At the beginning of every mutual fund prospectus is generally a little seemingly innocuous sentence: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. So what if it's been hot in the past? The only question that matters to anyone reading this right now is--Will it continue to be? Time and again, fees or all-in costs have been the strongest most consistent indicator of future performance. Are low costs always the best predictor? No, that's why people come to this site. But Morningstar is absolutely right to ding this fund for charging a 1.5% expense ratio on $3.3 billion in assets when bond funds that specialize in non-agency debt can be had for much less.

"... It attracted more capital in last quarter of 2017 than in the first six quarters of its existence. It ended the year with $1.6B, five times the level it started the year..."
Jeepers. Is that a lotta "dumb money," then? Thanks for replying, all of you. I track IOFIX but don't own it. I own PTIAX, which is not quite the same animal, but in the same ballpark, right?

I fail to see what relevance the last quarter inflows in 2017 has to do with now September 2019. IOFIX has trounced every bond fund in the multi sector, emerging market, high yield corporate and high yield muni, as well as the non traditional bond categories over the past three years with a 10.50% annualized return. There is no close second. I would think the dumb money is the money still waiting to initiate a position. When that occurs it may be time to run for the hills. In the meantime, its compelling story of being heavily invested in the ever shrinking legacy non agency rmbs arena continues.

@JoJo - good observation. Probably just a slip.
All else being equal, it takes about a 50% rise in portfolio value to compensate for a 33% loss. ($100,000 X .66 = $66,000. / Than, $66,000 X 1.5 = $99,000.). So the warning is valid - if the math suspect. :)
I like the special attention to allocation and risk apparent in this month’s Commentary. Needs saying.

https://etfdb.com/tactical-allocation-channel/gold-miners-party-may-just-be-starting/?utm_source=ETF+Database&utm_campaign=7ece791484-ETF_ExpTrial_Engage_Newsletter_03_09_2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_27adfd3dcc-7ece791484-32421905
Gold miner party maybe just started
With gold on scintillating pace this year, mining equities and the related ETFs are responding in a big way. For example, the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX B+) is up more than 44% year-to-date, offering better than double the returns of traditional gold funds.

Old_Skeet's market barometer which follows the S&P 500 Index currently rates the Index a hold as we enter September with a reading of 148 which falls in the fair value range on the barometer's scale. Currently, I'm invested within the allowable parameters of my portfolio's asset allocation and carrying an overweight in equities of 5%. I make equity weighting adjustments as I feel warranted, from time to time, based upon my barometer's reading which drives an equity weighting matrix which I use to assist me in setting my portfolio's weighting in equities.
The three calls the barometer makes, for me, are accumulate, hold and trim.

FYI: (For those of you who missed this in David's September Commentary.)
Ali Motamed, manager of the Invenomic Fund, doesn’t fear market downturns. In fact, he seems to relish them.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.fa-mag.com/news/mining-the-short-side-51224.html?print
M* Snapshot BIVRX:
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/bivrx/quote
David Snowball's Interview With Chuck Jaffe:
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/116028/#Comment_116028
Andrew Foster's Interview With Chuck Jaffe:
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/52347/chuck-jaffe-s-money-life-show-guest-andrew-foster-manager-seafarer-funds/p1

FYI: Lipper’s Emerging Markets Funds peer group (including both mutual funds and ETFs) experienced net outflows of $1.1 billion for the fund-flows trading week ended Wednesday, August 28. This negative net flow marked the tenth net outflow in the last eleven weeks for the peer group during which over $11.8 billion has left the group’s coffers. As part of this slump, the emerging markets funds group suffered the worst weekly net outflow in its history (Lipper began tracking fund flows data for this group in 1993) as $4.1 billion left during the fund-flows week ended August 7. The group has recorded a net negative flow of $10.2 billion for the quarter to date putting it on pace to surpass the second quarter of 2013 (-$13.7 billion) for its worst quarterly fund flows result ever.
Regards,
Ted
https://lipperalpha.refinitiv.com/2019/09/investors-flee-emerging-markets-funds-during-the-third-quarter/?utm_source=Eloqua&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=00008DM_NewsletterLipperAlphaInsightFundInsightsWeekly_Other&utm_content=Newsletter_FundsWeekly_2Sept2019&elqTrackId=6cfbc637246c4f2a84bb38a7ea2a7838&elq=eaabbd75552d445d8940b431a956aab2&elqaid=52739&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=166

