@davidmoran: Here is the article by John Waggoner that I link on 5/1/17 by using Google Search. Most of the articles on the Investment News Website requirw a subscription.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/search?q=Is+It+Time+to+Go+International+&cad=h

Irrelevant. You introduced it as preferable to DODIX. That's all that matters.
"Hard to see over 10/5/3/1y why you would ever want it over FTBFX"
Edit: I disagree that you have demonstrated alpha (the existence of which depends upon correlation and beta, neither of which you've presented).

Hi @bee
As we know the markets are sometimes silly, funny and most times difficult to attempt to find proper paths for our money (adjusted for one's risk style). Since the market melt, anticipated and accepted gains have been found in many areas. This is not rocket science (at least in hind sight). :) ........ was one helluva "value" market in March, 2009, yes?.
The following graph is one that I have constructed/viewed previous, is of interest; at least to me, as how areas have changed here and there. This graph are funds I have selected as long term real estate active managed funds for a "fair" comparison. I've also included SPY.
In particular for me, is that the time period for this chart (Sept. 2008 to date) shows very favorable for total return of FRIFX against the other funds, including SPY. However, if one moves the "left" slider adjustment (on the day bar, showing 2,326 days) all the way left to 2003; one will see how different the return of FRIFX was from 2003-early 2009 was during this period and also, overall from 2003 to date showing FRIFX got its butt kicked by other real estate funds. Those who have held the other RE funds since or before the 2003 date are still doing okay.
So, what happened to the other fine managers of RE funds since March, 2009 vs lonely FRIFX? Are the managers having that much difficulty sorting and trying to find where in the world of American real estate they should be invested? Two very different periods of returns, eh?

http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?VGSIX,FRIFX,CSRSX,FRESX,SPY&n=2326&O=011000
FRIFX fund composition has been about 50/50 equity/bonds for as long as I can remember. Although much less showy than other RE funds, this fund just chugs along as of the past 9 years, not unlike PIMIX and other funds out there, of which I am not aware.
Composition: https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/composition/316389865?type=o-NavBar
FRIFX remains a much different RE fund from its peers. I have not plowed through the holdings of the other funds charted here; but FRIFX has some of the same holdings as other funds, with the variance being the bond holdings. There is investment grade, mortgage and junk (a fairly big chunk) bonds.
The only year FRIFX was #1 in the category is 2008. The average RE fund was down about -40% and FRIFX was down -31%. Generally, the fund is always in the last 10% of the category per M*. The current 30 day SEC yield is about 3.8%, average bond duration of 2.55 years and has an annualized 10 year return of 7.34%.
The fund is still about 10% of our total portfolio.
Lastly, a quick look chart which includes FREL. This chart only goes back to Feb. 2015, as FREL is quite new. IYR and FREL travel together at this time.
http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?FRIFX,FREL,IYR,SPY&n=709&O=011000
Well, anyway; I recall @Ted wondering why we weren't playing with the big dogs in the world of RE. The charts speak for themselves at this point in time. We'll see, eh?
This time remains different, IMHO.
I didn't proofread this.....pick my write for errors or omissions.
Take care,
Catch

Another good way to play the growth in China's internet sector is via T. Rowe Price Emerging Markets Stock Fund (PRMSX). Almost 22.5% of its holdings are in Tencent and Alibaba.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/PRMSX/
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/21/these-tech-stocks-are-outperforming-adding-600-billion-in-market-cap.html

"Supposedly both funds vary duration based on market conditions, right?; it is not written in their charters otherwise, I think."

FTBFX prospectus: "The Adviser uses the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Universal Bond Index as a guide in structuring the fund and selecting its investments. The Adviser uses the index as a guide in allocating the fund's assets across the investment-grade, high yield, and emerging market asset classes. The Adviser manages the fund to have similar overall interest rate risk to the index."

@catch22...thanks for the "catch".
Since you are more familiar with this fund (FRIFX), do you ever use it as a indicator of the broader Real Estate index (I'll use VGSIX...the index) . It seems FRIFX might serve as good indicator of whether the RE Index is over or under performing. Comparison over a 1 Year timeframe: VGSIX is over pereforming slightly (2%), but with substantially more volatility:

Over three years the two are in a dead heat with only two short moments where the index out performed:

Finally, a comparison of FRIFX to PIMIX (PONDX, PONAX, PONCX, Etc.) over the last 8 years. Obviously the March 2009 downturn was tough on FRIFX where it lost 40% while PIMIX only lost 5%.

