*** Price check, aisle 3 !!! ***
Already seems so long ago (Feb. 17), when I first noted that the 30 year T yield moved below 2%.
Here we are in Never-Never Land in the world of bonds.
I'll add this yield chart that I use. The chart is for 1 year and is YIELD, not pricing. Hover the cursor on the chart lines for rate and date info.
A few views from bondland:
Week / YTD
--- MINT = -.02%/+.5% (Pimco Enhanced short maturity)
--- SHY = +.7%/+2.2% (1-3 yr bills)
--- IEI = +1.6%/+5.4% (3-7 yr notes)
--- IEF = +2.8%/+9.5% (7-10 yr notes)
--- TLT = +7.5%/+23.5% (20+ Yr UST Bond
--- EDV = +10%/+31.4% (Vanguard extended duration gov't)
--- ZROZ = +10.6%/+35% (UST., AAA, long duration zero coupon bonds)
***Other:
--- LQD = +1.85%/+5.5% (corp. bonds)
--- TIP =+2.1%/+5.2% (UST., inflation bonds, mixed duration)
--- LTPZ = +7.1%/+17.9% (UST, long duration TIPs bonds)
This chart is EDV vs SPY going back to December, 2007. TLT, EDV, ZROZ and LTPZ are hot potatoes in the bond arena. The chart, however; indicates the major inverse relationship to the U.S. equity market. When things are sour in equity land, these shine; but one must pay attention.
Overall, in the past several weeks, investment grade bonds (U.S. gov't), notes and bills have helped a great deal to maintain a balance. Where a bond fund you may hold has it's holdings will be reflected with some of the above returns. A possible exception now and going forward may be in the corp. bond area; as many companies have large bond debt, some of which is borderline "good junk" , particularly if company earnings falter in this environment.
Is there bond life after the 0% rate yield? Yes, from what I've followed with the German, 10 year Bund. Take a peek, here.
Well, I've probably forgotten something that I really intended to mention. But, that is the purpose of the edit button.
If you discover a mistake, please let me know. Chore time for this fellow, for a bit.
Take care of you and yours,
Catch

My point and what I was trying to say is that if political bias, and by that I mean party affiliation, is a premise of management decisions then I want to know that upfront and center. Period. That to me is quite different from deficits and macroeconomic beliefs.
Last week I did nothing, but I did smash my fingers with a baseball bat several times when tempted to enter the mosh pit. Like you I rarely make mutual fund changes. The last one was 5 years ago when I swapped a large chunk of FCNTX for BIAWX.

Question - where is the author getting an 11% decline in the S&P 500 for the week? All the info I've been looking at shows that the S&P 500 was actually up 0.4% for the week and down YTD -7.6% ? Hard to gain mental traction with the rest of the article after that.
Edit - FWIW I'm using SPY as my measure/data source. Also, from the Fun with Numbers department: Up 1,293, down 785, up 1,173, down 969, down 256. The Dow point moves this week.