I believe the growth stocks in the fund that provide the volatility which should be counteract by the bond portion. Vanguard Wellesley Income with 35/65 stock/bond allocation may be of interest for those who are seeking income from traditional balanced funds.

I'm not sure it's so much an ad for advisors as a somewhat numerically illiterate article.
It says that the "majority" of employees using advisors (43.9%) are Gen X, while Boomers came in second at 43%. It says this is surprising. It is not. It is arithmetic.
There are more Gen Xers (82M in the US) than Boomers (75M). Of those, many have retired and rolled over their employer plans. So there are many more Gen Xers in retirement plans than Boomers. Even if they're using advisors at a lower rate, the absolute number of Gen Xers with advisors should easily exceed the absolute number of Boomers using advisors.
https://www.kasasa.com/articles/generations/gen-x-gen-y-gen-z
The writer seems to think that Boomers would be more likely to use advisors. Let's assume that's true. Boomers tend to have (much) larger account balances. Putting these together, it's easy to see how the average advisor account (skewed by the large Boomer accounts) could be significantly larger than the average self-managed account, even if the advisor adds no value.
Let's say 32% of Boomers use advisors, and 16% of everyone else uses advisors. Let's say that Boomers represent 1/4 of all employees. (That means that 20% of everyone uses an advisor, as given in the article, since 32% x 1/4 + 16% x 3/4 = 20%.)
Boomers, being older, have larger accounts. Let's say on average, they have $1M in their accounts, and everyone else on average has $50K. Of all the employees, 20% use advisors, 80% don't.
The average advisor account value is: (32% x ¼ x $1M + 16% x ¾ x $50K) / 20% = $430K
The average self-managed account val is: (68% x ¼ x $1M + 84 % x ¾ x $50K) / 80% = $251,875.
This is not a sales pitch for using advisors. It's a sales pitch for growing your 401K as you get older. With or without advisors.

There's nothing to read beyond what Crash posted, and that's the point.
Here's M*'s description of the AI methodology it uses
https://www.morningstar.com/content/dam/marketing/shared/research/methodology/813568-QuantRatingForFundsMethodolgy.pdf
The idea is that you train a classifier (positive, neutral, negative) for a pillar based on some of the funds that analysts have rated. You train another classifier on a different subset of the data, and so on. Then you run all these classifiers and see what the majority thinks.
Here's a simpler page on how this part of the process works:
https://towardsdatascience.com/understanding-random-forest-58381e0602d2
The bottom line is that even if you could get an explanation out of each classifier, what you're doing is polling a lot of classifiers ("pseudo-analysts") to get a consensus. There's no explanation for why some classifiers voted one way, while a larger number voted another.
Regarding the ratings themselves, Charles gave a fine writeup at the beginning of last year, explaining why the price pillar (1.5% vs. 0.85% category average) and the parent pillar are viewed negatively.
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2018/02/lightning-in-a-bottle-alphacentric-income-opportunities-fund-iofix-february-2018/
I think Lewis is on the right track regarding performance and process. While the fund is classified as multi-sector bond, by its own description it is a fund that is focused on a small niche. So while its niche has done well in the past (relative to the universe of investments open to multi-sector funds), its fortunes may shift as other investments in the multi-sector universe begin to look better.

