who's talking about sinking all assets into one's house?

I actually know people who do. And they also see those ads on TV and buy rental properties. I know people at work who instead of doing work are "managing" their 12 rental properties they cannot afford.
Now their renters are not paying.
To each his/her own. My only point is especially in places where real estate is expensive it is often the largest or only real asset people have. The notion of course is home prices will always only go up. We talk about diversification benefits, but when it comes to home, that's kinda ignored since there are different ways of monetizing this asset.
I know people borrowing from their 401ks and buying real estate for rental income.

Hi @randynevin

Core plus is an investment management style that permits managers to augment a core base of holdings, within a specified-objective portfolio, with instruments that have greater risk and greater potential return. Funds that utilize this strategy are called core-plus funds

***generally, I suspect the most common bond additions move more into more perceived risk with lower rated bonds.......junk bonds, and/or foreign holdings.
So, if i built my own magic bond fund as a plus, perhaps the prospectus would show that 90% of the holdings have bonds rated in the AAA - A quality; but the kicker would the other 10% of the portfolio is the etf, QQQ.
At this point, I presume the SEC may require the name of equity/income or strategic or whatever income fund.
my 2 cents.

Combining the thoughts in the last two posts, and with apologies to Dr. Seuss (Horton Hatches the Egg):
You said what you did and you did what you said,
You can't tap home wealth 'till you're gone and dead.

You got great posts already. I would think about the risk/volatility I want to take.
WATFX is a core bond fund.
The next level are core plus funds such as DODIX.
Then, you can look at Multi sector funds which are worth holding for a portion of your money as rates are low and may go up. These funds usually have more volatility and higher distributions/income.
PIMIX is a pretty good fund but used to be a great fund until 01/2018. I prefer TSIIX for longer hold. If you need more ballast, I like PTIAX.

@BenWP, that's an excellent point about checking the total assets for which the manager has responsibility. In addition to other funds (to its credit, M* appears to list offshore as well as domestic funds), managers may also be responsible for private institutional/wealthy client accounts and/or pooled investment vehicles. You can find that information in the SAI.
"5 [other funds] $4.8 billion; 21 [pooled investments] $21.8 billion; 243 [other accounts] $2.5 billion"
(That's in addition to the $6B in MGGPX.)
M* analyst reports sometimes give a little more information: "in 2006, the firm entrusted him to launch the Global Opportunities strategies and form his own team in Hong Kong. ... After adding two more funds to their coverage in 2020, the seven-person outfit now manages seven strategies. The supporting cast also lacks notable shared tenure ..."
Something else (if one wants to get really deep into the details) is how much overlap there is in the different charges. For example, years ago, Fidelity closed Contra FCNTX (Danoff) while keeping open the much smaller New Insights (FINSX). While the funds focused on similar parts of the market, the size difference was so huge that New Insights was able to benefit from smaller companies that Contra couldn't touch, at least in any meaningful way.
All that said, I agree it would make sense for MS to consider closing some of the sibling funds also.

The single biggest variable longer term IMHO on bond funds is fees. Especially today, investment grade bond funds aren’t going to produce large returns (consistently anyway) without taking a large amount of risk. So, fee differences mean more with bond funds than with equity funds.
At .45% ER, WATFX is competitive on fees along with DODIX. Generally, that’s a low or reasonable fee for a core managed bond fund. The best source I know of on bond funds‘ holdings and performance history is Yahoo. I’ve entered your fund there and than clicked on:
“Holdings”
For interest rate sensitivity, look at “Duration” on the right. The fund is at 7 years on duration, a bit on the long side by today’s (cautious) standards - even for an intermediate term fund. By contrast, DODIX (mentioned in this thread) is a bit over 4 years on duration. WATFX should have fallen a few percent over the past 3 weeks as rates spiked. The benchmark 10-year bond‘s rate rose from below 0.60% a few weeks ago to 0.80%% today. (Rates up. Bond prices down.) The longer the duration, the more drastic the move. On the good side, your fund should be able to reinvest maturing issues at higher interest rates which will feed back into your proceeds. A caveat, however, is that investors might choose to flee. In that case, it’s harder for the fund to “self-correct”.
A second important ingredient in bond performance is credit quality. It looks like WATFX is weighted toward the middle or upper range relative to its peers. Ironically, it’s been the lower rated bonds (BB / BBB) that have had the nicest ride up in value since March due to the unprecedented actions of the Federal Reserve in buying-up (essentially backing) corporate bonds as low as BBB quality before they could fall further into junk (BB) territory. Nobody could have foreseen that action on the part of the Fed. Likely, this sharp uptick in value for lower rated bonds is temporary. But that, along with the longer than average duration, helps explain a lot about your fund’s recent behavior.
Rather than comparing performance (“chasing” per msf) I’d recommend thinking about the type of bond fund that best fits your long term style of investing and overall portfolio. What you have now is a core fund, weighted a bit on the long end of duration and hewing toward the higher quality end of the credit spectrum. The biggest advantage is it should help hedge equity losses in the future, as high quality longer duration bonds tend to rise a bit when equities tumble (though that wasn’t the case last week). Longer dated bonds also command higher rates of return. Your fund invests in higher quality credits. So, should junk and lower quality bonds decline, your fund should stand up better.
Bonds today really represent a “Catch-22.” Rates are so low that it’s unlikely bonds will reward investors for the risk they’re taking for a good many years and until rates are significantly higher. But that’s just a guess on my part. The experts have been predicting the “end of time” for bonds for at least the last decade. Generally, they’ve been wrong in that assessment. I’m 74 and retired. I certainly don’t want 100% invested in equities. Nor do I want to play much in the junk bond area. So, somewhat begrudgingly, I have about a quarter of assets in intermediate duration investment grade bond funds. A younger investor need not be as cautious.
Good luck.

