I read it the same way as @wxman123. They can make numerous increases in those 31 days or numerous decreases in 31 days, but can't do both. In fact, I see that they had numerous buys in March as the S&P 500 was falling.
I also can't figure out why they wanted to make the fund more aggressive, unless they just want to perform better in rising markets. It really hasn't done well in good times and maybe they want to change that.

Hi @wxman123,
My above comments come from the First Quarter 2020 Commentary. On page 3 of this Commentary you will find that the baseline asset allocation that the fund adjust its equity allocation begins at 10% equity allocation with the S&P 500 being over 3487. In addition ... At the bottom of the page it reads ... "Please note: the fund employs a 31-day trading rule to help reduce the risk of taxable events. If the fund has increased the allocation to stock funds or bond funds, it will not decrease that allocation for 31 days."
This complete commentary can be view through CTFAX's web page linked below.
https://www.columbiathreadneedleus.com/investment-products/mutual-funds/Columbia-Thermostat-Fund/Class-A/details/?cusip=197199755&_n=1
Scroll down until you find the Fund's Commentary button located under fund literature.

more about disconnects
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/business/stock-market-economy-coronavirus.html

One need not go further than his first bullet item, confirmation bias, to see an example of his confirmation bias.

A reluctance towards establishing a common ground is already widespread in America. According to a 2019 survey, 70% of Democrats believed their party’s leaders should “stand up” to President Trump, even if less gets done in Washington. Conversely, 51% of Republicans believed that Trump should “stand up” to Democrats.

While the January 2019 Pew survey did show that, the same page he linked to notes that a November 2018 Pew survey found that "Most Americans said they’d like to see cooperation between Trump and Congress."
By selectively absorbing just one part of what Pew found, he is exhibiting confirmation bias. Americans may be unclear about their interest in bipartisan cooperation, they may be saying that they won't move if the other side doesn't while still desiring more cooperation, or a variety of other things. But to this writer, all he sees is American intransigence.

Prices were up in April because the fiscal and monetary support was huge and markets are looking ahead. We haven't seen anything like this in the last 50 years.
This is what I posted on ‎03-17-2020 11:38 PM (link)
7) For me and others who don’t mind to use possible better performing categories, select the ones with better momentum.
IDEA1: QQQ looks to me as a better choice than SP500 coming out of this meltdown because these giant high tech companies rule the world and the indexes and the strongest. QQQ also has a lower loss YTD then the SP500.
IDEA2: I am going to let the charts, trend, and prices tell me what is hot.

To avoid large crowd in stores we go either early when the stores open or near the last 15 minutes before closing. It is also good that many customers are now wearing face covering and addition protection are installed to protect the cashiers and workers. Still see few large gatherings without face coverings and we avoid them when we go for walk outside.
Strange now in our work space as two separate shifts are used and the cubicles are spaced further apart. Instead of face-to-to face discussion we talk on the phone. Conference calls replace group meetings. Overall very impersonal and strange.

If I invest in HY it's only for trade. HY is a hybrid product that usually doesn't justify itself. Compare VWEHX(good HY) to VBIAX (60/40 indexes) (chart) and you will see VBIAX beat VWEHX for 1-3-5-10-15 years.
Most investors should not collect funds but use 3-7 funds and why HY doesn't have a place in my portfolio.
The only false justification is higher yield which I never like. The first thing you should look at investment is risk/reward and only then look for higher yield, that true with stocks and bonds.

@wxman123, The new baseline asset allocation can be found on The fund's Fact Sheet. As of 5-1-20 it is 50 percent. Under the old Fact Sheet it was 10 percent.
The 31 day trading rule is to prevent the fund from having wash sales. The fund's 31 day trading rule also prevents it from changing investment direction for 31 days from its last buy or sell transaction.

Maybe it's my reading skills...but as I read it the 31 day rule would not prevent the fund from increasing or decreasing stock allocation more frequently than 31 days. The rule only prevents an increase followed by a quick decrease, which would trigger a wash sale. An increase or decrease on two consecutive days would not have that effect. As the prospectus says: "The second exception is a “31-day Rule;” in order to reduce taxable events and minimize short-term trading if the S&P 500®Index price moves back and forth across a band in the allocation table, after the Fund has increased its percentage allocation to either stock funds or bond funds, it will not decrease that allocation for at least 31 days."
Also, according to the prospectus, the baseline increase is the current implementation of the strategy that has always been in place. Granted, the notion that the market has been "expensive" for the past 18 years (hence the former 10% stock baseline) and is now "normal" (50%) seems a bit disingenuous, but that's what the fund says. It also says that it can revisit this allocation more frequently then annually under unusual circumstances.

