Trump leaves the country, markets up +5%.
But then Trump comes back......unfortunately....

For December so far, Asia as a whole, tho registering losses too, seems to be beating the U.S. by a fairly decent margin. My Asia ref points are multi-country Matthews, so YMMV, but they're down 2-5% while the half-dozen U.S. funds on my watchlists are down 10% or a bit more.
India's actually up this month, but then at times it does run pretty much on its own.

Bought in Feb. of this year. I am happy with the steady slow growth of this fund.
Currently stacks up very well with Morningstar's 1 year return in the Ultra Short rankings (up 3.65%) and vs. Short Term bond rankings. It is now beating my other Short term bond fund RPHIX. Be interested if MFO would profile it sometime as it is a newer fund.

Personally, I always use my Magic 8-Ball for my investment decisions.

You too? ;)
No Sir. When really confused I play “spin-the-bottle”. The more empty she is the better it works. :)
BTW: Alexa has the ability to generate random numbers. Would work better than spinning a bottle if you’re in a hurry (like at 3:59 EST) and don’t have a bottle handy.

FYI: Investors are bailing out of mutual funds as if it were 2008.
Mutual funds suffered redemptions of $56.2 billion in the week ended Dec. 19. That’s the biggest outflow since the week ended Oct. 15, 2008, according to data released Wednesday by the Investment Company Institute. And the numbers over the last several weeks have only gotten worse as the chart below shows.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-26/mutual-fund-outflows-surge-to-56-billion-most-since-2008

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/906185/000119312518356597/d663166d497.htm
497 1 d663166d497.htm 497
Janus Aspen Series
Janus Henderson Global Unconstrained Bond Portfolio
Supplement dated December 24, 2018
to Currently Effective Prospectuses
The Board of Trustees (the “Trustees”) of Janus Aspen Series (the “Trust”) has approved a plan to liquidate and terminate Janus Henderson Global Unconstrained Bond Portfolio (the “Portfolio”) with such liquidation effective on or about March 1, 2019, or at such other time as may be deemed appropriate by the officers of the Portfolio (the “Liquidation Date”). Termination of the Portfolio is expected to occur as soon as practicable following the Liquidation Date.
Effective January 1, 2019, the Portfolio will no longer accept investments by new shareholders. The Portfolio may be required to make a distribution of any income and/or capital gains in connection with its liquidation.
If a shareholder has not redeemed their shares as of the Liquidation Date, the shareholder’s account will generally be automatically redeemed and proceeds will be sent to the shareholder at the address of record. For shareholders holding shares through a variable annuity or variable insurance contract, check with your insurance company or financial representative for your alternative investment options.
To prepare for the Portfolio’s liquidation, the portfolio manager may increase the Portfolio’s assets held in cash and similar instruments in order to pay for Portfolio expenses and meet redemption requests. As a result, the Portfolio may deviate from its stated investment strategies and policies and accordingly cease being managed to meet its investment objective.
Additionally, any asset reductions and increases in cash and similar instruments could adversely affect the Portfolio’s short-term performance prior to the Liquidation Date. The Portfolio will incur transaction costs, such as brokerage commissions, when selling certain portfolio securities as a result of its plan to liquidate and terminate. These transaction costs may adversely affect performance.
Because shares of the Portfolio are only eligible to be held by insurance company separate accounts on behalf of variable insurance contract owners, or certain qualified retirement plans, the liquidation of shares held by a shareholder is not expected to be considered a taxable event. Shareholders should consult their personal tax adviser concerning their particular tax circumstances.
Shareholders may obtain additional information by contacting their plan sponsor, broker-dealer, insurance company, or financial intermediary, or by contacting a Janus Henderson representative at 1-877-335-2687.
Please retain this Supplement with your records.
Janus Aspen Series
Janus Henderson Global Unconstrained Bond Portfolio
Supplement dated December 24, 2018
to Currently Effective Statements of Additional Information
The Board of Trustees (the “Trustees”) of Janus Aspen Series (the “Trust”) has approved a plan to liquidate and terminate Janus Henderson Global Unconstrained Bond Portfolio (the “Portfolio”) with such liquidation effective on or about March 1, 2019, or at such other time as may be deemed appropriate by the officers of the Portfolio (the “Liquidation Date”). Termination of the Portfolio is expected to occur as soon as practicable following the Liquidation Date.
Effective January 1, 2019, the Portfolio will no longer accept investments by new shareholders. The Portfolio may be required to make a distribution of any income and/or capital gains in connection with its liquidation.
If a shareholder has not redeemed their shares as of the Liquidation Date, the shareholder’s account will generally be automatically redeemed and proceeds will be sent to the shareholder at the address of record. For shareholders holding shares through a variable annuity or variable insurance contract, check with your insurance company or financial representative for your alternative investment options.
To prepare for the Portfolio’s liquidation, the portfolio manager may increase the Portfolio’s assets held in cash and similar instruments in order to pay for Portfolio expenses and meet redemption requests. As a result, the Portfolio may deviate from its stated investment strategies and policies and accordingly cease being managed to meet its investment objective.
Additionally, any asset reductions and increases in cash and similar instruments could adversely affect the Portfolio’s short-term performance prior to the Liquidation Date. The Portfolio will incur transaction costs, such as brokerage commissions, when selling certain portfolio securities as a result of its plan to liquidate and terminate. These transaction costs may adversely affect performance.
Because shares of the Portfolio are only eligible to be held by insurance company separate accounts on behalf of variable insurance contract owners, or certain qualified retirement plans, the liquidation of shares held by a shareholder is not expected to be considered a taxable event. Shareholders should consult their personal tax adviser concerning their particular tax circumstances.
Shareholders may obtain additional information by contacting their plan sponsor, broker-dealer, insurance company, or financial intermediary, or by contacting a Janus Henderson representative at 1-877-335-2687.
Please retain this Supplement with your records.