Global Franchise is also a good one of theirs, if memory serves.
Need to be careful on any loads or 12(b)-1 fees, though.

I haven't found any way as a retail investor to invest in a MS share class that doesn't have a 12b-1 fee, unless I can pony up $5M (e.g. at Fidelity or at Vanguard).
Even with the fees, the total cost of ownership is not out of line (M* rates it average). I'm just wondering if you've got any workaround on the 12b-1 fees. Or does one need to invest through one's employer's plan to get a break?

WATFX has had some poor days.
This sounds more like performance chasing than a fundamental reason to change horses. It has lost 1% in the past three months. About 1/2% worse than DODIX, and still in the middle quintile (barely, at 59th percentile) of its peers.
Rather than jumping at particular funds, I suggest thinking first about the type of fund you want to own. WATFX is an excellent vanilla bond fund; if that's the type of fund you want, I wouldn't switch. DODIX (and I'll add BCOIX) are great core plus funds. That means that they add a fair amount of junk bonds, which have higher yields but also tend to move more like stocks. PIMIX is a multisector fund. These funds tend to have even more junk and may dabble in international bonds.
PIMCO funds, virtually all of them, are off in their own world and it's difficult to say exactly what they're doing at any given instant. M* likes PIMIX, describing the fund as one that "stands out for historically large positions in nonagency mortgages, which have helped drive strong performance in a variety of different market environments. It also buys corporate debt, and emerging-markets and developed foreign sovereign debt, with a sprinkling of non-U.S. dollar currency bets."
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/945813/do-you-need-a-multisector-bond-fund
Many people here are comfortable with this. The question is, are you? You'd be switching from a vanilla, high credit quality bond fund, albeit a relatively racy one (above average risk), assuming any vanilla bond fund can be called racy.
Here are a couple of graphs that may help to illustrate what I mean about performance chasing and risks:
Performance since 8/10/20 (WATFX's peak for the year, I believe)
Notice that the core fund (WATFX), core plus funds (DODIX, BCOIX), and market average (US Aggregate index) tend to track together. So does the multisector fund PDIIX, though with wider swings both up and down. But PIMIX goes its own way.
Now zoom out to YTD (click on the YTD link in the graph). You'll see that both the PIMCO funds take on a lot more risk - a huge dip in March, relative to the other funds. Over the long term, risk usually pays off. But that line of reasoning also suggests paying less attention to short term movements.
Here's a second graph, same funds, this one for the three year period before 2020 (2017-2019). It shows both PIMCO multisector funds outperforming. Notice that aside from separating a bit, all the funds still tend to track together except PIMIX. It diverges in the summer of 2019, with performance dropping from that of PDIIX to that of the more conservative funds.
My suggestion is to think first about what kind of fund you want to own. You might still wind up investing in PIMIX, but it will be for reasons beyond its performance over the past couple of months.
Side note: PIMIX is available with a $25K min at Vanguard and a $2500 min at Schwab.

As of 10/31/2020, my Challenge "Retirement Portfolio" has total value of $1,073,493, for a YTD total return of 7.35%:
PIMIX----- $212,055-----19.7%
TMSRX-----212,985-----19.8
TSIIX-----218,534-----20.4
VLAIX-----429,919-----40.1
Total----- $1,073,493-----100.0%
Fred

31 October 2020
Portfolio summary
20,000 shares of FUAMX. $237,800.
2,000. IGOV. $105,940.
10,000. SGOL. $180,500.
7,000 SGGDX $183,960.
1,500. FSUTX. $131,985.
10,000. FLOWX. $120,700.
Cash. FDLXX $ 91,576.75
Total. $1,052,461.75
John

I own MSFBX no load/ntf at Fidelity and Schwab. E/R is 1.19% . 35% is invested in the Consumer Defensive category, and lost under 30% in 2008.

I think replacing VLSIX with RLSFX may help with the "minimum drawdown" aspect, at least based on their short-term history.

