per Politico:
I read that the stock market isn't the economy, but after a while . . .

More than 22 million rental units, a little over half the rental housing in the country, are in single-family buildings with between one and four units, according to data compiled by the Urban Institute. And most of those buildings have a mortgage — meaning the property owners themselves still need to make their own monthly payments.
“In a four-unit building, if one person can’t pay rent you’ve just lost 25 percent of your income,” Pinnegar said.
Most of the units are owned by mom-and-pop landlords, many of whom invested in property to save for retirement. Now they’re dealing with a dramatic drop in income, facing the prospect of either trying to sell their property or going into debt to meet financial obligations including mortgage and insurance payments, property taxes, utilities and maintenance costs. If enough landlords can no longer make those payments, it would threaten everything from the school budgets funded by property taxes to the stability of the $11 trillion U.S. mortgage market itself.
Six months into the crisis, millions of tenants can no longer meet their rent — and the situation is only getting worse. Tenants already owe some $25 billion in back rent and will owe nearly $70 billion by the end of the year, according to an estimate last month by Moody’s Analytics.

Dick Weiss. Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time. In the 90s (and somewhat beyond), he managed Strong Opportunity, a good midcap value fund. It became Wells Opportunity when Wells Fargo acquired Strong Funds.
Here's a 1999 M* Fund Spy column with a few paragraphs in the middle about Weiss and the management of Strong Opportunity.
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/1402/morningstar-fund-spy
The industry pulls so many sleights of hand that one has to wonder about reorganizations that include some oddities. All the Litman Gregory Masters funds changed names just seven weeks ago to PartnerSelect. This reorganization is supposedly due in part to small size ($18.9M) but is a merger into an even smaller fund PFSVX ($9.9M).
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1020425/000168386320012117/f6483d1.htm
That latter fund was formed just after the name change, and unlike the "Masters" funds, has only one submanagement company. It looks like it could be a shell fund designed for various purposes, including the stated purpose of carrying over losses from MSSFX and an unstated purpose of burying that fund's performance history.
Perhaps Litman Gregory is moving away from the multi-manager concept (and poor records) and this is just the first step. MSEFX is a large cap fund with just $230M, a high ER (1.21%), and a miserable bottom 10% record over all time spans (from 1 month up to 15 years). Further, Dick Weiss, who is retiring, is this fund's only remaining original manager.

Interesting that off-topic is still being discussed in a non off-topic forum.
davidmoran:"important to remember Old_Skeet's and then FD1000's goal was to silence political discussions by trolling the site with ones from dubious rightwing sources. So effectively they've won".
So as long as the direction of the topic meets your approval it is OK? There have never been dubious left-wing sources? So I think you have won by keeping the right-wing comments quieted. I do far more reading here than posting. But FD1000 and Old-Skeet added worthwhile content. Calling them trolls is only because you didn't want to hear what they had to say.

You are quoting Braham, though I altogether concur in his take.
There are lots of sketchy leftwing sources, sure, of course, but you know that, and seem to be just trolling again. You do know, this is not leftwing vs rightwing --- try and stay on content and on target and on substance. FD1k had some content, a little, occasionally, and OS too, when he was not throwing up ZH stuff to see what stuck to the wall. The definition of trolling others have made is accurate here. If you have something substantive to say, with solid sources, go for it. I love to read other takes. Probably even yours. But it better be good. You know, not trivially easy to refute.

@Gary1952 This is a quote from Old_Skeet

This is an Investment Board ... So, shutdown "Off Topic" and Ban Political Post.
I am, Old_Skeet

His express goal for barraging the site with rightwing posts was because he wanted to shut down political conversation altogether. He said so himself, that until political discussion was silenced he would continue what he saw as tit for tat posts. So trolling was a tactic for him to silence everyone else, not to have any real discussion of these political issues which he hates. He has now succeeded in that goal.

I csll someone who intentionally throws up a bunch of clearly inflammatory partisan posts with the stated purpose of disrupting the MFO community a troll, yes. And I say that while meaning no disrespect to the real trolls that live under bridges or in various nooks and crannies in the icy barren northern parts of our globe.

Interesting that off-topic is still being discussed in a non off-topic forum.
davidmoran:"important to remember Old_Skeet's and then FD1000's goal was to silence political discussions by trolling the site with ones from dubious rightwing sources. So effectively they've won".
So as long as the direction of the topic meets your approval it is OK? There have never been dubious left-wing sources? So I think you have won by keeping the right-wing comments quieted. I do far more reading here than posting. But FD1000 and Old-Skeet added worthwhile content. Calling them trolls is only because you didn't want to hear what they had to say.