FYI: Most retirement plans, such as 401(k)s, typically lock you into a plan that offers a small selection of mutual funds for the participants to invest in.
However, more retirement plans are letting participants have a brokerage account within the plan. This allows investors to invest outside the plan's investment offerings, and put their money into any mutual fund, exchange-traded fund, stock or bond they choose.
Among these self-directed brokerage accounts (SDBAs) only 20% of the participants worked with an advisor, according Charles Schwab's SDBA Indicators Report for the second quarter of 2019. The study found that the SDBA participants who worked with an advisor had an average balance of $448,515 – nearly twice as much as the $234,673 held by non-advised participants
Regards,
Ted
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lcarrel/2019/08/31/investors-in-retirement-plans/#2d5acbfc4467

Not to mention Sinopec and PetroChina.
But Vanguard is hardly in the, well vanguard, of fund families holding companies accountable. It still seems to prefer working in the shadows to letting some sunshine in. For example:

We did not, however, support a shareholder proposal that called for greater disclosure on pesticide use. Environmental topics like this one are important to us, but we thought the proposal was unwarranted given that the company already had appropriate procedures to monitor use.

Also, Vanguard has devolved responsibility for a portion (9%) of its proxy voting to its funds' outside advisors.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/25/vanguard-to-give-up-some-of-its-voting-power-to-external-fund-managers.html

Could be of interest to those who might transfer accounts in September:
https://bankrate.com/investing/best-brokerage-account-bonuses/

Through Sept. 5, Merrill is offering up to $1K (better than the $600 mentioned at Bankrate).
https://www.merrilledge.com/offers/1000offer
(Definitely not intended as a recommendation for Merrill Edge.)

Vanguard was not listed because it declined to participate, as stated in the article. Also mentioned in the article is that Vanguard offers 1800 ETFs with no commission. This alone would make it worth my consideration if I were a big investor in ETFs.
Everyone is different and cares about different things, which is part of why the Kiplinger article was disappointing. It provided numeric scores of features with little in the way of explanation for readers to weight according to their own needs.
I'm almost exclusively a buy-and-hold fund investor, though I do dabble in ETFs (also long term).
Firstrade is excellent for funds because it offers access to advisor shares that you cannot get anywhere else (that I know of). I view its totally free trading as a nice temporary feature, much as it was at Scottrade, at Scudder (yes, it had a brokerage), at WellsTrade. Nice while you've got it, I just don't count on it lasting.
Years ago, Schwab seemed to offer more funds NTF or with lower mins than elsewhere. Many funds were offered under special tickers ending in "1Z" for this purpose. For example, CHH1Z is Schwab's pseudo-share class for buying CHNAX.
These days, it seems that either the fund company is making A shares available NTF through brokerages (as with CHNAX) without requiring a special ticker, or it's shutting down access (as with DWS funds class S, SCQGX offered by Schwab as SCQ1Z). Schwab offers a solid set of funds and has excellent service, but it seems to have lost the edge it had decades ago when fund supermarkets weren't as common.
To some extent, Vanguard seems to have taken its place. It offers some institutional class shares with lower mins than you'll find elsewhere (notably PIMCO funds @ $25K), and provides access to institutional class shares that you can't get from other discount brokerages (such as Diamond Hill funds like DHSIX).
I've used TDA and wasn't impressed with the fund offerings. Too high a cost for TF funds ($49.99 to buy or sell).
Fidelity offers institutional class shares on many funds with relatively low mins, especially in IRAs. Because it enables you to buy additional shares (once you have established a position) for $5/buy (and $0 to sell), this is very cost effective for the long term investor.
Thinking in terms of fund offerings (variety, min purchase, share class access, transaction costs) and quality of service generally, Schwab and Fidelity top my list. I wouldn't look to Vanguard just because it gives access to some unusual third party funds. But if I did have an account there to purchase Vanguard funds, I would take a closer look at its third party fund offerings, including 1,800 NTF ETFs.

