.30 Years
Duration
6.83 Years
30-Day Yield (as of
1/31/16)
Class A 1.27%
Class I 1.62%
TOP TEN SECURITIES1
Australian Govt 3.25% 10/21/2018 10.04%
Australian Government 3.25% 04/21/
2025 4.43%
Canadian Government, 2.25% 06/01/
2025 3.79%
Japan (30 Yr Issue) 1.7% 09/20/2044 3.47%
Buoni Poliennali Del Tes 2.36142% 09/15/
2024 2.66%
France (Govt Of) 1% 11/25/2025 2.57%
Canadian Government, 2.5% 06/01/2024 2.45%
Canadian Government 1% 08/01/2016 2.11%
U.S. Treasury Note 1.75% 12/31/2020 2.04%
Buoni Poliennali Del Tes 1.05% 12/01/
2019 2.03%
https://public.dreyfus.com/documents/compliancedocs/factsheets/monthly/6940.pdf

What charts? Growth of $10k, M*, looking at curve smoothness over time.
Do it yourself.
Takes into account splits, of course.
I set start point as inception of SHW, hence the year.
Log scale does its own smoothing as a function of increase, sort of, as I note.
Did not say anyone was better than SHW. It was you who used the characterization stabler.
I love hindsight with individual stocks, cocktail party talk about CVS, Costco, Nike, Apple, Altria, B-H, the ones I already mentioned (nobody on earth knows who Barnes Group is).
You may well have a winner, and you have the courage of your convictions, yay. But do they have a moat? Is there barrier to entry overseas? Why not Chinese paint?
Anyway, check this out:
http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2016/01/29/the-best-stock-over-the-last-30-years-youve-never-heard-of-it/

Ain't hindsight something.
As for stabler, B is smoother since 1972, sort of, as are PG and JNJ. With a log scale (M*) it's less easy to detect smoothness and the opposite, of course.
SHW has had this remarkable rise the last six years, so there is that. Do you think in a greener world going forward that this will continue? Is that how you yourself are betting?

What charts are you looking at? It's not a close call or a fair fight with the issues you mentioned...I guess a case MIGHT be made for JNJ in terms of the ride, but its avg return for the past 15 years is 6.8%. SHW is 18%. I'm really not sure what you're looking at. You mention 1972, that's a long time ago. I assume you realize that SHW split 4 times since 1981; 1 share bought then for $35 now equals 32 shares at $281. You'll look a long time for something better than that coupled with a max draw down for the past 15 years of under 8%. As to the future, gun to head to pick one place to put my money for the next 15, SHW may be it. They're going to sell a lot of paint in China and the ROW. And I say all of this having nothing currently invested in the stock, regrettably. That will change at the next opportunity.

Ain't hindsight something.
As for stabler, B is smoother since 1972, sort of, as are PG and JNJ. With a log scale (M*) it's less easy to detect smoothness and the opposite, of course.
SHW has had this remarkable rise the last six years, so there is that. Do you think in a greener world going forward that this will continue? Is that how you yourself are betting?

@NumbersGal, hi!
Thanks for the question. By happenstance, Eric C dropped me a note shortly after we published (in reality, while I was in the produce section of my local Hy-Vee grocery, foraging). We profiled ARIVX shortly after launch and again a couple years later. My general take has been that Eric has more discipline and more steady resolve than just about anyone. We'll catch up in the next week or so.
Eric's performance has been remarkable given that he's now at 80% cash. That's been a brilliant positioning in the past year since it's given him great relative performance in the face of a small cap bear. My hesitation is that, even with a bear, the cash level keeps rising which seems counter-intuitive.
The comparison with ICMAX is close but, over the past five years (Eric's been gone five years and five months), it's not entirely one-sided. Intrepid comes out ahead on a bunch of risk measures (recovery period from maximum drawdown, downside deviation, Martin ratio, Sortino ratio, Ulcer Index) while River Road pulls ahead on others (maximum drawdown, standard deviation, Sharpe). Annual returns are within 0.1% of each other.
In any case, I wouldn't rule ARIVX out and we are going to find time to talk before my new term gets crazy.
As ever,
David