Interesting that off-topic is still being discussed in a non off-topic forum.
davidmoran:"important to remember Old_Skeet's and then FD1000's goal was to silence political discussions by trolling the site with ones from dubious rightwing sources. So effectively they've won".
So as long as the direction of the topic meets your approval it is OK? There have never been dubious left-wing sources? So I think you have won by keeping the right-wing comments quieted. I do far more reading here than posting. But FD1000 and Old-Skeet added worthwhile content. Calling them trolls is only because you didn't want to hear what they had to say.

The original OP mentioned tax efficiency. That’s where I stepped off ship as my investing is 95+% in tax sheltered vehicles. But I’d be remiss not to mention that the Lipper analytics which can be accessed through Reuter’s and some other venues does rate funds on “tax efficiency.”

Morningstar calculates a numeric tax cost ratio. On the "new" M* pages, you'll find the three year figure on a fund's "Price" tab. It's also informative to look at the tax cost ratio over different time frames. Unlike ERs, tax costs can fluctuate quite a bit from year to year.
You can find the 1,3,5, 10, and 15 year tax cost ratios on M*'s "legacy" pages. For example, here's the legacy tax cost page for TMSRX. (Replace the ticker with the fund of your choice for that fund's legacy tax cost page).
http://performance.morningstar.com/fund/tax-analysis.action?t=TMSRX
TMSRX has a one year tax cost ratio of 1.11%. Its one year return was 9.40%. After tax, its one year return was 8.18%. If you started with $10K, after a year you had $10,940 pretax, and $18,818 post tax. That is, after taxes, you were left with $10,818/$10,940 (98.89%) of your investment. Taxes took 1.11% of your end of year value.
Not bad, but not great. For example, two peer multialternative funds (M*'s classification) are DRRAX and DVRAX. Their one year tax cost ratios are 0.80% and 0.37%. On the other hand, another peer, BAMBX, has a 1 year tax cost ratio of 1.28% (and a three year ratio of 1.98%).
While I pay some attention to tax efficiency, I consider it of secondary importance. Certainly I don't want a fund that's spinning off a lot of interest (except for a taxable bond fund), nonqualified divs, or short term gains. So I find it good to check for extremes. But beyond that, it's better to have a fund that's making money and losing some of it to taxes than to have a fund that's losing money in the market while losing nothing to taxes.

I'm in the 10% bracket(wouldn't mind if it was the 28% bracket) so I never consider the tax implications of any oef's I purchase.

One of my best “sleep well” funds is PRPFX - not normally thought of as defensive. They spread the money around in some very diverse assets (gold and silver, growth stocks, nat. resources, treas. bonds, the Swiss fanc, real estate). So, without expensive short selling or extensive use of derivatives they provide a reasonably stable return stream over multi-decades. The biggest problem is that it holds precious metals which are extremely volatile assets shorter term. Hence, many investors flock into this fund when gold is soaring and than leave in droves when gold slumps. So, fund performance soars and slumps with the tide.
But it’s the last fund I would sell regardless of short term performance. A “set it and forget it” fund if there is one. Critics abound. I’ve heard: the manager can’t pick stocks, the ER is much higher than you’d pay to buy and hold the various assets, the manager’s other funds (including a short-term treasury fund) are losers. All probably true. But I still like it. About the same % of my holdings as TMSRX - both north of 10%. Tax efficiency? Lipper rates PRPFX 3/5.

You can also make your own assessment by review the year-end distribution from year to year. What you should be looking at is the amount of taxable distribution, i.e. dividend and short term cap gain (taxed at your income bracket) and long term cap gain (lesser concern since it is taxed at 15%).
Based on 2019, the TMSDX dividend and short term cap gain are reasonable small and is probably okay to be held in taxable accounts.
Learned long ago NOT to hold equity funds with turnover well over 100% - be ready to pay those large cap gain by year end. Index funds are tax efficient on this aspect. Dividend will be taxable and it is okay.

