"Long-term capital gains tax is a tax on profits from the sale of an asset held for more than a year. The long-term capital gains tax rate is 0%, 15% or 20% depending on your taxable income and filing status. They are generally lower than short-term capital gains tax rates."
2019-2020 Capital Gains Tax Rates — and How to Avoid a Big Bill

All ratings have been updated on MFO Premium, including MultiSearch, Great Owls, Fund Alarm (Three Alarm and Honor Roll), Averages, Dashboard of Profiled Funds, and Fund Family Scorecard. The site now includes several analysis tools, including Correlation, Rolling Averages, Trend, Ferguson Metrics, Calendar Year and Period Performance.
While the decade for equity funds began flat or mixed, bonds were up, especially long-term (e.g., TLT +7.0%). Dodge & Cox Income (DODIX), a long-time MFO Great Owl, returned 1.6% in Januray. It's delivered nearly 10% this past year and regularly rewards with a 3% dividend.
You can read more about the update here.

Re “links to human writers”
It appears @JohnN fell for the same trap I did last week. While I knew sites like Yahoo republished news stories from other sources (for the most part faithfully and with proper citation), I hadn’t realized there are now offshore sites that actually rewrite those stories with / without proper attribution. I don’t know if it’s machine written. Appears to be a very bad human rewording / translation, perhaps dictated to machine. Why ... ? (1) Might be an effort to alter original wording enough to evade copyright law. (2) Might be an attempt to simplify or shorten the original article to attract more readers. (3) The re-publisher could be working from a previously translated copy of the original.
In my case last week, I attempted to link a perfectly well written story I’d read in the FT so readers here could access it. The FT is very hard to link, so I went with what appeared to be the same story republished by “Newslagoon”. Bad mistake on my part. Here, John is citing something calling itself “Invest Records.” Their story appears to be a poor regurgitation of a story that appeared on the BBC’s website: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51347497
From BBC: “China urged citizens to wear face masks in public places ...”
From Invest Records: “China advised voters to placed on face masks in public areas ...”
(Likely the English terms “citizens” and “voters” bear resemblance to one another in another language and are easy to confuse by those with poor English skills.)
It appears “Invest Records” is mixing into its recap more than one source, whereas “Newlagoon” simply reworked one source.
THIS IS WRONG: These after-market news sites are profiting by stealing stories from reputable sources and putting them out on the web to attract readers to their advertising (and probably planting lots of tracking cookies on our devices as well). All of us, John and I included, need to track down the original source of any article we come upon and attempt to link to that original source. Let’s not feed these vultures by posting their regurgitated crap here. *I’d like to learn more about these re-write shops and how they manage to so mangle the stories they’ve plagiarized. If anyone knows more or has pertinent links please share.
PS - In John’s defense, it’s my understanding English is his second-language. So, I’d cut him a little slack here. But, he should try in the future to track down the original source of news / financial articles before posting.

Is that all you had problems with? I'm still trying to decrypt this sentence in the piece:
China’s central bank talked about the cross would save particular that there turned ample liquidity throughout the banking scheme and assist present a bag forex market.
The 150 billion yuan figure in the quoted article is a net figure, as a Reuters article explains:

China’s central bank said it will inject 1.2 trillion yuan ($174 billion) worth of liquidity into the markets via reverse repo operations. ... 1.05 trillion yuan worth of reverse repos are set to mature on Monday, meaning that 150 billion yuan in net cash will be injected.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-cenbank/china-to-inject-174-billion-of-liquidity-on-february-3-as-markets-reopen-idUSKBN1ZW074

Welcome to the “It’s not the Super Bowl without the Steelers, but it’s great that Troy was recognized as a first-ballot Hall of Famer” edition of the Mutual Fund Observer which is posted at https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/issue/february-2020/. Highlights include:

• my publisher's letter takes a swipe at robo-writers, and reports on an unusually fervent hug between Rob Arnott and Cliff Asness. Good news: the long-time sparring partners have agreed on something important. Bad news: it’s that 10-year returns look uniformly low. Both point you toward the long-unloved emerging markets, while Mr. Asness offers a version of “it’s time to be a bit grown-up” financial advice.


