Thanks @zenbrew. I have not looked to much into the unemployment option since I'm not part of the production group being furloughed. I have seen the notes from our HR office though telling exactly what to put into the NY state unemployment forms to receive the added $600 for the week of 7/26 to 7/31. If HR has the rules wrong there will be many unhappy faces coming back to work after the 1 week furlough. I agree though that the $600 rule has to be the same for each state.

Hi @Bitzer. I have to acknowledge, for me bond funds seem harder to dissect and understand what is in them than equity funds. There seems to be so many moving parts, liquidy, multiple sectors and categories, duration, quality ratings, number of holdings, assets under management.
With all that said, PIMIX and PIMCO as a company have some of the best proven managment and analysis talent in the bond world. Hard to beat Ivascyn as a fund manager. The 2 core bond funds I hold now are BAGSX and MWTRX. If you are unsure whether to sell or hold PIMIX, why not split the decision and "swap" 1/2 your PIMIX holding for another option to pair with it? Plenty of good options in this post.

@Old_Skeet Thanks! I've looked at MIAQX before. I put it on hold for 3 reasons
1. short term record only,
2. I already own American Funds' target date funds and am concerned about putting too much bond money in AF's hands, even though managers may be different
3. I seem to remember reading that this fund has some unusual quirk to it, possibly assumes too much credit rating and/or duration risk
@FD100 I owned PTIAX before, but sold it. Don't remember why, but I think it may have been because its record is erratic (does well in the multi-sector arena, but has a few pretty bad years in there) Maybe I should take another look.

I considered investing in PIMIX a while ago. In the multi-sector bond category, PIMIX had generated top-decile trailing returns with below average volatility. The fund's non-agency mortgage sector investments accounted for much of the strong performance after the financial crisis. However, the non-agency mortgage sector is much smaller today. Yet, Pimco refuses to close PIMIX which currently has ~ $120 Bil AUM. Matter of fact, I don't believe that PIMCO has ever closed a fund because it grew too large. This compaoblony policy is not in an investor's best interest.

The above is a good encapsulation of M*'s latest analyst review (not paywalled):
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/986480/why-pimco-income-remains-among-the-best
With the better financial reporting, "trust but verify" is good practice. (With much financial reporting, the "trust" part isn't justified.)
Jacobson writes that "Pre-financial-crisis supply in the [nonagency residential mortgage] sector has been shrinking." Those securities are often referred to as legacy RMBS (i.e. securities issued pre-financial crisis). And the statement's correct. However, the post GFC RMBS 2.0 sector (with stricter borrower guidelines) is growing. Though it is still minuscule; I don't want to suggest otherwise.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/credit-suisse-and-citigroup-join-other-major-banks-in-mortgage-bond-revival-with-a-twist-2019-08-20
In late 2017 Jacobson (along with lead writer Miriam Sjoblom) was making the same point about a shrinking supply, describing the post GFC years as "a once-in-a-career opportunity. " They also commented even back then on the fund size (more on that below).
A bit concerning is Jacobson's statement that "Pimco still likes the sector for its return potential and modest volatility: ... they totaled 37% as of March 2020." This seems to be overstated.
According to M*'s portfolio page (old-style version) non-agency RMBSs amounted to 8.57% (out of 120% bond exposure) of the portfolio. The largest sector was agency MBS pass throughs at 40.58% (out of 120%), followed by asset-backed securities at 33.63% (out of 120%). All as of March 31, 2020.
According to the fund's annual statement, summary section, non-agency MBSs constituted 19.5% of assets (out of 100%), and asset backed securities constituted 12.8%. We report, you decide :-)
PIMCO says that securities (substantially all are bonds) constitute 154.5% of assets. And it reports non-agency MBSs constituting 30.3% of assets. So the non-agency RMBS percentage of securities (out of 100%) is, according to PIMCO, 30.3%/154% = 19.6%, or about what was reported in the annual statement's summary.
Regarding size: current size is $120B according to PIMCO ($117B according to M*). Jacobson made the same complaint about bloat in his 2018 analyst report (free) entitled "Is PIMCO Income Getting Too Big". According to that year's annual report, the fund's assets (all share classes) totaled $112B, or about the same size as now. But it had grown from about $69B the year before.
Mitigating that, Christine Benz (M*) comments that (at least with respect to vanilla bond funds):

managers who use derivatives to express their market outlooks may be able to successfully manage more girth than managers who focus more on bond-picking to make a difference. PIMCO Total Return and its various clones, for example, were able to deliver peer-beating returns for many years even though the fund grew too large for bond-picking to make a significant difference in its returns. At its peak, PIMCO Total Return had nearly $300 billion in assets, and Gross managed various pools of money in that same style for other entities, too.