Well, good question, and I did it myself, though to no avail thus far. In general I think of Europe (and other international) investing along the lines of the JWaggoner articles I have posted --- not worth it for a host of reasons, and since the SP500 companies are so international, all the more reason. Currency deltas are key too:
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20170429/FREE/170429921/is-it-time-to-go-international
Many also point out that diversification is not that good a motive, finally.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/793769/000119312517352384/d473833d497.htm
497 1 d473833d497.htm HARBOR COMMODITY REAL RETURN STRATEGY FUND - SUPPLEMENT TO SAI
111 South Wacker Drive, 34th Floor
Chicago, IL 60606-4302
harborfunds.com
Supplement to Statement of Additional Information dated August 1, 2017
Harbor Commodity Real Return Strategy Fund
Harbor Funds’ Board of Trustees has determined to liquidate and dissolve the Harbor Commodity Real Return Strategy Fund. The liquidation of the Fund is expected to occur on January 26, 2018. The liquidation proceeds will be distributed to any remaining shareholders of the Fund on the liquidation date.
Shareholders may exchange shares of the Fund for another Harbor fund, or redeem shares out of the Fund, in accordance with Harbor’s exchange and redemption policies as set forth in the Fund’s prospectus, until the date of the Fund’s liquidation.
In order to ready the Fund for liquidation, the Fund’s portfolio of investments will be transitioned prior to the planned liquidation date to one that consists of all or substantially all cash and cash equivalents. As a result, shareholders should no longer expect that the Fund will aim to achieve its investment objective of seeking maximum real return.
Because the Fund will be liquidating, the Fund is now closed to new investors. The Fund will no longer accept additional investments from existing shareholders beginning on December 31, 2017.
November 27, 2017

Comparing 1 YR performance of IYR to a Real Estate Income Fund, such as FRIFX, reveals about a (5.7%) upside difference in performance for IYR.

Real estate stock appreciation comes with a fair amount of volatility. Be prepared for that kind of a ride. If you are looking primarily for income buy a fund like FRIFX , but even FRIFX lost 40% of it's value in March of 2009.

Long term it trails the index (VGSIX or VNQ) by 15%:

4 of it's top 5 holdings, or 5 of it's top 7 pretty much sums it up. I'm not sure how a roughly 7% YTD return qualifies as hot but so it goes.

FYI: Too much vanilla is growing tiresome for yield-hungry investors. So they’re trying out more exotic flavors -- including a particularly hot real estate exchange traded fund.
The iShares U.S. Real Estate ETF, ticker IYR, took in $425 million last week, the largest weekly inflow in almost a year. The fund hadn’t seen more than $400 million since last December.
Regards,
Ted
M* Snapshot IYR:
http://www.morningstar.com/etfs/arcx/iyr/quote.html
Lipper Snapshot IYR:
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/iyr
IYR Is Ranked #11 In The (RE) ETF Category By U.S. News & world Report:
https://money.usnews.com/funds/etfs/real-estate/ishares-us-real-estate-etf/iyr

Supposedly both funds vary duration based on market conditions, right?; it is not written in their charters otherwise, I think. They are supposed to be tactical about these things. Fido is typically slightly more aggressive / bullish in all respects than other shops, in my experience. Though I am surprised FPURX gets little love here.
Sure about penny foolishness; for me it's always is a matter of 'long run.' I just historically have often not held funds quite long enough, or in large enough amounts, to warrant paying $50. In my mind anyway, meaning I want the option to bail sooner than later, feeling the pressure to hold since I already paid. You may well be immune to such self-pressure. It was something I learned vividly 02-09.
Have never used Vanguard, have been trying to simplify and reduce holdings and institutions.

"? You are saying Fidelity does not deploy the defensiveness savvy of D&C? That would show up in risk measures, right"
I am saying (and quoting M* to the same effect) that D&C consistently maintains a shorter (i.e. more interest rate risk defensive) position than does Fidelity. If you want to characterize that as savvy rather than mechanical, that's one way of looking at it, especially in a rising interest rate environment. IMHO, a "savvy" fund would vary duration based on market conditions. But that could be viewed as savvy in an aggressive sense.
My investment philosophy has been to (try to) be pound wise, rather than penny foolish. I'll invest in institutional shares and eat the $5 fees, rather than pay a fund company an extra 0.25%/year in order to avoid a five hundred penny toll. I would not look at a retail share class like PONDX when I could instead invest in an institutional share class like PIMIX and save money in the long run.
(PIMIX has a $25K min at Vanguard, with fees of $8/trade for Voyager Select and probably free for Flagship customers. "anywhere else" would seem to include Vanguard.)

ETFs and stocks cost $4.95 to buy or to sell, or about ten bucks round trip.
TF funds, once you have a position, can usually be purchased for $5 and sold for free, a round trip cost of exactly five bucks. You have to use their automatic investment system.
That requires you to schedule two or more investments, but it allows you to cancel at any time. So when you want to buy, you schedule your purchase (plus subsequent dummy ones), you wait for the first scheduled investment to be processed, and cancel the remaining ones.