I would argue that CTFAX is no longer contrarian. Based on the fund's 5/1/2020 Asset Allocation Update, the fund will always hold at least a 50% stock allocation. With the previous guidelines, the fund had the option to hold only a 10% stock allocation once the S&P 500 reached a predetermined threshold. As @Old_Skeet mentioned above its no longer a risk off, risk on fund, and should not be classified in the 15%-30% Allocation group, but rather,say, in the Tactical Asset group.

Related covid19 news...new normalcy..enjoy
Coronavirus Forces Gulf States to Reckon With Their Scores of Migrant Workers
A new cluster of cases in Seoul tests South Korea’s easing. Belarus held a tank parade.
Published May 9, 2020
Updated May 10, 2020, 12:12 a.m. ET
This briefing has ended. Follow our latest coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
Here’s what you need to know:
South Korea aimed for ‘a new daily life with Covid-19.’ Four days later, Seoul found a new cluster.
Oil’s collapse and the pandemic force Gulf states to reckon with their vast armies of migrant workers.
The latest in science: More children have died of an illness associated with the coronavirus; a drug cocktail shows promise for Covid-19.
In wealthy Geneva, a food line keeps growing.
China let Elon Musk reopen a Tesla factory, but California refused — and his anger is evident on Twitter.
The coronavirus isn’t going away soon. Two new studies provide a picture of how the future might look.
Overlooked no more: June Almeida, the scientist who identified the first coronavirus.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/09/world/live-coronavirus-news.html

With this change in investment policy, CTFAX moves to the 50%-70% allocation group, which includes VWELX PRWCX FBALX JABAX VTMFX among others. That's pretty stiff competition, so at this point I'll watch CTFAX but I have no plans to invest additional funds.

Here is a sample from one thread of the article:

For years, commentators of a conspiratorial lean have half-jokingly suggested that humanity is living in a simulation, à la The Matrix. When it comes to economic activity and markets, that is no longer an absurd suggestion.
...around three-quarters of those laid-off workers "receive benefits that exceed their former wage," Goldman says.
Goldman's projections actually call for a small increase in disposable personal income.

Again, we are living in a simulation.

But there is a problem related to living in a simulation:

The Treasury can make up for people’s lost wages, but people need the things wages buy. So replacing lost wages and revenues will not be enough for long: the economy has to produce goods and services.

Another thread of the article discussess Modern Monetary Theory and ties it into current Fed and Treasury activities. Here is a sample:

The US can always buy whatever there is to buy that's denominated in US dollars. It has no need to borrow dollars from anyone else because it is the issuer of those dollars. The US can spend too much, which risks stoking inflation, but the US does not, will not, and has never, needed to borrow dollars. Suggesting otherwise is to traffic in patent nonsense.
Why do governments sell bonds whenever they run deficits?...By selling bonds, they maintain the illusion of being financially constrained.

Here is the link to the article:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4345783-simulation-game

These articles hardly ever get the info you need/want. The most interesting are funds in the 3-6% yield where you find good risk/reward + yield.
Over the years I find myself using many times HY Munis + Multisector/NonTrad funds, especially securitized/MBS. Many of these got hit hard in 2008 and 2020 but they will be back.
FAGIX is an interesting fund I have watched over the years but not used. Did you know that FAGIX performed better than the SP500 for one year since the bottom on 3/6/2009?
In 2020, SPY is better since the bottom of 3/23.

@wxman123, The new baseline asset allocation can be found on The fund's Fact Sheet. As of 5-1-20 it is 50 percent. Under the old Fact Sheet it was 10 percent.
The 31 day trading rule is to prevent the fund from having wash sales. The fund's 31 day trading rule also prevents it from changing investment direction for 31 days from its last buy or sell transaction.

Kinda tough placing a standard HY fund against FAGIX for a compare. Over the period of FAGIX existence, the fund usually has an equity exposure of 15-20%. A unique HY fund.