PIMCO's funds have their issues, but so far they seem to have handled them better than I would have expected. I might put the fund on a watch list for more problems. But as I wrote above, if I had reasons before for liking the fund, I would examine those reasons before jumping ship.

I bought PIMIX 3 or 4 years ago @12.26 more or less. I must have bought it at it's highest NAV because it never got back up to my original purchase price. However, I bought it for income, and it has been reliably churning out a pretty good income since. Morningstar quotes a TTM yield of over 6%. I just keep reinvesting in more shares since I don't need the income yet. I'll keep PIMIX as long as the income keeps rolling in.

PIMIX was a great fund until the beginning of 2018. PIMIX is still a decent fund.
You can't look at PIMIX YTD and compare it to BND (high rated bonds) when we had a black swan.
PDIIX is another Pimco fund, much smaller and managed by the same team.
I would go with PTIAX. LT good record + good downside protection. 2 more option are TSIIX and ADVNX.
These 3 funds have the following:
1) 3 year average annually over 4.3%
2) SD(volatility) lower than 5
3) Morningstar return above average or high
4) Morningstar risk low/below average.
See the list below
(link)

I continue to do what I have done for decades which is KISS.
Prior to retirement.
We saved for years thru 401K. Always paid all bills on time. Never made a budget. Spend the rest. No more than 5-6 funds. No spreadsheet
At retirement
1) Usually 2-4 funds
2) No budget, no spreadsheet, no tracking of anything. Our discount brokers have all the information we need. I don't need anything beyond that
3) During working and at retirement we only have several thousands(maybe 2 months of expense) in checking account. Everything else is invested most times. In the last 10 years I was in the market at 99+% at about 98%. This means no MM,CD.
4) I never understood the concept of emergency fund and/or 2-3 years of expense in cash. We have access to credit cards first, then several thousands in cash. If we need more we can sell some shares and get it within 1-2 days. So why do we need cash unless it's ransom or illegal drugs?
If stocks are down then use your bond funds for that and you must have some ballast bond funds
5) We get distribution monthly, if it's not enough I sell some shares.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-markets-funds/u-s-passive-stock-funds-back-in-demand-as-investors-seek-steadier-returns-idUSKCN24H25V
U.S. passive stock funds back in demand as investors seek steadier returns
/(Reuters) - U.S. passive equity funds have started to witness inflows after a two-month hiatus as investors flock to rising equity markets, but prefer shadowing indexes to picking stocks./
Passive outperformed active 9 out of 10 yrs
Probably need both long term

Hi @bee, This is something that my broker provides for me monthly in my account statements and covers a ten year history. By year, it contains the account starting value, how much was withdrawn (or added), investment performance, and then an ending account value. With this, I know by year what the activity was for my account values, withdraws & additions, along with investment performance simply by review of this report for each of my accounts. Thus far, even though I have not made any contributions for the past five years since I have retired I have been able to grow my principal over and above my withdrawal rate and for the ten year period with my annualized performance rate of return being a little better than nine percent. A big reason for this is that my wife and I live below our means.
About five years before I retired I ran a 10% cash, 20% income and 70% equity asset allocation in my portfolio. For the past ten years, though, I have been moving more more towards an income generation allocation and I have now arrived at a base asset allocation of 20% cash, 40% income and 40% equity. From the 20/40/40 I will tweak it a little carrying up to a plus 5% overweight (or underweight) in my income and equity areas with a rebalance threshold set at + (or -) from target allocations. I generally let cash float. Currently, as I write I am at a 15% cash, 45% income and 40% equity asset allocation.
So, in answer to your question ... My broker provided account reports provide this information and this is something that I do not have to maintain myself.