• a long-overdue profile of FAM Dividend Focus (FAMEX). Over the past year, we’ve done a series of data-driven articles that focused on equity-oriented funds that thrive when all others falter, but that still make decent returns. FAM Dividend Focus has earned its way into more of those articles than any other single fund. It was time to say just a bit more about it.


• Edward Studzinski has been meeting with, and sparring with, some very fine independent fund managers. He shares what he's learned about researching management strategies, the changing landscape, hubris and managers' insistence on tripping themselves up.


• “Getting More Bang” explores high capture / low downside capture equity funds. Capture ratio is a sort of “bang for the buck” measure: funds with a capture ratio over 1.0 are delivering more of the market’s upside than its downside. By picking a downside target (“I’m willing to take 90% of the market’s losses, but no more”), you can use the capture ratio to identify the funds which offer the greatest return for the risk you endure. It’s a simple and intuitive way to create your due diligence list. We offer the top 20 domestic and international funds.


• Lynn Bolin continues to explore the six rules of successful investing. This month: knowing your investment environment.


• Charles Boccadoro has responded to user requests for more fund portfolio data at MFO Premium; traditionally, we were analytics-rich but portfolio-poor. As he explains, that changed on February 1st.


• on a bright note, several first-rate funds have reopened to new investors, including RiverPark Short-term High Yield (RPHYX). RPHYX seems forever maligned because its portfolio doesn’t fit neatly in any box. RPHYX had the distinction of having the highest Sharpe ratio of any fund in existence for years. It's a low volatility / low-risk fund that's best used as a strategic cash fund. (I've owned it for a long time and use it in lieu of a savings account.) It has averaged 3.1% annually with a maximum drawdown, lifetime, of 0.6%. David Sherman's current reading of the market, bond as much as equity, is that it's time to maximize caution and his funds are positioned commensurately.

Liquidations, 74 manager changes, a dozen new names, two retirements and more …
The long scroll version is available at https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2020/2/.
As ever,
David

I thought I would mention one other fund that was barely above my risk criteria--SNTIX. This fund had a standard deviation of 2.07, credit quality of BBB, duration of 5.10, and at total return of 1yr/3yr of 8.17/5.53. It is another investment grade intermediate bond oef. Of the funds I mentioned before, NVHAX is a very tempting fund. My issue is simply that regardless of what the Feds do with interest rates, all of the HY Muni funds recorded record 1 year returns in 2019, and it seems that this category is most likely going to revert to its average in a year following record highs. Momentum investors don't care because they will just ride this high performing period until it cools off and then sell, but if you intend to hold a fund for another year, after a record high year, you have to wonder if valuations are being stretched and vulnerability to factors other than interest rates can negatively impact performance.

For me as an investor, when the S&P 500 went down 1.8% Friday, my accounts went down about 0.2%. Each month, I look at what is working and what is not, and make small changes.

That is the way to assess one's portfolio allocation. Can't image retiring near latter half 2008 as market fell of the cliff, especially when it is stock-heavy.

By the way, lynnbolin2021 is Charles Lynn Bolin. Thanks for the JPMorgan link, Stillers.

Regarding bull market history...
https://am.jpmorgan.com/gi/getdoc/1383636191833

Thanks to all for the comments, whether you agree or disagree. Especially to you, Catch, thank you. I write because of what I learn from the research and from the readers. I learned about Portfolio Visualizer and Mutual Fund Observer from readers.
Part if the February MFO Newsletter is about secular markets. It makes the case why I believe that we are in a cyclical bull market within a secular bear market.
For me as an investor, when the S&P 500 went down 1.8% Friday, my accounts went down about 0.2%. Each month, I look at what is working and what is not, and make small changes.
Best wishes

"Crash">Weird, small, mid-month dividend. Nothing, as expected and per usual, toward the end of Jan. How come?
Crash, I have held PTIAX off and on over the years, and part of its performance pattern is a level of surprises that are difficult to predict. I have actually called them several times over the years and asked for some explanations, but never seem to get an answer that made much sense to me. It is essentially a barbell fund with nonagency mortgages on one end, and some Munis on the other end, including some taxable munis. I owned it in 2019 and held it for most of 2019, before selling it and taking profits at year end, and replacing it with IISIX which I find more predictable and dependable in its performance pattern.

