Good briefing from Eric Balchunas et al at Bloomberg. Enjoy. c
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AmF1g-5ef-jIk81XuK51dIiWpncsqQ

It was only seven years since I made this post about STADX specifically and "enhanced cash" funds generally. How soon they forget :-)
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/21712/#Comment_21712
Until the GFC when most of these funds vanished in the US, "enhanced cash" was used to group three types of funds that fall between MMFs and short term bond funds. While the term has fallen into disuse, it still seems to be an apt moniker.
iMoneyNet continues to use the term. Here's the way they define the fund categories (from a 2016 iMoneyNet presentation). All colors, bolding, etc. in original. The categories are arranged from least risk to greatest.
Enhanced Cash Sector Categories Defined
Cash Plus Funds- Government Portfolios and Prime Portfolios

• Seeks to maintain a stable $1 NAV but uses mark-to-market, not amortized-cost valuations
• WAM usually range up to 180 days (MMFs are up to 60 days)
• Priorities:1) Stability of Principal, 2) Yield, and 3) Liquidity

Enhanced Cash Funds- Government Portfolios, Prime Portfolios,
and Prime+Sub-Investment Grade Portfolios

• Floating NAV, Effective port. duration generally ranges up to one year
• Priorities: 1) Total Return, 2) Stability of Principal, and 3) Liquidity

Ultrashort Bond Funds- Government Portoflios, Prime Portfolios,
and Prime + Sub-Investment Grade Portfolios

• Floating NAV, Effective portfolio duration generally from 1 to 3 years
• Priorities: 1) Total Return, 2) Stability of Principal, and 3) Liquidity

I own Thompson bond fund, a short term fund that has lost 10.8% so far this year. I always thought short term funds wouldn't lose as much in a downturn but that clearly is not the case. Does anyone have any ideas as to why this is losing so much? This has been a great fund for many years but is really disappointing. All my other bond funds were up today but this was down another .97%. Thoughts?

This article takes a general look at the ways in which the current crisis may reshape our economy. It got me to thinking about OEF's that may adapt well if the economy does change significantly moving forward. I know its early on in this crisis situation, but its worth thinking about. Looking at my existing portfolio, it seems to me these stock funds may prove to be good adapters: AKREX, FBSOX, PGIRX, BGSAX, and APFDX (I bought a little more APFDX on Monday). Any thoughts about other stock funds that may do likewise?
Here are some excerpts from the article and the link:

“It’s amazing how slowly habits change, where people get stuck in the ruts of doing things, and then you have a shock like this that can change everything,” said Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. “It forces people to overcome the switching costs, figure out something new and say, ‘Hey, this is way better.’ ”
“This is an inflection point, and we’re going to look back and realize this is where it all changed,” Jared Spataro, a Microsoft executive, said in an online news briefing. “We’re never going to go back to working the way that we did.”
On the other hand.....
Carnegie Mellon economics professor Lee Branstetter said his first attempts at teaching students online convinced him that although there is some opportunity for efficiencies, the old-fashioned classroom experience offers much more. He expects other forays into living and working online will convince many to return to routine human contact once they can.
“What I’m appreciating is just how much we lose when we go online,” Branstetter said.
Once the crisis is over, he added, “People are going to be so sick and tired of takeout.”

https://washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/21/economy-change-lifestyle-coronavirus/

Thanks @FD1000 I thought there may be some other data sort at another particular site that Charles views to obtain a different inference. I'm familiar with the M* data.
@Charles, you noted:

How could there not be a robust market for TLT? But there wasn't ... until yesterday.

The market for these similar TLT, EDV and ZROZ Treasury issues has been robust; but when these and other Treasury issues started to falter on March 9, is the reason for my post that was originally titled, "Absolutely Dumbfounded"...........something was "broken".
However, these 3 have performed well YTD:
--- TLT = +20.6% YTD
--- EDV = + 27.5% YTD
--- ZROZ = +30.1% YTD
However, as I had noted previous; these 3 etf's can be hot potatoes and deliver in the opposite direction, too.
I expect these 3 will give up some positive, with an initial "stimulus" package passage; but who knows how long any of a "happy" time may exist for an equity bump, too. Many bond and equity bumps in the road ahead.
Take care,
Catch

wow, IOFIX only -1.3% today
But, SEMMX (more conservative with SD around 1-1.2) was down another -2.95%

