During the down turn, I didn't really sell equity funds but I did rearrange my International holding back in early April. I always hold my breath when I swap funds but this time it paid off. Wondering if anyone else did the same.
I held SFGIX as my EM fund and FMIJX as my International holding for many years. I don't like to hold to many funds in a category so I decided to swap all or some of both funds for one fund that recently became available after being closed for a while, ARTYX. I sold all my SFGIX and put it into ARTYX. I held SFGIX from the start and I think became married to it. But, with a historically better performing fund available I made the switch. I sold all of SFGIX and put it into ARTYX. As I watched this new fund perform I decided to sell most but not all of my FMIJX and add that money to ARTYX. Sooooo happy so far. I held out a long time expecting better results from SFGIX and FMIJX that never came.
Anyone else make adjustments fund-for-fund like this. Again, I held SFGIX and FMIJX for so long and defended their poor performance the past few years. But I bit the bullet and divorced them.
since April 1st:
ARTYX +38%
FMIJX +14%
SFGIX +19%
Anybody else trade like-funds?

Inflation-indexed bonds fill an important gap in the fixed income market. Regular Treasury bonds are riskier than they seem – long-term Treasuries fell 60% in inflation-adjusted terms between 1940 and 1981. Minimizing duration is not a solution since real rates for short-term Treasuries have been as low as -9%. TIPS solve these issues by offering a safe bond investment not vulnerable to inflation.

5 Part Series:
Part 1:
history-of-tips-and-how-tips-bonds-work/
Part 2: How to Hedge Inflation and Avoid the Biggest Bond Risk
how-to-hedge-inflation-and-avoid-the-biggest-bond-risk/
Part 3: The Largest Arbitrage Ever Documented – TIPS in 2008
the-largest-arbitrage-ever-documented-tips-in-2008/
Part 4: Debunking TIPS Tax Inefficiency + A Tax Deferred Alternative
/debunking-tips-tax-inefficiency-a-tax-deferred-alternative/
Part 5: When TIPS Outperform and How I Invest in Them
when-tips-outperform-and-how-i-invest-in-them/

Because of the low AUM, they own very illiquid, very high yielding bonds. The volatility of these bonds is probably much higher than what the Morningstar performance chart suggests, but due to the illiquidity, you don’t see the big price swings.

As @LewisBraham wrote, "mutual funds are restricted to a maximum private equity exposure of 15% for liquidity reasons. There have been disastrous examples despite those constraints. f I recall correctly, the Van Wagoner funds were among the worst."
A current SEC regulation prohibits funds from acquiring illiquid securities if they would put the fund over the 15% threshold. Further, should a fund drift over that limit, it is required to create a plan to get the fund back into compliance within a reasonable amount of time.
A key facet of the regulation is its definition of "illiquid": An illiquid investment is an investment that the fund reasonably expects cannot be sold in current market conditions in seven calendar days without significantly changing the market value of the investment.
https://www.sec.gov/divisions/investment/guidance/secg-liquidity.htm
The Van Wagoner funds predate this regulation by a decade or two. So it's not an example of a disaster in spite of this reg. However, Big Tom gave a different example that is more problematic:

An investor only has to look at what happened to Third Avenue Focus Credit fund to see the result.

In theory, if a fund is 15% illiquid, it could sell off all assets for at least 85% of NAV (recovering 100% of the value of its liquid securities by definition, and 0% or more on the illiquid securities).
What happened with Focus Credit was that in no small part because of withdrawals, the fund shrank about 40% in half a year. Even with this stress, the fund barely exceeded the 15% illiquidity limit. Nevertheless, at that point, the fund halted redemptions, saying that it could not sell off enough assets at "rational" prices.
It is worth noting that shareholders ultimately recovered 85% of the NAV as of the date the fund halted redemptions, Dec 9, 2015.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/business/dealbook/a-new-focus-on-liquidity-after-a-funds-collapse.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thirdavenue-settlement-idUSKBN1722N4
Funds like IOFIX must comply with this reg. In fact, the IOFIX summary prospectus says: "The Fund may hold up to 15% of its net assets in illiquid securities."
The poor performance of IOFIX and its close peers suggests there's something inherent in the nature of their portfolios beyond having 15% (or less) in illiquid securities. Such as the remaining securities being liquid most of the time, but not under exceptional conditions (as opposed to the "current market conditions" of the regulation). Which unfortunately is precisely when one demands liquidity.

would you attribute the relatively small 5.2% peak to trough loss from 3/15 to 3/25 to the illiquid nature of many of these holdings not being priced mark to market?