I sold my holdings in OSMAX today, while I still had some profits. The manager and analysts have moved over to Artisan to run ARTJX, and although it will take some time to come up to speed, will redeploy the proceeds into that fund in both my regular and roth iras. Will hold in cash for now and see where market is headed before i buy. Also have a limit order in for T. Bought some back 6 months ago, when it was yielding 5.4%, at todays price is yielding over 7. Better than my bond funds, this is my taxable account where I do use dividends for income.

FYI: This is a special edition of the scorecard that looks at the performance of most prominent mutual funds over the past year. This aims to give readers a snapshot of what mutual funds posted the best and worst performance year-to-date and explain why. The performance is calculated from January 1 to November 30.
Overall, mutual funds experienced another year of carnage in terms of flows. Around $43 billion were withdrawn from mutual funds year-to-date, with equities particularly disliked by investors. Equities had outflows of around $126 billion. Bond mutual funds saw positive flows of $124 billion, while hybrid funds experienced $41 billion in outflows.
The flow picture for 2018 is similar to 2017 and 2016, with strong outflows from equities were offset by bond inflows. However, one difference between 2018 and 2017 is that last year total outflows were positive at $67 billion. 2016 was the worst of the three years, with total outflows standing at $196 billion.
The macroeconomic footprint was driven by several factors. In the second year of the Donald Trump presidency, he delivered on some of his promises and started a trade war with China, although a temporary truce was reached lately. A positive for markets overall were Trump’s tax cuts, which gave a boost to the U.S. GDP.
The Federal Reserve continued to raise interest rates this year but signaled recently it may put the brakes on future rate hikes.
The Eurozone economy slowed down in 2018 after a few strong years, thanks to the support provided by the European Central Bank.
Regards,
Ted
http://mutualfunds.com/news/2018/12/25/mutual-fund-scorecard-annual-edition/

Difficult to find the application forms (or even current prospectuses) online, but I came up with some things that may do. Though it's probably better to contact the fund directly for the forms.
Curious too that the prospectus says explicitly that the fund is offered to nonresidents (bold in original):

How to Purchase Shares
The Fund may be purchased by U.S. or non-U.S. shareholders, and the procedure for purchasing shares are the same for both U.S. and non-U.S. shareholders .

From the SEC site, the standalone IRA application (also found as an exhibit in the 2018 prospectus, see below):
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1679960/000116204418000223/state485bposexh5201803.htm
A search on the SEC mutual fund filings page for STATX comes up empty, but SeekingAlpha (of all places) seems to have all of them (set Filing Type to All):
https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/STATX/sec-filings
The March 29, 2018 485BPOS (also from SeekingAlpha) contains the IRA application form as (exhibit) Ex. 99.28.h.v, and the individual taxable account application form as Ex. 99.28.h.vi
https://seekingalpha.com/filing/3957574

https://gulfnews.com/business/markets/for-investors-an-ugly-three-months-after-10-very-good-years-1.61074505
Article from Dubai but gives very interesting perspectives
-Many are worried that the best days are in the past — at least for the foreseeable future-

I wanted to purchase this fund awhile back but it wasn’t available anywhere much less at TD Ameritrade where I trade. Still not available at TD but now I see it is available at Vanguard with a transaction fee. From what I hear these newer funds go to Schwab first so not sure if is available there now too. My kind of fund in that its equity curve is straight up with no volatility. One of the rare bond funds that is meaningfully up over the past 1 month, 3 months and YTD. A more volatile fund but with the same performance would be NVHIX/AX. At least for me, with money market funds closing in on 2.50%, I would prefer to see a fund where there is a potential return several percentage points above cash. The mini debacle in junk corporates has my attention but would like to see more blood there. Anxious to see what early January has in store for bonds.