As of market close March 6th, according to the metrics of Old_Skeet's stock market barometer, the S&P 500 Index is extremely oversold with a reading of 168. This is down 7 points from last weeks close of 175 where the Index was also considered to be extremely oversold. A lower barometer reading indicates there is less investment value in the Index over a higher reading. During the week, the average naked short volume moved from a weekly average of 52% to 64%. A great deal changed there along with the VIX (which is a measure of volatility) which went from 29 to 36. The the stock Index's valuation gained a little ground through the week with an 18 point gain moving from a reading of 2954 to 2972. From a yield perspective, I'm finding that the US10YrT is now being listed at 0.767% (MarketWatch) while at the beginning of the year it was listed at 1.92%. With the stock market swoon the S&P 500 Index is currently listed with a dividend yield of 1.96% while at the beginning of the year it was listed at 1.82%. As you can see there is now a good yield advantage for the stock Index over the Ten Year Treasury. With this, I'm now favoring equity income over fixed income due to this yield spread. I also I feel that the stock market is somewhat oversold and bonds are extremely overbought. My three best performing funds this past week were SVAAX +3.14% ... PGUAX +3.10% ... and, DIFAX +1.88%. All of these are good dividend paying funds.
This week I thought I'd write about Old_Skeet's SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess). There are a number of sources that I use to formulate my SWAG. A couple of these I'll cover in this writting. One is the forward earning estimate (FE) and the trailing twelve months earnings (TTM) for the S&P 500 Index. I usually get this data from S&P. Then another data point that I use is a multiplier. This multiplier is derived from using the total return from a couple of my multi sector income funds for their five year average total return period. This is then used to compare the earnings yield of the S&P 500 Index to my better performing multi sector bond fund's total return. The TTM earnings yield for the Index computes to 4.7%. While, the total retun for my better performing multi sector income funds is found to be about 5%. Thus, the multi sector bond funds currently have the advantage by this metric.
But, that is not all! We still have forward earnings estimates to consider for the stock Index. Using a revised forward earnings estimate number of $159.00 (down from $175.00) computes to an earnings yield of 5.3%. This favors the stock Index.
Combining the two to produce a blended number TTM (4.7%) and the fordward number (5.3%) produces a blended earnings yield of 5%. With this, there is no current advantage to either using the blended metric. In looking at this from a little different perspective and by using the multipler number 20 (representing a 5% earnings yield) and dividing it by the closing value of 2972 produces an earnings number of $148.60. At the close of this month, for March, S&P projects TTM earnings to be $139.95. And, using the full year $159.00 earning number puts the stock Index at 3180. Using this analysis puts the Index near term overvalued (valuation ahead of earnings) and for the full year undervalued (valuation behind earnings).
I'm with the thought that the market is going to reflect a TTM valuation model of what have you done for me over what are you projected to do for me model (FE) due the uncertainty about the coronavirus and the virus' effect on forward earnings. This has caused many investors that were using leverage to deleverage and sell stocks which has lead to the stock market swoon we are currently facing.
What does this mean? For me, I'm not looking for stocks to out perform my better performing multi sector income funds over the next few years. However, I am favoring my beaten down equity income funds to out perform the stock Index and my better performing multi sector funds over the near term. Just this past week my two best performing funds were of the equity dividend paying type. They were SVAAX +3.14% & PGUAX +3.10%.
With this, I plan to position new money (generated by my portfolio) towards my good dividend paying equity mutual funds. In addition, I plan to open a position in IDIVX which is up +2.95% for the week.
I hope this weeks barometer report has provided you with an insight that might not have been previsouly considered. Just because this is what Old_Skeet's course of action will be inside of his own portfolio doen't not mean that you should follow my plan of action.
Simply stated ... "The stock and bond markets might not follow my SWAG."
Thanks for stopping by and reading.
I wish all ... "Good Investing."
Old_Skeet

Yes, but you're assuming a binary classification, while the paper classifies firms (and funds) into three categories: Democratic-leaning, Republican-leaning, and neutral. So while a Republican-leaning manager might invest 43% in Republican-leaning firms and 57% in non-Republican-leaning firms, the latter might break down further into 33% Democratic-leaning and 24% neutral firms.
From the study's intro:

Further inspection suggests that, among funds for which we can identify the partisan leaning of their managers, we find that they allocate about 43% of their assets to firms with whose executives they share a similar partisan affiliation, and only about 33% of their assets to those firms whose executives have the opposite partisan affiliation. While this simple inspection based on sample averages is merely univariate and only allows limited inference, it provides the first piece of suggestive evidence for partisan bias among fund managers.
In multivariate tests, in which we control for a variety of firm and fund characteristics ... we confirm these univariate patterns in the data. The results from our baseline multivariate model suggest that Republican (Democratic) fund managers allocate 4% to 7% more of their funds’ total net assets to companies that are managed by Republican (Democratic) executives than Democratic (Republican) fund managers do.

Why does this matter?

We find that mutual funds that have more holdings in politically similar firms tend to perform worse than those with less partisan bias, although the economic magnitude of this underperformance may be considered small. However, we find that partisan bias leads to statistically and economically significantly higher levels of fund idiosyncratic volatility.