The original OP mentioned tax efficiency. That’s where I stepped off ship as my investing is 95+% in tax sheltered vehicles. But I’d be remiss not to mention that the Lipper analytics which can be accessed through Reuter’s and some other venues does rate funds on “tax efficiency.”
There are many other concerns of course, but if seeking information on tax efficiency you could do worse than to consult Lipper. I’ve run several of the funds mentioned in this thread through the Lipper screen. The large majority score quite poorly. I suspect that the hedging tactics that make these defensive to some extent also generate a lot of taxable income or short term cap gains.
Here’s a couple that I checked:
MERFX scores reasonably well garnering 4 out of 5 for tax efficiency according to Lipper.
http://www.funds.reuters.wallst.com/US/funds/overview.asp?symbol=MERFX.O
BAMBX, on the other hand, scores poorly, receiving the lowest (1 out of 5) rating for tax efficiency.
http://www.funds.reuters.wallst.com/US/funds/overview.asp?symbol=BAMBX.O
I own TMSRX but didn’t check. I assume it’s too new for Lipper to have rated. To be succinct, there are no easy answers to playing defense in today’s environment. A healthy slug of cash equivalents and / or short-medium duration AAA bonds, rebalanced periodically and faithfully is one part of the answer. Yes - I too like TMSRX and David has done a good job profiling it. If anybody here is willing to write a complete analysis explaining each of TMSRX’s five subsets, how each subset is managed and what its current positions are, and how different economic fundamentals might impact each of those 5 subsets as presently positioned, I’d enjoy the read. The “under the hood” workings of this highly complex approach remain largely a mystery to me. TMSRX’s 1.22% ER, while reasonable for a hedge-type fund, is still a bite out of your long term returns and substantially more than for a plain vanilla AAA rated short-medium term bond fund.

The link between current household asset allocation and stock market performance the last section of the article highlights is interesting (this has been a long term emphasis of the author --
http://www.philosophicaleconomics.com/2013/12/the-single-greatest-predictor-of-future-stock-market-returns/ ). My takeaway is this link may provide a simple framework for projecting the overall trend for the stock market as our economy works its way through a period of negative growth in an intermediate term environment anticipated to be characterized by substantial fiscal policy stimulus and near zero percent interest rates. The article indicates this environment will over time lead to an upwardly trending market if in aggregate households do not reduce the percent of assets they allocate to stocks. And, it suggests that something approaching this simple overall "no change" decision will likely be made by households in aggregate assuming a return to sustainable intermediate term growth continues to appear probable.

This is from someone who as been playing defense for last 15-20 years. Been a while since I visited the site and for good reason.
My answer to the question - Sell deep OTM options. Pay taxes. No one went broke paying taxes. The last 5 months have been the best of my investing life. Based on your risk tolerance level invest in index funds, then take half of your cash and try to earn income on it. Enough defense you will need IMO.
I've been generating $500 consistently with $20000 in my Vanguard account without ANY trouble every month. That's a 2.5% return per month. That's 30% a year. Pay taxes.

Re-reading...
BRUFX. Not doing much other than almost just plain sitting still, this year. But ranked highly. Dependable. It's a balanced fund. Right now = down to 16% in Fixed Income. Wifey owns it.

@LB
>> important to remember Old_Skeet's and then FD1000's goal was to silence political discussions by trolling the site with ones from dubious rightwing sources. So effectively they've won
Absolutely. I concur in this fully and was a little surprised that David S, who rightly appears to have a strong peacekeeping if not peacemaking streak, acted as he did. Part of being an academic expert in propaganda analyses would entail (I would think, he said, not being one) letting fiery discussion run free up to a heated point rather past where we had got it. In other words nothing had gotten to the exchange level that would warrant censoring or blockage. Imo.

Although I certainly agree with Lewis's post, I must say this has gotten exhausting. I have learned to look closely at not only the category posted but the poster themselves. There are 1 or 2 or 3 that I will never click on again no matter what category they post in. If I cannot respect the person I have no interest in what they have to say - in any category.

+1

wxman123 Thanks for the GILPX suggestion. That fund's quarterly loss (per Schwab) was lower than TRBUX BBBMX and DLSNX which I was using before.

While I think a break is necessary, it's important to remember Old_Skeet's and then FD1000's goal was to silence political discussions by trolling the site with ones from dubious rightwing sources. So effectively they've won. They had no real interest in having any rational discussions on these subjects, and these discussions had gone on for years without any site overload until now. I do think if Off Topic is reinstated, the noise will die down after the election.
I would add this troll data-dump strategy is commonplace in the corporate world. If any individual tries to sue a company, instead of withholding information companies often will send over a hundred boxes of nonsense info to weed through or try to tie the case up in court through appeals, knowing plaintiffs don't have the resources to continue fighting. It is a way of silencing any opposition.
To me silence is not apolitical. If you see a man bleeding on the street and you do nothing, you are suffering from depraved indifference. Issues like climate change, taxation, Fed policy and government regulation have a direct impact on investing yet are also political ones. Saying we're not going to discuss those and only focus on making money in the markets is tacit approval of whatever the status quo is. That status quo is a libertarian "I wanna make money any way I can and I don't care about the consequences" one.