There are a lot of different situations that are getting mixed together here.
@MikeM raises the question of employer plan rollovers in kind. Often employer plans require you to liquidate your holdings and transfer cash. If they make an exception, it is usually limited to rollovers within the same financial institution, e.g. a TRP-managed 401(k) to a TRP IRA. So rollovers have their own obstacles independent of whether funds are closed or not.
Then there are transfers of shares held directly with a fund company (not the situation here). Long ago, TRP was willing to do an in-kind Roth conversion for me of a closed fund to a new Roth account. More recently, it told me that it would not do an in-kind conversion of a closed fund to a new Roth.
At the same time that TRP was telling me this, Fidelity was telling me sure, they could do the Roth conversion of TRP shares in-kind. I never tested this and have my doubts about whether TRP would allow them to open the new account.
IMHO, the key question is how strict the fund company is with respect to opening new accounts, regardless of where that new account will be opened. The TRP examples above show how this can go either way, and also that a fund company's flexibility can change over time.
Regarding @little5bee's transfer request: Let us know what happens. Filling out a transfer request form is different from actually getting the shares transferred.
I own legacy shares of a fund that over the years transformed into institutional class shares at Legg Mason. It now has a $1M (or higher?) min, not technically closed. Legg Mason has informed me that it will reject any transfer request from another institution (such as Schwab) unless I meet the $1M min in the receiving account. Yeah, sure. I'm hoping that the new fund distributor, Franklin Templeton, will be more flexible.

@Graust, not sure what you were looking at. As of yesterday's close, IOFIX was down over -34% for 1Y, and even through Friday's close it was about -25%.
@BenWP, I get the joke, but maybe you could use another analogy given SA's horrendous record of racehorse deaths? I'd hate to think that our investments could go down for the count at any time.
@franktrdr, I read that article on SA, and others describing the mayhem in the FI markets. I believe the author may have been mistaken about CEF NAVs. AFAIK, they are still only published weekly. M* shows a daily as of date, but in the cases of the CEFs I hold, the manager's website only updates weekly and the value on M* only changes weekly. I'm not certain as to whether or not there are any other sources which are updated more frequently.
In all my days, and I'm talking pre-1987 crash by more than a decade, I've never seen anything like this environment, and, I can also say that I've never seen a fund with a perfect '100' scorecard across all linked time-periods on M*, as is the situation for this fund. 'Never say never'.
To try and figure out whether this fund is ever worth going back into, much less now when things are so crazy that, e.g. Vanguard's Muni MM has a 7-day yield of 3%!!!!, Charles is absolutely right, things need to settle down, and then I'd look for funds that maybe weren't so great on the way up, but didn't kill you on the way down.
One final comment on the TLT price breaks vs. NAV. USTs are the Gold Standard for collateral, repos, derivatives, etc., so when things start to unwind, and counter-parties can't make payments, they can lose the bonds and the new holders may be very eager to liquidate because they don't want the interest rate risk (in addition to whatever else is on their balance sheets). Hence, fire sales abound. There was also a story last week about a CME clearing firm (Ronin Capital) that went belly up (dealer-to-dealer) and whose assets had to be auctioned off.
Be careful out there!

@catch22. I know. Unprecedented really. How could there not be a robust market for TLT? But there wasn't ... until yesterday. Here's illustration ...
https://twitter.com/MstarETFUS/status/1242452746466402305?s=20

M* (link) NAV vs PRice
Example as of 3/23/2020...for one week...Price=+1.28...NAV=-0.51%

Just as a reminder, RPHYX is the Short Term High Yield Fund and RSIVX is Strategic Income. The former is down 2.5%, the latter down 14.5% as of 3/23/20.

+1 @Old_Joe, and it sounds like you practice what you preach.
I split the difference, sold a chunk of VPCCX equal to about 5% of my overall portfolio. If the market shoots up again, I'll sell another 5%. If it drops, I'll wait for these up-and-down spikes to subside, then buy BIAWX.

Let us know what Schwab says. When I transferred my T. Rowe Price 401k to a Schwab IRA, I could not transfer in-kind. They told me the transfer would enter Schwab to a cash/sweep account and I would have to buy from that. Because of this, I kept money in my TRP 401k so that I could keep PWRCX.