Unusual but not unique. WHGHX "has a neutral allocation of 80% of its total assets in debt securities and 20% of its total assets in equity securities."
Two funds that on the surface look similar, but despite their equity sleeves and junk bonds, very different profiles. They sit at nearly opposite ends of the risk spectrum for HY funds.
WHGHX tends to invest in higher quality junk (BB vs. category B). Perhaps as a result, WHGHX has below average volatility and below average performance, except this year, even with its equity. FAGIX in contrast, is very volatile and has had a dreadful YTD.

It seems that CTFAX CAN make changes in less than 31 days depending on the S&P. Its just that to avoid wash sales it cant have an increase then a decrease in stocks in less than 31 days. Also not clear about what impact the baseline has insofar as in the brief period between 3/16/20 and 4/28/ 20 the fund's stock allocation shifted between 35% and and 70%.

Hi @davidrmoran
Kinda tough placing a standard HY fund against FAGIX for a compare. Over the period of FAGIX existence, the fund usually has an equity exposure of 15-20%. An unusual HY fund.
PHYZX appears to be doing some other magic in the cash position with "longs" in something. I don't see anything out of the ordinary to suggest that the fund likely has had more than an average yield when compared to others in this category.
COMPARE begin Jan. 1999

@Puddnhead,
My take is that fund has been now positioned in a more aggressive posture. I'm thinking that this is because of recent FOMC's interest rate and easing policy. Plus, the Fed's have and will probally continue to inject money into the financial system. This no doubt will lift most all asset prices especially equities. Therefore, to caputure this anticipated uptrend the fund managers have elected to make the fund more aggressive in the coming year. Is this good? Or, Bad? It depends. I held the fund in my hybrid income sleeve because of its normal conserative risk off positioning that could load equities during a stock market pullback, For me it was a risk off ... risk on ... fund. With it's new allocation moving from a low of 10% equity to a new low allocation of 50% equity it is ... for me ... no longer a risk off ... risk on fund.
At the end of the quarter I'll be reassigning CTFAX to another investment sleeve within my portfolio. Most likely to the domestic hybrid sleeve found in the growth & income section of my portfolio.

A state by state experiment involving moving beyond the pandemic shut down is underway. It involves both numbers and attitudes. We will see over the next several weeks and months how it plays out. Hospital patient volume limitations may place a cap on the willingness of states to open up. But, within that cap, it may turn out that the effective end of the pandemic for most people includes acceptance of monthly death and infection numbers that force the more vulnerable portions of the population to be quite cautious.
That type of ending could accelerate the rate at which the economy rebounds.

When will the Covid-19 pandemic end? And how?
According to historians, pandemics typically have two types of endings: the medical, which occurs when the incidence and death rates plummet, and the social, when the epidemic of fear about the disease wanes.
“When people ask, ‘When will this end?,’ they are asking about the social ending,” said Dr. Jeremy Greene, a historian of medicine at Johns Hopkins.

https://nytimes.com/2020/05/10/health/coronavirus-plague-pandemic-history.html

Hi @Level5, For someone that has not followed the fund I can understand why one could become confused. It took me, years back, a while before I fully understood how the fund works. Know, I am not trying to change your thoughts on the fund ... Just, trying to help bring a better understanding on how it works from my past experiences.
Here is the link to the fund. https://www.columbiathreadneedleus.com/investment-products/mutual-funds/Columbia-Thermostat-Fund/Class-A/details/?cusip=197199755&_n=1
First, know that it has a 31 day trading rule and it can not change position direction once established until 31 days have expired.
Second, to see how the fund is positioned follow the link and open The Asset Allocation Update which will be a pfd. On this pfd you will find the last six asset allocation changes the fund made with the last one taking place on 4/28/2020 where it moved to a 35% stock / 65% bond allocation.
Third, once annually (May 1st) the fund managers set the trading ranges for the fund going forward for the coming year. With this, on May 1st of 2020 the fund made an asset allocation change from a baseline 10% equity allocation to a 50% baseline equity allocation before adjusting for the movement of the 500 Index. Since, the 31 day traiding rule is in effect the fund will not make the actual declared adjustment until the 31 days has expired from the date of the last asset allocation change. This will be done somewhere around May 29th.
For me it was a risk off ... risk on ... fund holding. Now with the baseline asset allocation change from a 10% baseline equity allocation to a 50% equity allocation it is no longer, from my perspective, a risk off ... risk on ... fund. With this, I have it under review, myself, to determine just how much of it I will continue to hold going forward.
I hope my above comment bring some clairty for a better understanding of how the fund positions.
Skeet