You might want to check out dt's thread: https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/54717/bond-oef-investing-for-more-conservative-investors/p1

I think this was just a wake up call to take some profits and not stay 100% invested. Stop fretting what will happen. If you are 100% invested, just sell a little and go away. It's not going to matter that much.
When $USD starts going up, International and EEM are going to go down in relative terms to US stocks. Sell your least favorite international fund a little and buy your most favorite us stock fund a bit.

How is TIAA for a broker? I only have my work 403(b) with them (holding 1 American Fund - RWMGX) but have thought about moving some of my retirement investment acounts from TD there to consolidate things and let TIAA be my 'retirement account broker' so to speak. My other taxable longterm accounts at TDA/Schwab and WF are probably going to stay put, though.

honestly, their web interface lives a lot to be desired. I hold my nose and take what I can from it. They do have access to some funds NTF no one else does. They don't make it easy to find necessarily. However, with a single malt in hand on the weekends, I manage.
If you are looking to consolidate, IMO Schwab will be better option.

By Alpha Gen Capital at SeekingAlpha.com
Summary
° Retirees have an over-reliance and spend far too much time on rates of return. Instead, investors should focus on cash flows, both in and out of your household.
° This is a construct of Wall Street who wants you to be placing all your investable assets into the market, while placing all the risk on your retirement on you.
° We think the next few years will show a significant shift in the way investors/retirees manage their financial retirement.
° It is our belief that a focus on cash flows, not rates of return, will be the future, including the use of income annuities.
Article Here

"Value investing is undoubtedly one of the most famous strategies, and many legendary investors, including Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio), have continued to highlight the importance of adopting this strategy for many decades.
However, the performance of value stocks trailed behind that of growth stocks for the best part of the last decade and especially the last year, raising questions regarding the success of this technique.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Seth Klarman (Trades, Portfolio), who runs Baupost Group, does not agree with the critics. In a letter to investors dated Jan. 23, 2020, he defended sticking by value investing even though the performance of the fund lagged behind that of the S&P 500 Index in 2019:"
From Gurufocus.com
Better Article View

Just a note that I do not "analyze" funds mentioned in this thread based on a single day's performance, or one month's performance, or 3 month's performance. When I provide information about funds, I try to provide 1 year and 3 year total return and related fund information, and I also look closely at bond oef performance in some severe downmarket periods (like 2015 and 2018), to see how well they protected principal in those periods. My overall objective on this thread, is to provide you with information about funds, and categories of funds, that generally are considered conservative. What you choose to do with that information is beyond the scope of this thread.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/874964/000093041320000153/c95084_497.htm
497 1 c95084_497.htm
THE LAZARD FUNDS, INC.
Lazard US Realty Equity Portfolio
Supplement to Current Summary Prospectus and Prospectus
By supplements dated October 25, 2019 and November 22, 2019, it was announced that the Board of Directors (the "Board") of Lazard US Realty Equity Portfolio (the "Portfolio") had approved temporary postponement of liquidation of the Portfolio.
In light of other potential options that are being pursued for the Portfolio other than liquidation, the Board has approved, subject to certain conditions, a further postponement of the liquidation of the Portfolio. The Board expects additional disclosures about the Portfolio to be made during the first quarter of 2020.
Dated: January 27, 2020

Lots of funds are NTF without a 12b-1 fee. That just means that the servicing fee isn't called out explicitly, not that it doesn't exist.
For example, JACTX class T (retail class) has ER of 0.91%, no 12b-1 fee, and is NTF at several brokerages. The institutional class, JCAPX has ER of 0.72% and is available with a $2500 min and TF at Fidelity. The only difference according to the summary prospectus, is the amount of "other expenses".
"Other expenses" is a catchall for burying expenses. As the SEC writes, "If shareholder service fees are paid outside a 12b-1 plan, then they will be included in the 'Other Expenses' category." Those fees are still being collected from the retail fund. They're just not called out explicitly as 12b-1 fees.
Retail class funds tithe their investors for servicing fees, regardless of whether they're called out by an explicit 12b-1 line item.
It gets worse. American Century funds often have a single "all in" management fee. This makes it look as if investors aren't bearing any costs, that management is. The reality of course is that management isn't forgoing profits; the investors are simply paying higher management fees to cover the costs. How much of those fees are going toward operating/servicing expenses is completely opaque.
ACIIX (institutional class) charges a management fee of 0.72%, and that covers everything. TWEIX (retail investor class) charges a management fee of 0.92% and that covers everything. The managers aren't getting paid more to manage one share class than another - they manage the entire portfolio underlying all share classes Rather, the higher fee is used for covering the cost of servicing the retail share. ERs are from the summary prospectus.