Partisan Bias in Fund Portfolios
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2933270

Last week was a good test for your bond funds.
Multi-SEMMX,IOFIX,EIXIX,VCFAX,PTIAX,JMUTX,JMSIX. PTIAX(1.1%) continues its momentum which tells me they own higher rates bonds than the rest. JMSIX(0.5%) had a nice week too. IOFIX (0.40%) continues to be the best securitized.
"Cash sub"- DHEAX (0.2%) proved why high IG bonds is important. SEMMX surprisingly lost -0.1.
Bank loans - lost too much and the category is at -2.1% for YTD and similar to HY performance which has a much higher duration.
HY Muni-all the ones I follow lost but GHYAX -1%(bigger loss)...OPTAX only -0.3 and even ST duration NVHAX -0.5%.
For core plus: PINCX 1.8%...BCOIX 1.5%....DODIX only 0.8%...UBISX 1.15%...PTTRX 1.6%
But we also learned last week that funds with low SD for 3 years didn't perform that well exactly when you needed them...IISIX -0.2%...JMUTX -0.2%...PIMIX -0.3%...SSTHX -0.3% While much "riskier" IOFIX with SD = 2.7 performed extremely well YTD=3.2% and one week=0.4%

Wouldn't that mean they invested 57% of assets in firms whose executives don't share their party affiliation?

https://www.morningstar.com/articles/970581/did-mutual-funds-perform-as-expected-during-the-mini-crash
Did Mutual Funds Perform as Expected During the Mini-Crash?
For the most part, yes.
John Rekenthaler
Mar 6, 2020
Open Questions
It’s no secret that the S&P 500 dropped 11% last week. Less discussed has been how that downturn affected funds. Did any stock fund categories escape the damage? Did bond funds and alternative funds protect against the carnage? Should 401(k) investors be pleased with their target-date funds? Finally, how did active equity funds fare?

@Mona: thanks for your post. A number of years back, I got flagged at VG. over a small 4 figure amount. I guess it was more of a warning than anything else . I had recently opened the account. Thanks for mentioning the qualifying amount then selling a bunch of shares. Did you wait the 30,60, or 90 day requirement before selling ? It seems to be some funds require a certain amount be in the account or in will be sold out ?
Also before closing one more question. Did you try your buy then turn around & sell with a VG fund or a different fund that they sell ?
Thanks for your time, Derf

Derf, some time ago, I thought SIGIX was THE fund to own and thought it would close for eternity. So, at Vanguard and Schwab, I purchased the minimum to qualify for institutional shares. While I am embarrassed to say, I did in 5 different accounts, including two taxable accounts where I did not want this fund.
Being all accounts had institutional shares and no short term redemption fee, almost immediately, I sold all but 1 share 4 accounts and for good or bad, built a position in the 5th account which is a Roth IRA.
Fast forward. Today, I have SIGIX in the Roth IRA with Schwab, 1 share in my Schwab One account and 1 share in a Vanguard IRA account. I can't give you a good reason why I hold onto the 1 share accounts. Probably just laziness.
Regarding your last question, the only workaround that I was familiar with Vanguard's 30 day "frequent trading policy", was if you sold a Vanguard fund you were able to write a letter of instructions to Vanguard requesting to purchase that same fund within the 30 day period that you sold it. However, August 13, 2019, Vanguard changed their policy, and in fact, broadened it, and now you can't make any purchases or redemptions with a letter of instructions.
Mona

I'm so glad I transferred most of my money to Schwab. I got several thousand cash reward + I trade with no warnings.
You can't do the following easy trade at Fidelity. Suppose your IRA has $100,500 in PIMIX and you want to buy $100K of JMUTX instead. At Schwab, you enter both trades. At Fidelity, you enter your sell but now you must call a rep. Then, they allow you to buy only 90% of the $100.5K...crazy irritating stuff.