Although I have not kicked PONAX (Pimco Income) to the curb I recently started a position in MIAQX (American Funds Multi Sector Income) which thus far has made money for me while at the same time grown it's nav. Actually, I now own more of MIAQX than I do of PONAX. MIAQX is the fourth largest position in my income sleeve of twelve funds since I have been trimming my equity allocation and I have been doing nav transfers into it from equity funds that I trimmed. In fact, MIAQX (according to M*) is the best performing fund year to date within my income sleeve. Currently, it sports a 4.4% yield.
Additional comment. Interestingly, I also own Thornburg Strategic Income A shares (TSIAX) that @FD1000 commented own below. According to M* it is the number 2 year to date performer within my income sleeve with MIAQX being number 1. My muni fund FLAAX is listed as number 3.
From my perspective, it is nice to have FD1000 posting on the board with his insights to fixed income. His postings have helped me within the fixed income area of my portfolio.

I considered investing in PIMIX a while ago. In the multi-sector bond category, PIMIX had generated top-decile trailing returns with below average volatility. The fund's non-agency mortgage sector investments accounted for much of the strong performance after the financial crisis. However, the non-agency mortgage sector is much smaller today. Yet, Pimco refuses to close PIMIX which currently has ~ $120 Bil AUM. Matter of fact, I don't believe that PIMCO has ever closed a fund because it grew too large. This company policy is not in an investor's best interest.

I think I found it after trying to figure out where an M* writer got off to.
Mike Lee? Stan Lee? Used to cover ETF's at M*. Wrote a couple of pieces here.
I don't follow ETF's. But I always enjoyed reading his stuff.

I believe you are referring to Sam Lee who is a talented writer. Like you, I also enjoyed reading his

articles. After he left Morningstar, he founded SVRN Asset Management.

I checked out his site. Thanks for the tip.
He had a couple of blog posts. But seems to have lost the yen to scribble for a wider audience.

How does one keep track of their gains or losses while at the same time accounting for permanent losses from portfolio withdrawals?
Let say I have $100K and I plan on withdrawing 4% or $4K in year one of retirement and I do that Jan 1 of that first year. My balance is now effectively $96K as a result of the distribution. To me this is a permanent loss because I am spending, not saving that 4%. Obviously my bookkeeping accounts for this withdrawal until I spend it. Maybe I buy a car with this 4% and the car goes up in value after I buy it. Maybe I blow it on Jan 2 at the casino...ouch... but these are the dynamics of spending down your portfolio. You may have something (a car worth at least $4k) or you have nothing more than a recollection of the $4K withdrawal.
If my overall portfolio drops 10% soon after Jan 1, I now have $86.4K. My hope is that over the next 3-5 years I will recoup that 10% market loss, but I realize my withdrawal rate (4%) is now greatly impacted by my eventual portfolio balance come Jan1 of the next 3-5 years.
Segregating 5 years worth of withdrawal might act as a drag on my potential upside performance, but might hedge my downside potential. Five years of withdrawal that include a 2% inflation adjustment would amount to $20.8K. It might be prudent to keep this amount in a conservative investment with little downside risk. That leaves a little less than $80K invested for the longer term (5 years). An average 5 year return of 5.8% would return this portfolio to its $100K value, but inflation requires a 7.9% average return in order to keep the same buying power.
Seems to me that in retirement one needs segregate "withdrawal assets" (maybe up to 5 years worth) from "market assets". This way your withdrawals are not necessarily connected to the market's ups and downs. In 5 years, a new calculation will determine what the nest 5 years of "withdrawal assets" will amount to.
If your are managing these dynamics in retirement please share your strategy.