A report of "Harold Evensky’s final presentation on investing."
https://www.advisorperspectives.com/articles/2018/09/26/the-investment-world-according-to-harold-evensky
Very straightforward, nothing earth shattering, though several points I've seen elsewhere are included here:
"Evensky cited the Shiller CAPE ratio, which is 31.1 versus its historical average of 16.2. 'It’s a very expensive market,' he said."
Maybe not as expensive as three months ago when this presentation was made, but still far from cheap.
"If a manager cuts turnover from 100% to 50%, the marginal reduction in taxes is negligible, Evensky said. Managers need to be closer to 10% turnover to be thought of as tax-efficient."
Which is why I may fret about Dick Strong-type churning, but don't obsess over "moderate" turnover. Though turning over an entire portfolio within a year still isn't "moderate" from other perspectives.
“'Our clients don’t need cash flow,' Evensky said. 'They need real income.' The problem with dividends is that they are not consistent; interest is also volatile, as bonds are subject to interest rate movements. 'Our clients need reasonably consistent income,' he said".
Hence a focus on total return.
“'we tend, particularly in planning, to focus on the probability but ignore the consequences. That can be really dangerous in planning.' If you know the probably of success is 95%, the consequences of failure still matter, he said. We need to plan, for example, for additional longevity of our clients."
Which is why I continue to be concerned about simulations showing 95% success that don't also tell me how bad the results are in those other 5% (miss by just a little, or spend golden years of poverty?)
Evensky has changed his outlook about annuities, which he once derided as an inappropriate vehicle for his clients. Single-premium immediate annuities (SPIAs) and deferred-income annuities (DIAs) will be the single most important tool in the coming decade, he said, mostly because their fees have come down