@catch22 Actually I would challenge the notion. It is not secret I am bond challenged. I've also mentioned 007 doesn't know jack s*** - stirred tastes better than shaken.
When I buy bond funds I HAVE to trust the manager. This the reason I seldom buy bond funds outright. Imagine buying IOFIX "knowing what's under the hood". I'm just glad I didn't buy it.
Back to RPHYX and RSIVX. I expected these to be low risk funds. Now "low risk" is in the eye of the beholder. However when I look at FPNIX, at least I have some confidence. With RPHYX...mea. With RSIVX I'm not happy.
I bought RPHYX and FPNIX risking funds I would otherwise have put in money market.
I bought RSIVX because I thought PTTRX is risky. WTF? Please tell me ONE person who thought PTTRX is a better risk/reward bets in the "sky is falling on bonds" world where every Tom, Dick and Harry is saying buy funds with short durations. They've been wrong on this for at least 10 years.
But tell you what. Let me but PTTRX. It will promptly tank 20%.

Business Casual from the Morning Brew:
Your Crash Course in the Fed's Coronavirus Policy
Art Goldsmith economics professor at Washington and Lee University
Francis Scialabba
We did our very best to explain how the Fed is responding to the economic crisis. But sometimes...with a topic as important as this you just gotta call in the experts. Washington and Lee University economics professor Art Goldsmith is that expert.
We invited him on Morning Brew's Business Casual podcast to explain what the Fed's actions mean for your day-to-day, from getting a mortgage to choosing a bank. He also gives a master class on how Fed policy works, why it exists in the first place, and what we can expect from central bankers as COVID-19 derails the business world.
This may be the most important Business Casual episode yet. It's also a reunion: Goldsmith was Business Casual host Kinsey Grant's econ professor in college.
Listen here: Apple
Or Spotify
Everywhere else

@johnN It depends on each persons situation. I am 15 years into retirement. Our investment income currently contributes 25% to 30% to our annual household cash flow. But we can get by comfortably -- with a more modest lifestyle -- if that % drops to zero (the amount available to us this year will go down substantially from 30% if the market does not quickly rebound). My approach is different than would be necessary for a person who would be highly dependent on that income in retirement. Maybe other comments will help in that regard.

What do you do if you are near retirements. We do not know if tomorrow is another large down day. Many predict sp500 can even recede to 1700 levels for another 30s% down. Many near retire hardworking folks may have to break their backs working another 5 years until market recovers.

Good question without an exact answer @Bobpa. What might be good to look for is managers with great track records who had a lot of cash coming into this bear market. AKREX would be my 1st choice to put money back to work. I already own it and it has held up well in a relative sense, so an easy choice for me. There was a lot of discussion on the Yacktman funds a month or 2 ago. YAFFX might be a good consideration. I personally started and have been adding to BRK/B for the reason mentioned above. Berkshire Hathaway has a ton of cash on hand and has been known to put it to work when others are fleeing the market. Many say it has under performed the past few years during the bull, but this could be it's time to shine.
There are probably other good suggestions for great managers with cash on hand.

I'm planning on riding the stock market back up with pretty much with what I rode it down with; however, I have increased my allocation to equities from 40% to 45% and reduced cash to from 20% to 15% and kept my fixed at 40%. I added to a couple of my equity income funds and also to a couple of funds held in the growth area of my portfolio at the 8%, 13%, 19%, 26% and 28% decline marks on the S&P 500 Index. With this, I'm positioned and now I await the rebound. In addition, since my portfolio generates a good income stream I'll put some of this income generation back into my portfolio as the stock market rebounds.

Hi @_Bobpa
I am not investment guru/expert, but I would imagine betting on more aggressive heavily stock driven portfolio [90/10], or Emerging market/oversea products may get you back to previous peak soon if there is indeed recovery. Many predict maybe few years before we see dows at 30000 levels. Others say recessions on horizon and unemployment rate maybe extremely high in near future and severe economiccontractions.
For us late 40 years old, has many years until retirement, our portfolio still comprise 80/20, mostly index products. We are also couch potatoes thus we do hold Tdf 2045 funds in vanguard and schwab. We did not sell, hoping for market to recover soon
Our largest holders currently :
Brk.b
Vanguard primecap core
Vanguard emergent market etf VWO
EEM
Wellington fund vwelx
Vanguard star vgstx
Fbnd
Bnd
Vti
Voo
Been adding vde qqq and vti last week, even going all way downs
Probably will sell good holding bonds [private-corp bbb ] soon, would need cash to pay uncle Sam 2019 tax next few weeks.
Regards