How is TIAA for a broker? I only have my work 403(b) with them (holding 1 American Fund - RWMGX) but have thought about moving some of my retirement investment acounts from TD there to consolidate things and let TIAA be my 'retirement account broker' so to speak. My other taxable longterm accounts at TDA/Schwab and WF are probably going to stay put, though.

An NTF fund and also no 12b-1 fee? I doubt this will happen.
Anyways, TIAA has some surprises in the NTF line up. A lot institutional fund shares are NTF and enable you to get in at lower minimums. I own BEGIX and BOPIX that way.

LDVAX is up 10% YTD. I'm afraid, very afraid.

@MikeW: "DHEIX has an average annual return of about 4% and a MAXDD of only 0.2%. Looks like a very interesting fund. SD is only 0.7."
Also, DHEIX has only been negative one month. I shares were down 17bps in November 2016 while the benchmark was down 41bps. There have been 41 full calendar months of performance since inception (August 2016 through Dec 2019. The securitized debt in the fund is ABS 62%, all IG. The overall credit rating of the fund is 80% IG. Its duration is 1.43 years.

"Old_Skeet">@dtconroe,
I have enjoyed reading and following your thread on open end bond funds (oef).
One of the things that I picked up on in reading this thread is that you are a momentum type investor and move among one fund, or funds, to another from time to time. Would you please describe your process in doing this? What indicators you may use? What triggers movement? How do you track and etc?
I've been looking for a investing strategy that I might incorporate within my fixed income sleeve to keep it positioned within the faster currents. With this I've invested mostly in multi sector bond and income funds and let the fund manager find the better places to be invested. My fund's range of movenment between their 52 week low vs. 52 week high range from 2% on the low side to about a 6% range of movement on the high side. I've been thinking of a way to use this range of movement within my investment strategy. Any thoughts?"
Old_Skeet, I am on this forum, posting about OEF bond funds, because I am NOT a "momentum type investor", at least Not on a frequent short term trading basis. On M* there is some strong support for an investing approach, that uses momentum data based on 90 day moving averages, to invest in the "best" 4 or 5 funds. Based on the belief that 90 day moving averages signals the beginning or end of a performance pattern, investors will move between various bond oef categories, to select the "best" momentum based fund, with a strong emphasis on risk characteristics as well. I tried to use this approach for a few years, but I am not a good trader, am not very good at selling funds near their highs, and not very good at buying funds near their lows. There are some posters/investors who do this, and can do this much better than me. I am not criticizing them, but I need a different investing approach that fits my strengths, while acknowledging my shortcomings.
With that said, I am not a pure buy and hold investor, and I do keep up with total return performance data, and I will sell a fund during the calendar year when it is lagging severely, normally to reinvest those proceeds in other existing holdings that I am familiar with and approve of. I prefer bond oefs that will produce "at least" 4 to 5%, or more", annually, with low standard deviation, and relatively smooth upward total return performance, that have a history of holding up well in down markets. I will invest in 10 to 12 funds, with the intent of holding them for at least the calendar year, and at the end of the calendar year, I will rebalance my fund holdings, and may choose to replace some existing bond oefs, with similar but better performing funds. For example, I held BTMIX for the entire 2019 year, and I chose to replace it with another very conservative, but better performing Muni fund (AAHMX) for 2020. Another example is that I held PTIAX for almost all of 2019, but toward the end of the year, I chose to replace PTIAX with IISIX, because I believe IISIX will perform similarly in total returns to PTIAX over extended periods but with lower risk.
Some more frequent momentum based investors, will criticize me for not jumping on the performance bandwagon, because there is clearly a hot performing fund, they will hype continually, during very hot performing periods like 2019. I like smooth, above average performing funds, to hold for at least a year, and at the end of the year, my loyalty is then subject to intense re-evaluation for holding, selling, and possibly replacing them. I don't marry my investments, don't take a vow of holding them til death do us part, and do expect a level of total return performance (at least 4 to 5% TR) that is reviewed on an annual basis. In 2020, my 10 to 12 fund portfolio has almost all of the same funds I owned all of 2019, but I did replace a couple of those funds, I did increase the amount of my investment in several existing funds, and I did reduce the amount of my investment in a couple of my existing funds.