Funds are required to price their securities daily. That this is difficult does not relieve them of this responsibility or allow them to cheat investors by misrepresenting prices. (IMHO the poster child for that sort of cheating is Heartland Funds.) They must mark to market, albeit with fair value pricing as needed.
From the NYTimes article link above:

Regulatory experts say that if the S.E.C. does decide to crack down on Third Avenue, it will be related to this pricing issue ... The message was clear: Mutual fund boards are responsible for making sure that the investment adviser acts responsibly in pricing securities and ensuring there is enough cash on hand for investors looking to sell.
But experts worry that mutual fund boards these days do not have the expertise or the muscle to do this job effectively.

I figure that TCW/MetWest has the necessary expertise.
Regarding volatility, I believe you'll find that this fund is using some of the same techniques that Bob Rodriguez used over at FPNIX to manage a very stable, albeit low-yielding fund. Which brings us full circle back to the question of where those interest payments are coming from.

Some funds use derivatives, leverage and/or high yielding/illiquid bonds to juice returns.

I don't see leverage here, and as I just noted, the other tools can just as easily be used to reduce volatility. Can you point to securities that juiced returns to 18%? I haven't found them yet.

BigTom, I do see this fund as aggressive for a bond holding, but I think there is room for aggressive bond funds within an overall portfolio, especially when managers like Scott Minerd are saying stocks are priced for perfection but there is still value in certain sectors of fixed income.

That's correct. It depends on your style, age and goals. I use mostly bond funds and doing pretty good.
In the biggest meltdown in the last 10 years, MWFSX peak to trough was about 6%, VCIF was about 13%, BND (US bond index) all investment grade was about 6.5%. It shows that MWFSX managers did a great job. Is it a guarantee? of course not.
BTW, the Portfolio Composition(Characteristics,Sector Weight,Credit Quality,Duration Maturity) for MWFSX is as of 5/31/2020 based on real data. See (link).
Another observation, the monthly yield keeps getting smaller in the last 5 months.
So, only you can make this decision after gathering all the information.

I owned IOFIX on/off for months until I sold almost all my funds to cash on February 29. I posted at this thread earlier (link)
February 29 edited February 29 Flag
@mark
This is a very unique time for me and why I will answer your question:-)
My goals as a retiree are: I need to make only 4.5% including inflation (Based on 2019, maybe I need only 4%) average annually to sustain our standard of living. But, I still want to make 6% with the lowest volatility (SD < 3) and never lose more than 3% from any last top.
YTD mostly in 2 bond funds investing at a higher % in NHMAX + lower % in IOFIX. Last Thursday, I sold half of NHMAX. On Friday, I sold all of NHMAX + most of IOFIX. This YTD (chart) is the answer to why.
Bottom line: I never buy at bottoms because I'm a momentum investor using charts and trends. At the bottom, the trend is down. I only buy when trends are going up.

Interesting. IOFIX, one month, 4.71%

Interesting.
IOFIX -22.8% YTD for a BOND fund.

Interesting. IOFIX, one month, 4.71%

https://i.ibb.co/pwD0dNk/image-1.png
https://i.ibb.co/BfvRMPZ/image-2.png
Observations:
Last month was another good month. Several bond funds made as much or more money than stocks.
Multi- another good month, several did over 2%. MBS/Securitized are leading at 3+%.
HY Munis a great month with many funds on the list at 3-4%
Inter term – did well. Most on the list at 1-1.5%.
Uncontrain/Nontrad-most with 1-1.5%.
HY+EM – HY didn’t do much but EM did nicely.
Corp – 1.9% is pretty good.
SP500-made 2% PCI 1%
===========================
My own portfolio
I started the month with GWMEX, smaller position in TSIIX and much smaller in EIXIX and…drumroll..I finished with the same funds.
Summer is here, stocks + bonds did very well in the last 3 months, I don’t want to add more risk but I see several funds that interest me for potentially better performance without elevating SD which both are not a guarantee.
Disclaimer: The above are just observations, you must do your own due diligence, I can trade any time

The difference between VCIT and some of the funds you are “pumping” is VCIT has recovered its losses and most of your other funds are still down YTD.

