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

@benchrest: Welcome aboard ! Looks like you & FD1k will battle it out for the title.
Stay Safe, Derf

+1.

PSSAX has beaten SH by a significant margin. For a while I thought it was just the bond portfolio aspect of it, but I don't think it's just that anymore, maybe something also to do with how they trade futures.

It might be trading or it might just be the level of equity exposure.
For simplicity, assume bond returns are fairly stable. They certainly should be relative to equities. This assumption lets us view 100% of the volatility as equity-based. PSSAX is about 8% less volatile than SH. 3/5/10 year standard deviations are 14.93/12.52/11.22 vs 16.35/13.68/12.42. Capture ratios are consistent with this observation.
Just eyeballing the graphs, it looks like they might be much closer if one adjusted SH's beta (e.g. by multiplying SH's changes by 92% or so) and adding a relatively constant bond performance kicker (say, 1% - 2%).
Assuming my quick and dirty black box guesstimates are close to the mark, the question then becomes: how/why does PSSAX have less equity exposure than SH?
I had thought that PSSAX was just like others of its ilk, like DSENX, PSTKX, etc. Those funds target 100% equity exposure via derivatives, and then add bond exposure. For example, the PIMCO prospectus section describing PSTKX reads:

The Fund typically will seek to gain long exposure to its benchmark index in an amount, under normal circumstances, approximately equal to the Fund’s net assets. However, S&P 500 Index derivatives may be purchased with a fraction of the assets that would be needed to purchase the equity securities directly, so that the remainder of the assets may be invested in Fixed Income instruments.

Unlike these funds, and unlike SH, PSSAX does not aim for 100% (actually negative 100%) equity exposure. Its prospectus reads:

While the Fund will, under normal circumstances, invest primarily in Index short positions backed by a portfolio of Fixed Income Instruments, PIMCO may reduce the Fund’s exposure to Index short positions when PIMCO deems it appropriate to do so. Additionally, the Fund may purchase call options on Index futures contracts or on other similar Index derivatives in an effort to limit the total potential decline in the Fund’s net asset value during a market in which prices of securities are rising or expected to rise.

So, according to the prospectus PIMCO is actively managing the equity side as well as the bond side of the fund. I'm still guessing that this is largely macro market timing and not individual issue selection, but one would need to dig through the (semi)annual statements to verify that.

@Gary1952 Did you enjoy the multi-trillion dollar government stock market bailout via socialism this year that saved your portfolio?

you can drag the right edge of the slider to specific start and end dates. ... I am correct ... sliding the right edge towards the left of the screen produces exact date ranges
Sliding (dragging) the right edge toward the left changes the end date to an earlier date. StockCharts writes: "Left-click on the right edge of the slider's thumb and drag it left or right to change the chart's ending date".
Since the left edge (starting date) does not move, sliding the right edge leftward does have the effect of compressing the date range, hopefully to the exact range desired. However, sliding the right edge does not move the left edge - it does not change the start date.
Chances are high that any fund started in 1999 doesn't have the same manager
I suppose that's true, but why suggest that TGLMX started in 1999? StockCharts isn't just missing data for TGLMX for early 1999, but for all of 1998, 1997, 1996, ...
reboot once the manager changes
At best, this explains why you don't care about the early missing data. It may matter to others. Lots of people here seem to care about fund history, e.g. MAXDD, regardless of manager.
More generally, are you saying that you don't care about a manager's history once he leaves a fund? Because if you did care, then you would want older data, some of which StockCharts doesn't have.
This is not hypothetical. Lots of people jumped on DoubleLine as soon as Gundlach started it. They based their decision on his record with the fund he left, TGLMX. Unfortunately, they couldn't get his complete record through StockCharts.
I get it, you don't care about older data, so while truncation of data might bother others, you're fine with it. You're also fine with a 5% error in its data on TGLMX performance, because you're not interested in that particular performance figure. But doesn't it concern you that the StockChart data has errors of this magnitude?
You're the StockCharts maven. Where do these errors come from, why should I have faith in what it shows me?