Curious to see if anyone owns this fund or their thoughts about this fund? Thanks for any information provided.
Fund website is http://www.tbil.co/
Already contacted the 800 telephone number on the above webpage. Telephone number appears to be to its main offices in Las Vegas, not the transfer agent Mutual Shareholder Services, LLC (http://www.mutualss.com/welcome.aspx ). Other telephone party directed me to contact Mutual Shareholder Services, LLC for an application if I was interested.
Fund investment strategy is:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1679960/000116204418000562/state497201809.htm
Principal Investment Strategies
Under normal market conditions, the Fund primarily invests its net assets (exclusive of proceeds (collateral) received with respect to securities lending, repurchase agreements and reverse repurchase agreement transactions) in U.S. Treasury securities, which include bills, notes, and bonds issued by the U.S. Treasury, that have remaining maturities of three months. The balance of the Fund’s portfolio will consist of a mixture of cash and U.S. Treasury securities, which include bills, notes, and bonds issued by the U.S. Treasury, with remaining maturities of less than three months and remaining maturities of longer than three months. In addition, under normal market conditions, the Fund will hold at least one U.S. Treasury security with a maturity of at least 14 months, as measured at the time of purchase, and the Fund will maintain a portfolio with a dollar weighted average maturity of at least 90 days. The Portfolio manager may adjust the dollar weighted average maturity of the Fund’s portfolio within the stated limit based on current and anticipated changes in interest rates. The foregoing specific maturity lengths are described as measured at the time of purchase. U.S. Treasury securities are backed by the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. Government, which means that the U.S. Government guarantees that the interest and principal will be paid when due. All of the Fund’s assets will be invested in U.S. dollar-denominated securities.
In order to enhance income, the Fund intends to enter into securities lending, repurchase agreement and/or reverse repurchase agreement transactions that provide the Fund with income at either fixed or floating (variable) interest rates and fees. The Fund may lend its portfolio of securities to broker/dealers, institutional investors, institutional investment managers, banks, mutual funds, and insurance and/or reinsurance companies located in one of the member countries of The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”). Securities lending allows the Fund to retain ownership of the securities loaned and, at the same time, earn additional income from fees paid by borrowers. Loans will be made only to parties who have been reviewed and deemed satisfactory by New York Alaska ETF Management LLC, the Fund’s investment adviser (the “Adviser”), pursuant to guidelines adopted by the Board of Trustees (the “Board” or the “Board of Trustees”) of State Funds (the “Trust”), and which provide collateral, which is either (i) 102% cash or (ii) 102%-115% U.S. government securities. The collateral is marked to market daily and, if the value of the existing collateral decreases or the value of the securities lent increases, the borrower will be required to post additional collateral.
The Fund may enter into repurchase agreements and/or reverse repurchase agreements with broker/dealers, institutional investors, institutional investment managers, banks, mutual funds, and insurance and/or reinsurance companies located in one of the member countries of the OECD. Repurchase transactions involve the purchase of securities with an agreement to resell the securities at an agreed-upon price, date and interest payment. Reverse repurchase transactions involve the sale of securities with an agreement to repurchase the securities at an agreed-upon price, date and interest payment and have the characteristics of borrowing. the Fund will invest over 5% of its assets in reverse repurchase agreements in which proceeds (collateral) received with respect to reverse repurchase agreements will include cash, U.S. Treasury securities or debt instruments secured by U.S. Treasury securities. The Fund will earmark or establish a segregated account equal in value to its obligations to hold the aforementioned proceeds (collateral).
A bond’s “maturity” refers to the length of time until the bond’s principal must be paid back. “Dollar weighted average maturity” (“WAM”) is the weighted average amount of time it take for the Fund’s bond portfolio to mature. This means that the higher the Fund’s portfolio’s WAM, the longer it takes for all of the bonds in the portfolio to mature. WAM is calculated by computing the percentage value of each bond instrument in the portfolio. The number of days or months until the bond’s maturity is multiplied by each percentage, and the sum of the subtotals equals the WAM of the bonds in the portfolio.
WAM is not the same thing as “duration.” Duration is an approximate measure of a bond’s price sensitivity to changes in interest rates. If a bond has a duration of six years, for example, its price will rise about 6% if interest rates drop by a percentage point, and its price will fall by about 6% if interest rates rise by a percentage point. For investment purposes, the Fund uses the Macaulay method of calculating duration, named after its creator, Frederick Macaulay. Macaulay duration is the weighted average term to maturity of the cash flows from a bond. The weight of each cash flow is determined by dividing the present value of the cash flow by the price.
The Adviser may, but is not required to, use a securities lending agent to facilitate its securities lending transactions or may itself act as agent, for which the Adviser will receive no separate compensation. The Fund may split fees earned from securities lending with any unaffiliated lending agent, but in no event will the Fund pay more than 15% of the interest or fees earned from securities lending to a securities lending agent who administers the lending program in accordance with guidelines approved by the Board of Trustees.
The Fund seeks to maximize income from securities lending and reverse repurchase agreement transactions through entering into such transactions with counterparties who may reuse the securities obtained through securities lending and/or reverse repurchase agreements with the Fund to collateralize other transactions with different counterparties. Such counterparties may be willing to enter into securities lending and/or reverse repurchase agreement transactions with the Fund on more favorable terms than would otherwise be available.
Under normal market conditions, the Fund will invest not less than 80% of its net assets (exclusive of collateral with respect to securities lending, repurchase and reverse repurchase agreement transactions), plus any borrowings for investment purposes, in U.S. Treasury securities, which include bills, notes, and bonds issued by the U.S. Treasury, that have remaining maturities of three months.
The Fund is not a money market fund and thus does not seek to maintain a stable NAV of $1.00 per share. Additionally, the Fund’s investment strategy will cause the Fund’s portfolio to exceed the dollar weighted average maturity requirements imposed on money market mutual funds. Furthermore, the Fund’s use of reverse repurchase transactions will have a leveraging effect on the Fund’s NAV, which is generally inconsistent with the stable net asset value associated with money market mutual funds. In addition, although the Fund may invest in securities that may be held by money market funds, it is not subject to the regulations applicable to money market funds.

@msf The comment @Junkster made fits my situation well. I receive social security and have a modest but dependable inflation adjusted pension. I also receive somewhat substantial investment income (3.5% of beginning principal balance gets withdrawn each year). My three legged stool can probably remain stable after suffering significantly more investment loss than his two legged stool could. After a "bad" investment year, travelling and other frills may decline for one or perhaps a few years. But, day to day life is not impacted......