Other funds? I don't own any of these funds. I already explained why VCIT recovered so why repeat it but if you look at YTD (chart) of MWFSX,M* multi sector category+SEMMX+VCIT you can see that MWFSX peak to trough was about 6% and better than VCIT. It was also better than a typical Multi sector fund and definitely better than SEMMX. It is up 7.7% YTD.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-06-29/an-mfs-investment-manager-is-fighting-fomo-and-dumping-stocks
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mfs-investment-manager-fighting-fomo-124622458.html
An MFS Investment Manager Is Fighting FOMO and Dumping Stocks
Manager at $500 billion firm resists chasing historic rally
This recession is worse than previous downturns: Almeida
Wall Street is counting on FOMO, or fear of missing out, to power the next leg of this fierce stock rally. But some, like Rob Almeida, refuse to be drawn in.

BigTom, would you attribute the relatively small 5.2% peak to trough loss from 3/15 to 3/25 to the illiquid nature of many of these holdings not being priced mark to market?
With management owning about 90% of the AUM, I’m not concerned about redemptions yet. It will be an issue at some point though
I understand your concern, but I don’t think any of us are pumping this fund. I’m genuinely interested in what they are doing and how they are doing it.

I don't promote anything.

This is exactly the type of fund I love to own. Great managers, new fund, small AUM, under the radar fund. In the Multi sector bond category it has the best year to date performance + great volatility + very high yield. The fund has about 50% in MBS/securitized and about 55% in IG(investment grade) bonds, duration about 2.7.

My numbers are from TCW(

link) then Portfolio Composition.
You can see SD compared to PIMIX,JMUTX,PUCZX since inception, see PV(link)

Why are you still 'pumping' risky funds with low SD?
SD deviation does not necessarily equate to risk.
Haven't you learned from the other funds you 'pumped' like SEMMX, IOFFX, JMUTX and PUCZX because they have short term 'momentum' with low SD?
Some of these funds were down 17% in one month.
Promoting a fund which has a small AUM, risky assets and low liquidity is irresponsible.
If investors flee from small AUM funds, it will put pressure on the fund to sell illiquid assets. The fund will be selling these illiquid assets at huge discounts resulting in significant losses.
An investor only has to look at what happened to Third Avenue Focus Credit fund to see the result.
https://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/11/third-avenue-to-liquidate-junk-bond-fund-that-bet-big-on-illiquid-assets.html

Here we go again. We haven't seen you for a while.
Just because I like a fund doesn't mean you should own it. Do your own due diligence. I have used it for my own purposes successfully.
Even a fund with 1-3 billion in AUM doesn't guarantee to be liquid. In 2008 money market fund broke the buck(link)
VCIT, about 100% investment-grade fund from Vanguard, lost about 13% from peak to trough. It did recover after the Fed promised to buy bonds but you could not forecast that.
When a black swan shows up bad things happen.
There is a reason for..."Past performance is no guarantee of future results"
Now, if you have any data please post about it. Is this fund resembles SEMMX,IOFIX or Third Avenue Focus Credit fund?

This is exactly the type of fund I love to own. Great managers, new fund, small AUM, under the radar fund. In the Multi sector bond category it has the best year to date performance + great volatility + very high yield. The fund has about 50% in MBS/securitized and about 55% in IG(investment grade) bonds, duration about 2.7.