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1027596/000089418920008824/kellner497e10302020.htm
497 1 kellner497e10302020.htm 497
Filed Pursuant to Rule 497(e)
1933 Act File No. 333-17391
1940 Act File No. 811-07959
Kellner Merger Fund
Investor Class GAKAX
Institutional Class GAKIX
A series of Advisors Series Trust (the “Trust”)
Supplement dated October 30, 2020 to the Prospectus
and Statement of Additional Information, each dated April 30, 2020
At the request of Kellner Capital Management (“Kellner”), the Board of Trustees (the “Board”) of Advisors Series Trust (“AST”) has reviewed information relating to Kellner’s request to reorganize the Kellner Merger Fund (the “Target Fund”) into the AXS Merger Fund, a new fund (the “Acquiring Fund”) that will be created as a series of Investment Managers Series Trust II (the “Reorganization”). The Acquiring Fund will have the same investment objective and substantially similar strategies and policies as the Target Fund. The Reorganization will be structured as a tax-free reorganization for federal tax purposes and is subject to a number of conditions, including the receipt of approval by the shareholders of the Target Fund.
The proposed Reorganization will result in a change in your Fund’s management arrangements. AXS Investments LLC (“AXS”) will serve as the new investment advisor to the Acquiring Fund and Kellner will serve as sub-advisor with the same portfolio managers as for the Target Fund responsible for day-to-day management of the Acquiring Fund. There will also be no change in advisory fees for the Acquiring Fund compared to the Target Fund. The Acquiring Fund will be overseen by a different Board of Trustees as it will not be a part of AST, but will instead be part of Investment Managers Series Trust II. The Acquiring Fund will have different service providers than the Target Fund.
Based on the material provided to the Board, the Board considered the Agreement and Plan of Reorganization at a meeting held on October 19, 2020 and thereafter approved the Reorganization on October 23, 2020, subject to the approval of the Acquired Fund’s shareholders. The Agreement and Plan of Reorganization provides for an exchange of shares of the Target Fund for shares of the Acquiring Fund, which would be distributed pro rata by the Acquiring Fund to the holders of the shares of such class in complete liquidation of the Target Fund, and the Acquiring Fund’s assumption of all liabilities of the Target Fund. Shareholders of the Target Fund will receive shares of the Acquiring Fund equal in value to the shares of the Target Fund held by the shareholders prior to the Reorganization.
More detailed information about the Reorganization and the changes that will result from the Reorganization will be provided in a proxy statement that is expected to be sent to shareholders in the coming weeks. When you receive your proxy statement, please review it and cast your vote to avoid any future solicitations.
* * * * * * * * * *
Please retain this Supplement with the Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information.

Alright, here's mine. Oct. 30th, 2020:
Taxable: PTIAX -.02 cents, or -0.09% ........... YTD: +3.34%
IRAs:
Bruce BRUFX: -$3.39 or -0.57% YTD -0.11%
PRWCX -.02 cents or -0.06% +6.57%
PRSNX -.01 cent or -0.09% +4.51%
PRIDX -$1.02 or -1.26% +16.54
PRDSX -.45 cents or -1.09% +2.87%
RPSIX -.02 cents or -0.16% +0.11%
Way too much work to do weekly or monthly performance. The lot of them are down quite a bit, just since last week or so. Covid raging, earnings, other junk?

10/30/20
Fund Price Shrs Total
IRA
FBSOX $80.35 1490.922 $119,795.56
FSCSX $23.68 6911.407 $163,662.12
FSMEX $70.07 894.361 $62,667.84
FSRPX $20.51 2626.641 $53,872.40
FSPTX $25.95 7730.426 $200,604.55
FSPHX $31.05 1788.444 $55,531.20
FOCPX $15.08 9010.463 $135,877.78
Taxable
FNCMX $137.78 1664.039 $229,271.33
FBGRX $139.35 1368.101 $190,644.87
cash 0 0 $0.00
Total ----- ----- $1,211,927.65
YTD 21.19%
MTD -3.37%
Copying my spreadsheet as with M* and ACI this took about 4% of editing as on M* where ACI took about 5% of M* time.
Rich

We have responded very promptly, very appropriately, very heavily, some would say, to the first wave that hit the euro area economies. We have done it for the first wave; we will do it again for the second wave,” Lagarde said.

https://cnbc.com/2020/10/29/ecb-meeting-october-2020-.html

No, I am correct. You need to slide the right edge of the slider. Both edges can be moved, but sliding the right edge towards the left of the screen produces exact date ranges. Chances are high that any fund started in 1999 doesn't have the same manager anyway, so reboot once the manager changes in my book.

+1.

You're right about my confusing $ and %.
(BTW, one drags the left edge of the slider to specific start dates. Editing errors by one and all :-))
My point about setting specific dates was not that you couldn't do this with the StockCharts slider (or with the M* slider for that matter). Rather, it was that requiring the use of a slider to input precise dates is poor UI design. (You had written that you "found Stockcharts to be more user friendly".)
Here are excerpts from a couple of UI pages:

Slider Design: Rules of Thumb
Summary: Selecting a precise value using a slider is a difficult task requiring good motor skills, even if the slider is well designed. If picking an exact value is important to the goal of the interface, choose an alternate UI element.

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/gui-slider-controls/

When website sliders don’t work
...
[S]ometimes, sliders aren’t the answer. For instance, if your users need to select very precise information. Sometimes sliders can make it harder for users to land on a value if the range is too large.

https://www.justinmind.com/blog/the-complete-guide-to-designing-slider-controls
For me, data is paramount. If the data isn't there, it really doesn't matter whether one tool is easier or harder than another to use. Could one answer this question with StockCharts: What funds have never had a losing year? In a slightly different form, this was actually asked in another thread this year; it's not a hypothetical exercise.
Consider TGLMX (formerly TCW Galileo Mortgage-Backed Securities Fund). It last lost money in 1999. StockCharts can't tell you this, because it doesn't have complete 1999 data for the fund.
StockCharts performance graph of TGLMX (try "sliding" all the way to the left)
M* graph showing a 0.46% loss for TGLMX in 1999.
TGLMX prospectus from 2000 showing a 0.46% loss for TGLMX in 1999.
StockCharts data for TGLMX starts on Jan 7, 1999. The fund lost about 1/2% in price in the first week of 1999 (you can check prices at Yahoo), and about 1/2% for the whole year. That means that the fund was essentially flat from Jan 7, 1999 to Dec 31, 1999. But StockCharts says that the fund lost 4.89% over this period (you might double check my reading). That's a huge discrepancy.
You may tolerate small data errors, but for me this is game over. To paraphrase the late Senator Dirksen, a percentage here, a percentage there, and pretty soon we're talking real money.