I replaced VLSIX with RLSFX and the results were worse for performance and SD. See (link)

First, I don't list all my funds and I don't follow all the funds.
Second, I list the ones that have done better for 1-3 months but still make some choices.
PIMIX is on the list under Multi.
WATFX is a good fund but I prefer GIBLX which is better for 1-5 years.
Your question is more complicated. What kind of investor are you? do you need a ballast fund? is it for 3 months or 3 years? are you retired? how much risk/volatility you want to take? how the other portion of your portfolio look like
Sure, PIMIX did better than WATFX last month because rates were up and Multi did better.
You need to tell me a lot more before I can post my ideas.
PIMIX is a pretty good fund but used to be a great fund until 01/2018. I prefer TSIIX for longer hold. If you need more ballast, I like PTIAX.

Since 01/2019, the above funds made 8.5% + SD=2. See (link)
VLSIX is the one that limits it.
But I can do even better with BIL=40% + IQDAX=30% + VLSIX=30% and make 12.6% + SD=3.55(still low)

Global Franchise is also a good one of theirs, if memory serves.
Need to be careful on any loads or 12(b)-1 fees, though.

Happy Halloween experts!
Just for entertainment purposes only and to maybe provide for good debate and ideas to the class going forward...provide your best 5 fund portfolio, minimum of 8% return, minimum drawdown to be held for the next 12-36 months...
I'll start, FWIW and again, for entertainment purposes only.
VLSIX KAR Long/Short, 15%
TMSRX, T Rowe Price Mult Strat Total Return, 5%
IQDAX, Q Infinity, 30%
ARBIX, Absolute Convertible Arbitrage, 10%
BIL, ETF, 1-3 Month TBills, 40%
Ideas/Thoughts....what say you experts, c'mon FD1K, whatda got?
Best,
Baseball_Fan

In this awful market I see my WATFX has had some poor days. Would it be wrong to switch? I see PIMIX is doing better. Since I have over $100,000.

Observations for one month as of 10/30/2020:
October was not a good month for stocks and most bonds (Interest rates were up). High rated bonds were down for 1 and 3 months. The best bond categories have been Multi+Non Trad.
Multi: 0.1% for the month but securitized shined again(IOFIX,DHEAX). HOBIX with 1%.
Uncontrain/Nontrad: +0.2 for the month. Securitized(JASVX) did better at 0.8%
HY Munis: (-0.3) for the month but BSNIX(new fund from Baird) has done better all year.
High Rated Bonds: (-0.3%) for the month. The index BND -0.56%
Bank loans: Flat but EIFAX +0.3%.
HY+EM: HY 0.25 and EM= +0.1 for the month and this time no correlation to stocks.
Corp: -0.2% for the month. PIGIX -0.5%.
SP500(SPY) Down month at -2.5, YTD=2.9%.
PCI CEF (-5.1%) for the month. YTD still at -18.1%
My own portfolio
I started the month with IOFIX+JASVX (both securitized) + NHMAX(HY Muni). Early in the month sold NHMAX and bought HOBIX. It’s pretty obvious that funds loaded with securitized bonds are doing well. HOBIX continues to have good performance for 1-3 months. It was another good month for me, even last week I made 0.1%.
In the last week of October I sold most of my portfolio for the third time this year. When VIX goes above 30-35 and both stocks+most bonds categories are going down it’s a good sign for me to sell. Since I retired in 2018 I don’t see any reason to be invested when markets crash. I can be out until markets look better. Sure, sometimes it’s just a false alarm but I rather be out. It works well with my trading style and not recommended for anybody else.

Diversification didn’t help you much in October. SPY down -2.5%, FSPSX(International index) -4%, BND -0.56%

Hi @hank
As always, depends where the monies are invested, eh? Just a look with a few choices below. Most bonds are doing okay for the year, in spite of weakness since early September. With the equity markets whack this past week, AAA bonds did not find love in support of what one would expect to be a move to safety; or perhaps the support was there and AAA bond prices would have been much lower for the week. Hoping the magic 8 ball is not in need of bench testing for eminent failure.
CHART , YTD for EDV, IEF, LQD, BAGIX, SPY and QQQ. The chart YTD total returns match M* data through Oct. 30.
Your snow shovel is tuned up, yes?
Take care,
Catch

I need to further clarify - on M* discussion forum we have had a challenge for a number of years of which I have tallied the results for the past two years. Due to some problems with M* I am exploring a couple of other forums to see if the group would prefer switching. I started this topic here without posting the rules that are on M*. Basically participants are given $1,000,000 at the start of the year and participants post there buys and sells in a timely manner. At the end of each month each participant post there total at the end of the last trading day of the month and I post results after hearing from every one. Participants can join at the start of any month by introducing there self and giving there purchases. I choose to post my results on all three forums to see the ease etc. of doing so. Others may post only on M* but I will post the results on all three. We are getting close to the end but would welcome Crash joining us for the mad rush to the end. Just post your beginning portfolio for the month of November. Some members are retired with conservative portfolios and others more aggressive. Others are in the accumulating phase. Portfolio does not have to match a real portfolio but perhaps test ideas. Not truly a contest since we have different goals with our test portfolios. Also I have some indexes in the results to measure against.
Rich