My numbers are from TCW(

link) then Portfolio Composition.
You can see SD compared to PIMIX,JMUTX,PUCZX since inception, see PV(link)

Why are you still 'pumping' risky funds with low SD?
SD deviation does not necessarily equate to risk.
Haven't you learned from the other funds you 'pumped' like SEMMX, IOFIX, JMUTX and PUCZX because they have short term 'momentum' with low SD?
Some of these funds were down 17% in one month.
Promoting a fund which has a small AUM, risky assets and low liquidity is irresponsible.
If investors flee from small AUM funds, it will put pressure on the fund to sell illiquid assets. The fund will be selling these illiquid assets at huge discounts resulting in significant losses.
An investor only has to look at what happened to Third Avenue Focus Credit fund to see the result.
https://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/11/third-avenue-to-liquidate-junk-bond-fund-that-bet-big-on-illiquid-assets.html

This is exactly the type of fund I love to own. Great managers, new fund, small AUM, under the radar fund. In the Multi sector bond category it has the best year to date performance + great volatility + very high yield. The fund has about 50% in MBS/securitized and about 55% in IG(investment grade) bonds, duration about 2.7.

My numbers are from TCW(link) then Portfolio Composition.
You can see SD compared to PIMIX,JMUTX,PUCZX since inception, see PV(link)

I was hoping THOPX would offer some safety in short term bondland. Its10% fall in March and subsequent lag these last few months have me thinking I may be the one drinking from the bowel with this fund? 70% of their holdings are bbb or lower.

Two bond funds that have held up relatively well this year are Vanguard's intermediate-term bond funds, VBILX (an index fund, expense ratio .07%) and VCORX (actively managed, expense ratio .25%). Both funds are basically 50% in government bonds and 50% in investment-grade corporates. This total-return chart shows their performance compared to THOPX and to Vanguard's junk-bond fund VWEHX. https://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?THOPX,vwehx,VCORX,VBILX

I've followed MetWest for years, and heard some of their managers speak in person. I do have faith in their integrity.
On the commercial bond side, there looked to be a good amount of junk. But even that junk didn't seem to be yielding that much (maybe 10%-15% if I was doing arithmetic correctly).
I mentioned above that I've got some pure speculation - I'm seeing a lot of derivatives and floaters. I haven't thought through their impact on yield. That goes down a rabbit hole I'd just as soon avoid, unless I want to prep for a job on Wall Street.

“Ultra Short Bonds Recently Offered Unusually High Excess Yield with Limited Credit Risk.”
Yes - But not before investors were shaken by an unprecedented drop in NAV in March /April. I have to believe many fled these funds before they rebounded. TRBUX dropped over about a month‘s time from above its benchmark NAV of $5.00 to near $4.85 - a huge loss for this cash-like holding. Since than it’s soared to well over $5.05. Federal Reserve buying of corporate bonds had to play a part in the rebound, though I still don’t fully understand what caused this turmoil at the short end of the curve in the first place. The rush to cash was about as nutty as the hoarding of toilet paper.
Just a thought based on quick look at John’s link. I’ll perhaps add more. No better or worse, I suspect, than what you’d come across elsewhere. It begs incredulity to think this short term stuff - yielding a percent or less post expenses - is suitable to grow your nest egg. Constitutes more of a holding pattern to perhaps avoid future losses.
Selected Excerpts (slightly edited / condensed)
Moving Back Into Investment Grade and High Yield: Multi-Sector Bonds
“Similar to what we saw in the ultra-short market, credit spreads widened substantially across investment grade, high yield, and securitized product sectors in February and March. That was followed by a strong, though somewhat uneven rally since late March, as not all segments of the market participated in the recovery equally. We believe this has created potential opportunities for active managers to identify attractive relative value opportunities. We would also note that high yield spreads remain nearly 200 basis points (bps) above the levels seen earlier this year, based on the ICE BofAML U.S. High Yield Index. In an environment where the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield has jumped by 30 bps, but remains below 1.0% (based on Bloomberg data), the credit markets may offer sources of higher income and the potential for greater total return over Treasuries.”
Historically, Convertible Bonds Have Outperformed in Market Declines
“Those looking to increase equity exposure but concerned about the potential for another pullback in the stock market may want to consider convertible securities. As we have previously noted, the asset class historically has generated compelling risk-adjusted returns over the long term. One other noteworthy feature, in our view: Convertibles historically have participated in the upside of rising equity markets, while offering some degree of downside protection during most market pullbacks.”
Innovation Equities
“One way to prepare the equity sleeve of an investment portfolio for the longer run—and further potential ups and downs of economic cycles--may be through increased exposure to innovation equities. These are stocks of those companies whose leading-edge products or services may position them for strong growth in the months and years ahead. ‘Innovation was already leading the market in terms of return, and growing size in the economy, even before we headed into this pandemic crisis,’ says Brian Foerster, Lord Abbett Investment Strategist.’Cloud technology, artificial intelligence (AI), biotech and medical devices, e-commerce, and a new area that we've classified as ‘virtual empowerment,’” were among the industries that displayed the most resiliency during the recent downturn’ he adds.”
Nothing very deep here folks. Looks like “Innovation Equities“ is the new buzz-term for what we used to call “Tech Stocks“. :)