During the pandemic, energy demand for transportation and traveling has reduced considerably to a point that layoff are increasing among large oil companies. Many fracturing firms have bankrupted in spring as oil prices fell below $40/barrel.
https://fidelity.com/news/article/top-news/202010301003RTRSNEWSCOMBINED_KBN27F22N-OUSBS_1
FAANG stocks have dominated the market in recent years. My growthier funds are doing well while the value oriented ones are trailing badly. This year in particular the difference is over 20% ! At some point in the future everything revert back to the mean.

Sharing info... Morgan Stanley Global Opportunity (MGGPX) to close to new investors
https://citywireusa.com/professional-buyer/news/morgan-stanley-soft-closes-star-managers-6bn-fund/a1396346
https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2020/09/04/morgan-stanley-to-close-global-opportunity-portfolio-to-new-investors-portfolio-products/
http://performance.morningstar.com/fund/performance-return.action?t=mggpx&region=usa&culture=en_US

Hi @shipwreckedandalone
Thank you for your time with the Stockcharts "how to".
I have used and posted here from Stockcharts for a number of years. Is it the only tool in my shed of information?....NO; but I use some of the very basic information that helps me make decisions. I'm not a member, so there are indeed other options available. I don't have enough time in my day to go further into the site. I'll link a 7 minute video that will help others have a better understanding of the areas I use. YES, it would be nice to be able to set a begin and end date, but the slider allows for establishing time frames that are adjustable. I'm not concerned that the charts do not travel backwards past Jan. 1999. I was an investor beginning in the late 1970's and have that perspective in my brain cells; and the markets evolve to a point of what caused a given event "x" years ago does not necessarily apply to "now". The "this time is different" is still in place and constantly adjusting "the new normal". COVID political outcomes, anyone???
ADD: Stockcharts question: Does the Percent Change value displayed reflect the “Total Return” for each stock?
A: In general, yes, as long as you are not using “unadjusted” ticker symbols (i.e. ones that start with an underscore).
>>> I have verified in the past that the percentage shown does include any distributions from a fund.
Lastly, a PLAY CHART. As with other charts I've linked, this chart is active for you to use and save for future use. You may simply change the ticker symbols at the very top area with your choices. So, watch the above video and have a go. NOTE: this chart starts at Oct. 2009, due to the inception date of ZROZ. You will encounter this limitation and/or not be able to chart some very young symbols.
Otherwise, you should be able to chart virtually any symbol.
ALSO, hover the cursor pointer over any section of a graph line for a bit more info.
Take care,
Catch

The problem with all/most alternative funds is...they don't sustain their risk/reward long.
Arnott with PAUIX sounded so great in 2010 just to disappoint in the next 10 years..
AQR have several funds based on their research(risk parity, futures, macro, alternative,,,) and disappointed too.
IOFIX wasn't a surprise for me. When investors want their money immediately and there are no buyers, the price will go way down, especially with niche, special holdings.
But look at IOFIX LQD is liquid high-rated Corp bond fund. Peak to through it lost over 18% until the Fed announced it will start buying these bonds. If the Fed wouldn't do it the situation would be worse.

Hi All, yes, agreed, IQDAX is not really a bear fund but it has been an excellent diversifier in turbulent market conditions.
I was trying to take into account shipwrecks content and context as I interpreted it as I believe that is what most folks are looking for, a hedge if you will, or as part of the "40" of a 60/40 seeing how interest rates are virtually zero unless you want to buy the debt of folks who likely nada gonna pay you back and you like to wear your hair short...bond cuts, how you like 30-40 cents on the dollar mister...
You really have to know what you are doing to short the market naked. At any time the printing presses can go brrrr and be turned on by Powell...if Biden does win and Pelosi and friends get their way early next year it will be freebies for all (don't misunderstand me, yes from my tone I am very fiscally conservative but do agree, this time we do need to take care of folks during this pandemic, totally get it and agree with it)..if you are short the market you can get whipsawed.
FWIW, I'd rather hide out in cash, Tbills and IQDAX until we get some more clarity and less political and civil acrimony. I don't really care if I miss the next 10-20% up, just don't want to experience the next 30-40% down...
Does give me pause to some extent as I've stated before due to the "IQDAX black box" aspect but hey you know what, I think this market is the most advanced ponzi scheme in the history of the markets...a greater fool thing going on...so from my perspective and only for entertainment purposes it might be less risky to park funds there than in the bond or stock markets
Good Luck and Good Health to all, get out their and vote as you see fit,
Baseball_Fan