Are you concerned about your fund selection or your category selection? PIMIX is matching its category average YTD (-0.81% vs -0.78% category) That's not to say you couldn't easily find a multisector fund that's done better short term.
Why did you buy a multisector fund originally, and has that reason changed? Is this your only type of bond fund, or are you using it to get a little extra kick, recognizing that it will track equities more closely than will a vanilla bond fund?
PIMCO funds are incredibly opaque. But if I had to guess, I'd say that its middle-of-the pack performance (as opposed to better) is due to it keeping duration very short. Given that, its performance relative to other multisector funds remains impressive (and possibly due to leverage).
Duration is a factor one should consider. If you like PIMCO funds, still want a multisector fund, and don't mind the interest rate risk (i.e. you're betting that rates won't go up at least for a fair amount of time), you could look at PDIIX. It has a duration of around six years.
If you don't want a multisector fund and again are willing to live with the interest rate risk of a fund with a six year duration, then VBTLX / BND is fine. If you're willing to accept a bit of credit risk (VBTLX is 4/9 government bonds), you could look into core plus funds (or corporate funds) rather than core bond funds.
The bottom line is that what is best depends on what you're looking for.

@MikeM- at least for states such as California & Virginia, the $600 additional benefit, it's the week ending July 25th is the last week, which is filed on the 26th or thereafter. I would think that would be the same for all states but I could be wrong.
California

We do have hedging portfolio /and stock portfolio...mostly good qualities funds that we tend hold longer terms, no changes in those...the smaller liquid assets we do little tradings
We are still 90/10 but mostly in stocks for longer term retirement.
Have raised same question with Mother*s retired portfolio... thinking may add another good bond funds /index or add more fidelity2020 vs lsbrx but will wait for answers from board. Couple pimco funds have not hold up to pars recently.
Most manage funds may not outperform index funds longer term
Sorry to cause any confusion from previous posts
Regards

Old_Joe +1
Derf

You are right on - July 26th is when unemployment benefit ends. Not July 31th.

Given a choice of a few days either way, does that mean if one starts a job on July 27th that they would be entitled to the extra $600 in unemployment benefits for the full period (as we know it today)?
I thought one needed to remain unemployed through July 31st.
Thanks,
Mona

Market suppose to crash this wk....that was the last wk headlines say regarding earnings...maybe up little at end of today. I was expecting blood baths and bought more corp bonds recently
.
Unless 50% of US Economy fully reopened again or COVID-19 flattening, hold on to the Disney Rock&Roller mountain ride. We have new bad outbreaks/ spots in India and Mexico now...

Much Adu About Nothing? I always operate under the assumption the market could crash anytime. As a retiree it’s a prudent assumption. Anyone who worries about that all the time probably shouldn’t own equities. As I’ve lamented before, there’s rarely any discussion of risk vs personal situation in these types of discussions. “All-in” is fine if you’re 25 years old. As our life situation evolves / changes, most financial advisors advise incrementally curtailing risk. Therein lies the problem today. Those formerly “safe” alternatives (cash & bonds) yield so little. To this, David’s discussion (July Commentary) of TMSRX is spot-on. My fear (and guess) is that like many funds that have attempted hedging with less success, money flows will be late arriving and equally late departing so that investors in general won’t fare as well as they might with a longer term commitment.
Personally, life’s more fun when markets are crashing and I can poke around in the rubble looking for really beaten up funds. However, things “feel better” when markets are on a tear and everything’s rising. Like many here, I picked up some bargains back in March / April. While I’ve done nothing with my normal static allocation, the 10-15% in speculative holdings I initiated back than has been pared to only about 6% of portfolio as of today. Ideally, I’ll get that down to near 0 just before the next 25-35% market drubbing. :)
Re Jim Cramer. I don’t watch him; nor do I find his circus antics particularly annoying. I’d guess his calls are probably around 50% correct. Since it’s essentially “free” TV, you get what you pay for. The one I really can’t stand is Jonathan Ferro on Bloomberg in the morning. Yack. Yack. Like a chicken with his head cut off. Much exaggeration of whatever financial pin might have fallen that day. He’s enough to make me consider switching back to CNBC (except for their right wing-nuts). On the other hand, Ferro is often paired with raspy voiced Tom Keene whose inquisitive attitude and dry humor go well with morning coffee. Like coffee ... take the bitter with the sweet here.

Market suppose to crash this wk....that was the last wk headlines say regarding earnings...maybe up little at end of today. I was expecting blood baths and bought more corp bonds recently
.
Unless 50% of US Economy fully reopened again or COVID-19 flattening, hold on to the Disney Rock&Roller mountain ride. We have new bad outbreaks/ spots in India and Mexico now...