What I have been doing (and I’m a nobody, so get out your magnifying glasses so you can find a grain of salt...lol), is setting price point alerts at various yield percentages: 8.5% for PCI/PDI (they are already there); 9% for the above 2, as well as PTY, RCS, PCM, PKO; and 10% for all (and 9% range PFN/PFL) on the big blowout days. Also 8% for PCN (a generally investment grade fund that traded in the 6% yield range before this recent volatility). Currently have 10% of PCI in my dad’s account, and added a little more last week. And trade around dividends and recent volatility in the rest. Waiting for a 10% yield on RCS (which purportedly has the highest quality portfolio) to add more. Probably have close to 20% total in these PIMCO CEFs right now (<15% most of the time).
Even rattling around the idea to ONLY hold these funds, along with VCSH, VCIT, MINT, and maybe another ST/ultra short term/high quality floating rate bond ETF as ballast/cash to draw from during drawdowns (and opportunistically buy more of the CEFs). Maybe 60/40 or 70/30...your cash flow will be much higher than a typical equity/bond 60/40 portfolio, and performance may be close. There’s a poster of Morningstar who only holds PCI, PDI, and PTY and has since ~2016 or so. And probably been pretty happy with his portfolio (though much much higher volatility than bond mutual funds, volatility similar to equity).
As to your question, PCI recently raised its distribution and has generally yielded more than PDI (and their portfolios are similar now), and PCM, so I went with PCI for the middle quality fund. PCN is a higher quality fund, and is yielded almost 8% (esp if you can catch some near the lows on these big down days). And PTY is a little lower quality, slightly lower quality earnings to cover the distribution, so would hold this in lesser amounts (more price volatility, as Mark says above). And PFN/PFL are similar, and consistently in the 9’s% yield; and again, lower quality so a smaller piece of portfolio. PCM and PKO are slightly different portfolios, and they are less mentioned and lower trading liquidity.
I think (grain of salt, again) you can hold these in a portfolio, hold a core position (especially after recent sell offs), and trade opportunistically around the edges based on price movements. PIMCO uses all the tools in the toolbox, and have access to some of the smartest people in retail-available fixed income portfolio management.
Above is not to be construed as advice :-)

Structurally they're all pretty much the same but I have found PTY to be the most exposed to volatility in it's pricing. I use selloffs to buy more in bulk but generally just reinvest the distributions. You might find further information in the linked M* community discussion along with a lot of flotsam as well. I used to have a table laying out the various differences but I can't locate it at the moment. I'll post it if I find it.
PTY v. Other PIMCO CEF's
Edit: You can also dig out differences by examining the 'Portfolio' of each fund on M* or similar. Not the 'Portfolio Holdings' - hardly anyone can figure that out besides probably capecod but rather just the 'Portfolio'.

I've been waiting years for an opportunity to get into some of Pimco's amazingly high performing CEFs, and I'm thinking I'm going to get it. (These will go into my solo 401K, with retirement 15+ years away, so I'm happy to wait out volatility.) Anyone have any insights as to the big differences between the three and which might make the better long-term bet? It seems like PTY has much lower leverage (and therefore expenses), as well as a lower premium, but it doesn't seem much different in the end result.

Only 75 ?!
Derf

By Christine Benz at M*
"Lower lifetime earnings and longer life expectancies paint a troubling picture about the state of women's retirement preparedness."
Article Link

FPFIX is a pretty good fund invested mainly in securitized and low duration=1.7 and a good "cash sub". Another similar fund is DHEIX with duration=1.4. Both invested mostly in IG bond rating. I like DHEIX a bit more because it's yield = 3.9 while FPFIX = 2.6.
Securitized is my favorite category for years because deals better with rates.
I ran it thru Port Vis (link)
and DHEIX looks better for performance, SD and Sharpe

I bought a starter long-term position in Equinor just before the markets rolled last month; down 25% but not selling.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/billionaire-sam-zell-says-hes-investing-at-ridiculously-low-prices-in-one-particular-sector-amid-coronavirus-scare-2020-03-05?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo
Billionaire Sam Zell says he’s buying at ‘ridiculously low’ prices in one particular sector amid market volatility
Anyone added more energy recently

Appreciate your commentary FD1000 and others. Always find something to take away and ponder.
Curious as to your thoughts regarding:
FPFIX, FPA Flexible Income Fund, appears to hold higher rated bonds and potentially has capability to deal with rising interest rates
Dominion Energy Reliability Investments, works like a money market, free redemption on demand, complete access to your funds at any time, 2.7% for investment over $50k, on line access, NOT FDIC insured but than again neither are any of the bond OEF being discussed either
Good Health to all,
Baseball Fan

Related
https://apnews.com/435cb3786f0d6692c8143a07e29c3e79
Interesting summaries regarding coronavirus...maybe dreadful volatile market/slowed world economies for ??? 8 or 16 wks, more downfalls perhaps. Took china 6 - 8 wks to handle the problems...
Dows maybe loosing 10 to 25% more imho
Time to research/buckle up /buy more good qualities bonds perhaps