Fidelity does not charge a fee for automatic investments in Fidelity funds or No Transaction Fee (NTF) FundsNetwork funds. After the initial investment, a $5 fee is charged per automatic investment into a FundsNetwork transaction fee fund.

https://www.fidelity.com/cash-management/automatic-investments

What is this 5 bucks you mention? For fidelity i believe that only applies to etf and stock trades. Mutual fund trades have a different set of price points

"Lipper aggregated rating is the same (ML uses that one), for some reason"
Lipper rates on five attributes:
Total Return/Consistent Return/Preservation/Tax Efficiency/Expense.
"Unlike Morningstar or U.S. News, Lipper doesn't award an aggregate rating to mutual funds or ETFs." Investopedia, Understanding Lipper Ratings in Mutual Funds
What ML is doing is giving you just the first of those five attribute ratings - raw performance:
"Rating based on Total Return and reflects fund historic total return performance relative to peers"
https://olui2.fs.ml.com/RIMutualFundsUI/RIMFOverview.aspx?Symbol=FTBFX
If all you care about is that raw performance, and you don't think that positioning a bond fund defensively now (while achieving the same performance) is an advantage, then sure, save five bucks (the cost of buying additional shares of DODIX at Fidelity) and invest in FTBFX.
I've supported the argument that "you can't eat risk-adjusted returns." So I'm not unsympathetic to the argument that one might reasonably ignore all but the first of the five Lipper ratings. However, all else being equal (or within $5 of equal), I would take the equal performing fund with the lower risk.
From M*: DODIX's "duration ... has historically run short of [AGG's]". FTBFX's managers "aim to keep duration close to ... [AGG's]."
Even for a Fidelity-only investor, once one is in the disinvesting stage, there's little to no cost in holding a TF fund - no cost to sell or reinvest, and at worst the occasional nominal fee to rebalance.

Lipper aggregated rating is the same (ML uses that one), for some reason.
As are their 10y M* ratings.
Interesting that 0.02% ER difference (if I am reading it right) impacts both Lipper and M* fee ratings, a single rating level change. I suppose you have to draw a line somewhere.
I cannot see any period other than 3y and 15y where Fido outperforms, so I should have written that it's hard to see why you would prefer D&C unless all other variables are equal (xaction fee absence). In other words if you used Fido only then you would not have much reason to prefer D&C.
Still, a somewhat puzzling article.

DODIX vs. FTBFX:
Assuming past is prologue (a not so great assumption), and given that these are two relatively vanilla intermediate term bond funds, M* star ratings should fairly well encapsulate their relative risk-adjusted performance. 5 star vs. 4 star.
Likewise, Lipper rates the former more highly: 5/5/5/2/5 vs. 5/5/4/1/4 (better in preservation, tax efficiency, and cost, respectively)
The better M* rating is due to D&C's lower risk - average vs. above average (determined in part, but not exclusively, by volatility). As noted, performance has been similar (within 0.10% annualized) over 3, 10, and 15 year periods, though D&C has outperformed by 1/4% annualized over the past five year span.
Similar SEC yields (2.59% vs. 2.62) with similar average credit ratings (BBB per M*) yet significantly lower average duration (4.20 years vs. 5.39 years). Important as rates begin to rise.
Big difference in turnover (27% vs. 137%).
I'll go along with Hank on trust in company, even though FMR, LLC is also privately held (49% of voting shares controlled by Johnson family)

Thanks for sharing @MikeM
The robo at 13.3% YTD is eye-catching. I have no experience with robo. I looked at T. Rowe Price’s funds (more or less out of habit) to see how their target date funds compared. Price’s website puts their Target Date 2025 fund (TRRVX) as of 11/24 at +13.53% YTD (although Lipper has it a bit lower).
From Price’s website, the current composition is:
Domestic Bond 35.1%
Domestic Stock 33.9%
Foreign Stock 18.2%
Foreign Bond 10.1%
Cash 2.8%
Convertibles 0.3%
Preferred .02%
Looks like TRRVX’s total equity weighting is in the 50-55% range (and about where Lipper puts it).
As I think you know, I never offer advice (It would be dangerous!) So just trying to glean what I can from your serve.
I’ll share that my benchmark, TRRIX, is only up +9.5% YTD. I lag it by about a percent. Some of that has to do with an injection of $$ from a real estate sale last summer. That slug of $$ only started earning at mid-year, but due to my poor math aptitude I include the sum in the year’s starting total for computing purposes.
Good luck. Thanks for the informative presentation.