@Crash: Thanks for letting me know, try this .
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/living-with-negative-intrerest-rates-51567187649

Thanks @Ted
Russo discussed the value of investing in family owned businesses
US List:
businessinsurance.org/the-10-biggest-family-businesses-in-the-u-s/
International List:
https://businessinsider.com/the-worlds-21-biggest-family-owned-businesses-2015-7
The World's Top 750:
https://famcap.com/the-worlds-750-biggest-family-businesses/
and,
5 Mutual Fund that are holders of BRKA and /or BRKB:
https://investopedia.com/articles/investing/090215/5-mutual-funds-hold-berkshire-hathaway-stock.asp
Why Own Berkshire Hathaway rather than a Mutual Fund:
4-reasons-to-buy-berkshire-instead-of-a-mutual-fund-and-buffett-aint-one-of-them/

Overall, a piece with lots of factoids, but no description I can find about how they scored the brokerages or features. Various Kiplinger comments about brokerages are also rather odd.
Here are some weird statements made about E*Trade. I'm not picking on E*Trade in particular, it's just that it was the first brokerage listed.
"More than 3,900 mutual funds you can buy with no sales fee or fee to trade".
It looks like Kiplinger chose this arbitrary number and didn't bother to report actual figures. E*Trade claims over 4,400 NTF funds. Fidelity, which Kiplinger also says offers the same 3,900+ NTF funds appears to offer "just" 3,593, according to its fund screener. Kiplinger says the same of Schwab, though I haven't checked its true figure.
"the highest percentage of no-transaction fee funds with three-star ratings or better from Morningstar."
Does percentage matter? ISTM what is important is the selection (quantity) of high quality funds (I use that term loosely), not the fraction of funds offered that fit that description.
"E*Trade’s Max Rate Checking Account comes with unlimited ATM reimbursements on charges that other financial institutions levy (though you may be subject to charges from the owner/operator of the ATM). "
That's a curious way of saying simply that foreign ATM fees "will automatically be credited to your account."

FYI: Investors are piling into an exchange-traded fund that appears to promise protection at a time when stocks, and the economy in general, look to be their most vulnerable in years. The problem: The fund may actually be one of the riskiest investments in the market right now.
Related Data
The iShares Edge MSCI Min Vol U.S.A. ETF (ticker: USMV) has attracted nearly $9.5 billion this year, second only to the broader and much better known Vanguard S&P 500 (VOO). The iShares ETF has swelled 42% in the past eight months to $32 billion, and is now the largest of the low-volatility ETFs, more than twice the size of its next largest rival, the $12 billion Invesco S&P 500 Low Volatility (SPLV), which has also been attracting assets.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-to-choose-a-volatility-etf-51567200240?refsec=funds

FYI: “I have been involved in the investment business for over 50 years,” reader Dave Goebel of Damascus, Ore., led off his letter in last week’s Mailbag, “and I can make absolutely no sense out of what is going on in today’s markets. Having lived through the years of double-digit inflation and interest rates in the early 1980s, it makes no sense to me how we can have over $16 trillion in worldwide bonds with negative yields, and 2) how the Federal Reserve can be concerned with pushing inflation up to 2%.”
That makes two of us. A 50-year man myself, I wonder what impulse leads the same human brain that spurned a 15% bond yield in 1981 to chase a subzero bond yield in 2019.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/living-with-negative-intrerest-rates-51567187649?mod=investing

FYI: As investor needs and preferences change, brokerages must adapt. Brokerages’ mobile apps have grown more sophisticated as more clients have demonstrated that they like to do business on the go. And as investors have demanded lower costs, brokerages have trimmed commissions and fees across the board.
But brokerages also need a keen ear for clients’ particular needs. Some clients want to be left alone to do their own thing, while others want their hand held. Some want to pay as little as possible to invest, and others are willing to pony up enough in assets to gain access to their own personal planner
Our 2019 online broker ranking recognizes that no brokerage can hit the bull’s-eye for every type of client, and that the firm with the broadest appeal may not meet your specific needs. But ultimately, we favored firms that could do the most for most investors.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/investing/T052-S002-best-online-brokers-2019/index.html