FYI: As Christmas shopping comes to an end, companies within the retail and consumer goods industries will be closing shop for the one day of the year. Following a large number of busy shopping sprees, the consumer discretionary and consumer staple sectors have predominantly successful Q4s in previous years. This year has not to been the case.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.etfstream.com/news/5727_fall-in-christmas-shoppers-burdens-the-consumer-spending-sectors

FYI: Japanese stocks plunged Tuesday and other Asian markets declined following heavy Wall Street losses triggered by President Donald Trump’s attack on the U.S. central bank.
The Nikkei 225 NIK, -5.01% fell by an unusually wide margin of 5%, hitting its lowest point since May 2017 with a close at 19,155.74. The index is now down just over 21% from highs reached in early October, which meets a widely accepted definition of a bear market. Loses were widespread, with all 33 Tokyo Stock Exchange subsectors posting losses. Fuji Electric 6504, -7.55% dropped over 7%, SoftBank Group 9984, -7.58% was off 7.6%, Fast Retailing 9983, -4.13% fell over 4% and Toyota 7203, -5.25% sank over 5%.
China’s Shanghai Composite Index SHCOMP, -0.88% pared losses to close down 0.9%, with the smaller-cap Shenzhen Composite 399106, -0.81% faring the same. Taiwan’s benchmark index Y9999, -1.17% declined more than 1%.
Markets in Hong Kong, Australia and South Korea were closed for Christmas.
Regards,
Ted
U.S.: (Closed
Europe: (Closed)
Asia: WSJ:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/japanese-stocks-track-u-s-drop-to-20-month-low-11545712962?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1
Asia: MarketWatch:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/japans-nikkei-plunges-after-wall-streets-latest-slide-2018-12-24/print
Asia: Bloomberg:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-25/nikkei-225-falls-below-20-000-as-japanese-stock-rout-accelerates
Asia: Reuters:
https://www.reuters.com/article/japan-stocks-close/corrected-nikkei-hits-20-mth-low-after-wall-st-slides-on-u-s-political-worries-idUSL3N1YU1C0
Asia: CNBC:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/25/asia-markets-japans-nikkei-hits-20-month-low.html
Current Futures:
https://finviz.com/futures.ashx

Lost about >10% of my total portfolio .. What should I do now.

John, that’s why it’s important to maintain a well-stocked liquor cabinet.
While my funds are off almost 5% YTD, the half-dozen bottles of scotch whisky I stashed away last summer haven’t lost a dime in value.

I reached out to Holbrook Holdings this afternoon about the fund's 3 and 1-month underperformance.
Here's the reply:
The fund is struggling in this environment because all corporate credit is weak, but it is particularly bad in the BDC space. A fund that tracks BDC’s is down 11.5% over the last month, which is indictive of where these have traded. Since there is so much retail money in these, they tend to become extremely oversold in environments like this, where they seem to be thrown out at all levels. Issues that were paying 4-5% 3 months ago are now yielding 8-10%, and not a lot has changed except sentiment in that space. The spread on these has widened out to over 1 point which is as severe as it has been since August 2011, so we are continuing to hold and anticipate that after tax loss selling abates, but it is no fun in the meantime.
Hope this helps.
I profiled the fund in the July Observer.

Re: TRRIX - The fund lost 18% during 2008. The S&P was off 36.5% that year. Over the past 10 years (including 2008) the fund has averaged in excess of 6% annual. I’d guess that cash and cash-equivalency instruments failed to return even half that much over the same period.
I’m not a momentum investor. Further, I can afford to have 2 or 3 bad years back-to-back without seriously impacting my subsistence / standard of living. What I never hear mentioned here (or anywhere) are the dangers of paper currencies - implicit in their tendancy to self-devalue over the years. Just think about that new car sticker of $3,000 in 1970 (which I referenced above) to get a sense of what happens to virtually all paper currencies over time. Trying to fight that continuous devaluation of paper is the best reason I can think of for charting a long term investment course.
@Junkster is known to be a superb investor. He was so good trading in and out during his day that he was banned by at least one house. Says a lot. :) And I always welcome his contributions here!

I don't own this fund, but I disagree with your analysis. According to M* 93% of the bonds this fund owns are BBB or better, so it's not junk. It did drop last week, but is still up 0.5% ytd, which is better than the vanguard total bond market index (-0.8% ytd), a good proxy for the bond market in general. HOBIX is a tiny, new fund ($31M in assets, inception mid-2016), and expenses for a bond fund are high (1.34%). If I owned it I wouldn't be panicking.