"carew388">@dtconroe Is VMPAX comparable to BTMIX? Thanks for your contributions to this website !
carew, VMPAX is in the same category as BTMIX, is a little more risky than BTMIX with lower credit rating of bond holdings being in the BBB investment grade rating instead of BTMIX A rating. Standard Deviation of the 2 funds are very close with BTMIX being a little lower, and VMPAX has a longer duration than BTMIX. Credit Risk and Interest rate risk is higher for VMPAX which has worked to its advantage in 2019. So, my general answer is that they are similar but VMPAX is more risky. I did not select all the funds that could potentially go into the conservative list, but I could have listed a large number of investment grade short term bond oefs including VMPAX, ORSTX, and a host of other funds. It all depends on how much risk you want to take to get higher returns in hot bond markets like 2019, compared to lower returns in downmarket periods. Every investor has to set their criteria for risk and reward with funds they select. I have held BTMIX, VMPAX, and ORSTX over the years, but currently am not holding any investment grade short term muni oefs.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-it-can-pay-to-buy-the-stocks-of-companies-you-love-to-hate-2020-01-31
Opinion: Why it can pay to buy the stocks of companies you love to hate
By Mark Hulbert
Published: Jan 31, 2020 6:24 a.m. ET
Start your search for diamonds in the rough by looking through the list of the most despised companies
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — To find a prince you sometimes have to kiss a frog.
That’s what we learned from fairy tales when we were children, and it may still be true on Wall Street. Consider Fortune magazine’s annual ranking of the most admired companies in America, the latest version of which was released in January. Historically, companies at the bottom of that ranking — the ones that are most despised — have outperformed those of the most admired.

Some here might remember Acampora as a frequent panelist on Louis Rukeyser’s old show. Ralph was a bit of an eccentric even than, a technocratic maverick often divergent from the consensus adrift in his charts.
How Ralph Acampora Painted a 70-Foot Chart of the Dow on His Barn - WSJ Story
Photo of Acampora painting his barn

Isn't something a miss in this paragraph ?
{Among the popular self-adjusting Lifecycle funds the L-income’s — with the smallest percentage of stocks and largest investment in treasury securities and bonds — return was 7.60% last year. The L-2030 fund return was 17.60% and the L-2050 returned 23.33% in 2018.
I believe 2018 should read 2019.
Derf

Hi @Mark
“Yah” ! That Jan. 4, 2018 comment:
--- Jan. 18 - Feb. 6 found a -11.83% for SP-500
--- The high point on Jan. 18 wasn't recovered until July 25
--- Then, a -10% during the month of October.
--- THEN, from Dec. 13 - Dec. 24, a -13%
Sometimes, enough fun to cause one to want to wear "Depends" all of the time; regardless of age or need.
Aside from the above:
Heck, I continue to debate when to quite playing with all of the money as our portfolios remain a close mirror of FBALX. Not a bad benchmark; but........
'Course, then one tries to convince that little character on top of one's shoulder; OH, just a little bit, okay? So, let's try 90% into FBALX and 10% to break a full court press. :)
Tough being an investment junkie, eh ???
Take care,
Catch

Just be aware that on January 4, 2018 he said this:
"“I am so bullish I have to sit down and calm down,” the director of technical research for Altaira Capital Partners said in an interview with “Closing Bell.”".
All I'm saying is that you should have an investment plan in place before reacting to either of these statements otherwise you're just guessing/gambling.
Ralph Acampora: I am so bullish I have to sit down and calm down

I have no idea what this means "10%drop corrections sx head-!?!!"

"Gary1952">I opted for NVHAX over BTMIX when I bought on 1-2-2020. The allocation to NVHAX was in my taxable account with money for future (most likely 2 years down the road) monthly expenses. I like the stronger performance over BTMIX. The short duration downturn recovered quickly in 2017 but I will watch NVHAX closely and switch to BTMIX or possibly AAHMX if I see the need to change. I am not a trader so holding on thru a downturn is similar to holding equities in a correction. Thanks for the update.
Gary, best wishes on your decision. Comparing a HY Short Duration Muni fund with a BB credit rating, to an Investment Grade Short Term Muni fund with a A credit rating, is all about risk and return and having your eyes wide open. NVHAX has been a good fund but it is much more risky than BTMIX--in downmarkets, and outside of seasonally strong periods,Muni bond oef risks need to be appreciated.

Janurary 24, 2020