PRDSX, TRP fund. No load, a quant fund.
1-year: 29.74%
3 years: 14.24%
5 years: 11.95%
10 years: 14.99%
I've held it for several years. No plans to divest from it. It's true love. And you know, there's only two things that money can't buy: and that's true love and HOMEGROWN TOMATOES! Rest In Peace, Guy Clark. We miss ya.

Over the years I have been using a high % in one of the following funds NHMAX ORNAX OPTAX PHMIX by using momentum.

My HY Munis fund opened the year with a bang (already 0.7+% in just a week). All my taxable is invested in that fund. Time for me to add more money to HY Munis in IRAs, just like I did last year because it's better than Multisector funds.
See YTD (chart)

Both have loads which rules them out on principle for me. The Alger fund is closed. I like them both but prefer WAMCX because it has 15% in micro caps.

I bought Dodge and Cox International the first year it was offered-after doing quite well for the first years, it stumbled badly in ensoiuant years- however, hope springs eternal and it had a great 2019- may it continue !! any thoughts on the matter, you guys- and lassies??

By Tom Nations, CFP 1/7/2020
"The United States-China trade conflict roiled global supply chains and equities, but a de-escalation in the latter half of the year spurred optimism. Dovish central banks drove global interest rates to low-to-negative levels, making equities look good relative to fixed income. As investors grew more sanguine about macroeconomic and geopolitical issues, the MSCI All Country World Index ex USA rose 21.5%. Developed equities outperformed their emerging counterparts, with the MSCI EAFE Index's 22.0% gain besting the MSCI Emerging Markets Index's 18.4%."
More Here

I'm using MINT, TRBUX, SEMRX and DLSNX as cash (savings account) alternatives. I also like JPST. The best rate I can get (with well known banks) is 1.7%. Are there any other mutual funds or ETFs which have the reliability and stability of funds like MINT that yield more than 1.7% I should know about?

In another thread someone suggested GSY, about the same as but recently very slightly superior to MINT

The Section 199A income shows up in box 5 of your 1099-DIV. Add these all up, take 20%, and enter it in 1040 line 9 as the qualified business deduction (QBI).
There are worksheets for doing this calculation, but if all your QBI is from REITs, that's about all there is to it.

That would enter into a discussion of whether index funds are really transparent (many track proprietary indexes), whether this matters, etc. See, e.g. M*, The Most Over- and Undersold Benefits of ETFs, and Swedroe, The Problems with Index Funds.
I was simply addressing the comment that the fund is opaque. Its practices and use of derivatives seem rather transparent (IMHO moreso than many funds); its bond holdings and the equity index it is tracking are not. Why those aspects are opaque is a different question. One worth asking, just different.

I have completed making portfolio adjustments in my retirement portfolio for end of 2019 and beginning of 2020. I attempt to look at funds I am most likely to be able to hold for all of 2020--I don't like to buy and sell frequently, am not good at timing, and prefer funds with a smoother performance pattern and strong downside performance history. Trying to make some adjustments in my Traditional IRA account consumed my most recent considerations. I looked closely at JMSIX, PUCZX, and JMUTX as potential new multisector bond funds to my portfolio--they had excellent performance in 2019, but I ultimately chose to just increase the amount I hold in some existing funds such as VCFAX, PIMIX, IISIX, and SEMMX. These existing funds have lower volatility/standard deviation, and I am more likely to continue holding them in a calendar year, which I suspect may have some challenges with the elections and some global tensions. In short, I wanted to maintain some holdings that look like to have good defensive performance characteristics. I am more focused on preservation of principal, than chasing the performance of recent hot funds.
Best wishes on making choices you feel good about for 2020!

@Simon My "Cash Pot" for 2020 is set at 10% of my primary portfolio. ZEOIX is 1/2 of that. The rest is spread among SEMRX, SHV, and JPST. M* puts the most recent SHV annual return at 2.32%. We will see what 2020 brings....

I'm using MINT, TRBUX, SEMRX and DLSNX as cash (savings account) alternatives. I also like JPST. The best rate I can get (with well known banks) is 1.7%. Are there any other mutual funds or ETFs which have the reliability and stability of funds like MINT that yield more than 1.7% I should know about?