+1. :) Understood.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadepfau/2020/01/23/laddering-with-individual-bonds/?ss=retirement#2880c6ce3a3f
Laddering With Individual Bonds
Wade PfauContributor
Retirement
Professor @ The American College; Principal @ McLean Asset Management
Duration matching is not straightforward for bond funds when shares of the bond fund must be sold to meet ongoing retirement expenses. If rates have risen, shares of the bond fund may need to be sold at a loss, with more shares sold to meet a given spending objective. This triggers sequence risk and locks in losses. Immunization only works if interest payments can be reinvested at a new higher interest rate to compensate for capital losses. But not all the funds are fully reinvested when a spending goal is met, so reinvestment risk and interest rate risk do not get neutralized. The return on remaining assets would need to be even higher to keep the retirement liability funded. Immunization is harder when there is also a spending goal to support.

https://money.usnews.com/investing/funds/slideshows/best-vanguard-funds-to-buy-and-hold
7 Best Vanguard Funds to Buy and Hold
Vanguard funds can offer consistent returns and low costs for the long-term investor.
By Rebecca Lake, Contributor Jan. 24, 2020
U.S. News & World Report
More
In this June 7, 2018, photo the logo for the Vanguard Group is shown on correspondence in Zelienople, Pa. Vanguard said Monday, July 2, that it will stop charging commissions to trade most of its competitors’ exchange-traded funds.
Picking low-fee funds.
Vanguard funds are a popular choice among investors who favor an indexing strategy. With index investing, the objective is to match the performance of a stock market benchmark, such as the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq. This approach may appeal to the buy-and-hold investor who's seeking the best funds to own for retirement. Vanguard's fund selection offers an advantage over competitor funds, in that they boast some of the lowest expense ratios around. Lower costs mean investors can hold on to more of their returns over time. Here are seven of the best Vanguard mutual funds for a buy-and-hold strategy.

I do not or never have owned a "core" bond fund. I am not really sure what the benefits are. When comparing them to some non-traditional funds they are much more volatile. I will assume the higher credit rating in these funds are the attraction. It seems that many less volatile funds in other categories work just as well for ballast.

Agreed for the most part at present.
That said, I used to own a couple core/IB funds a few years ago. I recently jettisoned my last one, a residual holding in WAPIX, which was good while I owned but, but worthy future gains with it seemed iffy at best.
I currently run with a spattering of munis, multis, nontrad's and one preferred stock fund. I own bonds only because I need to own them as ballast** for my stock allocation and would rather let respective PM's slice/dice.
**Aside: Portfolio ballast to me is anything other than stocks.
Either way one's preference on core funds or others, dt IMO is doing a GREAT job here of covering bond categories and topics, and I wish him continued success with this thread and those initiatives.

"Gary1952">I do not or never have owned a "core" bond fund. I am not really sure what the benefits are. When comparing them to some non-traditional funds they are much more volatile. I will assume the higher credit rating in these funds are the attraction. It seems that many less volatile funds in other categories work just as well for ballast.
Gary, the intermediate core-plus bond oef category, is very popular with investors. If you look at the AUM of these funds, they are pretty large, compared with non-traditional and multisector bond oefs. Their total return performance in 2019, and over their history, looks very compelling. They offer good diversification, with an emphasis on investment grade holdings, which minimizes credit risk. Many investors are turned off by the lower investment grade holdings of non-traditional bond oefs and many of the traditional multisector bond oefs.

https://www.governing.com/topics/finance/gov-three-ways-tax-reform-impacted-muni-market.html
The tax law changes also impacted the refinance/issuance of new bonds. As noted in above, from Dec 2018:
Muni Bond Supply Is Down
Far and away, the most notable effect that the tax overhaul had on the municipal market this year was through the elimination of a valuable cost-saving tool for municipalities. Called advanced refunding bonds, the tool allowed governments to refinance debt earlier, thus letting them take advantage of lower interest rates years sooner.
Losing this benefit has pushed down supply. By some estimates, it's cut refinancing activity by as much as 20 percent.

Its a cheap money market with an interest rate floor of around 1.5%. You could invest in the L Income fund which contains about 21.5% in stocks, or set your allocation to the C Fund at 5 or 10 percent of your total TSP.