DSENX seems like a pretty straightforward fund. It has 200% exposure to "the market", or if you prefer, 100% exposure to the US equity market and 100% exposure to the bond market.
IMHO the major risk is that it is effectively 100% leveraged. How it achieves that leverage (which happens to be via total return swaps) is secondary. In essence, the swaps give it 100% (notional) exposure to the CAPE index for virtually no cash. So it is free to deploy its full NAV investing in bonds.
The aspects of this fund that I find opaque are not its use of derivatives, but rather that:
- I can't find what four sectors it is effectively invested in until after the fact; is there a real-time source of what's in the CAPE index?
- the bond portfolio is actively managed in a way I haven't discerned.
It behaved in the 4th quarter of 2018 about the way one would expect. It didn't deviate much from CAPE, so you can figure that the small differences were due to its bond exposure moving in small but mysterious ways. From M*, comparing DESNX to CAPE (NAV):
Oct 2018: -8.38% vs. -8.17%
Nov 2018: 1.42% vs. 1.53%
Dec 2018: -9.00% vs. -8.62%
Aside from overhead, it looks like the bond portfolio dragged down the return by about ½% over the quarter. Given the opacity of that part of the portfolio, a small drop while AGG was rising 1.62% shouldn't come as a shock. For example, PIGIX dropped 0.17% in that quarter.
As to the risk in total return swaps, it depends on how they're used and for what purpose (defensive or to enhance returns). VWELX, hardly an aggressive fund, may use these swaps:
"[VWELX] may also invest, to a limited extent, in derivatives. ... The Fund’s derivative investments may include ... total return swaps, and other types of derivatives. The Fund will not use derivatives for speculation or for the purpose of leveraging (magnifying) investment returns."
DESNX uses derivatives for the purpose of leveraging (magnifying) investment returns. Again, it's not the derivative per se that is the source of much of the risk so much as how it is used. Regardless, DoubleLine makes it pretty clear how the swaps are being used. In this sense, it's a fairly straighforward fund.

I understand the methodology DSENX uses but I can't figure out what percentage it holds in fixed income as ballast. With a yield of almost 2% it must be some, but if so why did it drop almost 20% fall of 2018? I tracked the SP500 almost point by point

not following your last thought (underlined by me) --- if its goal is to mimic SP500 but w consistently added value, is this behavior not a good sign and what we want?

I understand the methodology DSENX uses but I can't figure out what percentage it holds in fixed income as ballast. With a yield of almost 2% it must be some, but if so why did it drop almost 20% fall of 2018? I tracked the SP500 almost point by point

Yesterday, all fund risk and return metrics, ratings, and analytics were uploaded to MFO Premium, reflecting performance through December 2019 … end of the decade.
To mark the decade's end, we're bringing attention to a short list of funds that delivered exceptional returns while protecting downside, which has been at the heart of MFO's Rating System since it began in 2013.
We'll call them MFO Premium's Best Funds of the Decade. There are just seven. You can find them here on the blog page. (Hint: If Morningstar still selects Manager of the Decade, I suspect Dan Ivascyn and Charles Akre will be among the top contenders.)

If you're trying to get a handle on derivatives you might read this article from Forbes written in September 2018. They're not all bad. The article is not behind a paywall.
Do Derivatives Mean Danger For Mutual Funds?

This list is close to David's January commentary review of funds downside deviation. I looked at that in some detail and have the following two cents
1) AKREX concentration in several industries (20% MA and V) is concerning. A lot of it's outperformance was in the early years and it is similar recently to another fund that just missed the 10 year cutoff (see below), POLRX. Still AKREX seems to have accomplished this with a large chunk of cash onboard ( at least now)
2) FVD has six times the utility exposure of the larger market. Utilities have been o a tear but should they really be at 20 times earnings?
3) For folks who are willing to accept less upside for half the downside risk, MOATX and VWINX are stellar alternatives. Especially VWINX but I worry now that it’s 70 % bond position will not provide the ballast that allowed it to sail though 2008 with a maximum DD of only 18%. What happens when we get inflationary pressures and the bond market collapses? If it is because of increased growth the equities will make up but if it is due to our debt bomb…
5) I got scared off by DSENX opaqueness. A fund that just missed David’s 10 year cut off for his commentary is POLRX and it beats DSENX in almost every category, Upside/Downside ratio 1.24 vs 1.08, DSDEV 6.3 vs 7.4, APR 15.2 vs 15.1, MaxDD 12.8 vs 15.4. Ulcer Index 3.1 vs 3.3 Martin Ratio 4.6 vs 4.2. POLRX investment philosophy is clear and understandable although it has had the wind very much at it’s back in the last several years. Even so POLRX lost less than DSENX (14% vs 18%) in the fall 2018

I will also speak highly of PRBLX. Apart from them holding scandal-plagued WFC for longer than I liked as their #1 holding, I think it's a fine fund .... it's 90% of my Roth IRA.

As a trading vehicle, maybe, if you follow the sector and stay on top of it. As a buy-and-hold investor I'm not so sure long term. Personally I think the alternative energy space holds better prospects. Everyone will have to decide for themselves. Full disclosure: I've held EPD for about 10 years now and I'm thinking about trading some oil stocks.

@Simon
Yes to your observations.........the linked site is not an investment site; but a catch-all site for various stories in the hope of ad-click $, IMO. Many other features at the site are dead end and some from 2018.
The FSMEX info is incorrect as to minimum investment $ and beyond this, the fund has been CLOSED to new money for some time.
NOT much going on with the "write ???" for healthcare........