I can't figure out how the yield is so high, 18%. ... It has about 57% in investment grade bonds, mostly mortgages and corporate credit ... Seems to good to be true, what am I missing?

You and me both.

I called TCW. They said it is because the asset base is so small. They have been able to buy a smaller number of bonds trading at a discount, therefore increasing the yield.

As it is stated, this doesn't make sense to me. (Perhaps they are talking about odd lot pricing?) For a given type of bond and a given credit rating, there's a market rate of return. The price of a given bond is determined by that market rate and its coupon rate. The lower the coupon, the higher the discount, so that YTM (and thus SEC yield) comes close to market rate. IOW, the YTM of a bond is generally independent of the size of the discount.
When looking at current yield, i.e. coupon / price rather than YTM, a discount bond will have a smaller yield. It's true that the discount will decrease the denominator. But the coupon (numerator) will also be smaller than with a bond selling at par. This latter effect dominates. So generally current yield goes down, not up, as market discount increases.
(Left as an exercise: compare current yields on two ten year bonds, one with a 2% coupon selling at par, and one with a 1% coupon.)

25% of portfolio is cash/treasuries so that's like 1-2% tops. Maybe some bond gurus on this site can figure out this mystery?

Precisely the point. It's easy enough to look at the full portfolio for this fund because it is so small. Given that the average yield is 15%, 18%, somewhere around there, we need to be able to find lots of bonds with yields well over 20% to counterbalance the cash, let alone other lower yielding bonds.
In our search for these bonds we can ignore all premium bonds paying less then, say, 15% coupon. This is because the YTW of a premium bond is even less than its coupon rate. Pretty much none of the premium bonds have coupons high enough to contribute to the high average yield.
A quick and dirty approximation for yield of discount bonds is:
[discount (as fraction of current price) ÷ years to maturity] + coupon rate
For example, we can approximate the yield of $10K of bonds with a current value of $6K, a coupon of 5%, and a maturity in 10 years as: $4K/$6K ÷ 10 years + 5% ~= 11.6%
Without going into gory detail, I'll just say that few bonds pop out as having high yields (20%+). The ones I could find (this assumes they're performing):
Corporates:
Intelsat Jackson Holdings: $13K @ 22% and $22K @ 21% (using approximation described above)
Antero Resources: $5.7K @ 40% and $3K @50%
Lots of junk yielding 10%-15%, but even those hurt, not help boost the average.
So the help from the corporates comes from $44K in total assets.
Non-agency MBS (assuming not paid off early):
Bombardier: $51K @ 26%
GSAA Trust, Series 2007-3, Class 2A1B: $13K @ 43%
So the help from non-agency MBSs comes from $64K in total assets.
All in all, about $100K of value in a $9M fund. Certainly nowhere near enough to pull the average yield up to where the fund says it is. I have a few more thoughts but they're in the way of pure, uninformed speculation. So I would rather hear from the bond mavens.

In the Multi sector bond category it has the best year to date performance + great volatility + very high yield. The fund has about 50% in MBS/securitized and about 55% in IG(investment grade) bonds, duration about 2.7.

This is the second post giving a figure of 55% - 57% in investment grade bonds.
Consider that the same managers run another TCW fund that has only 35% in IG bonds. M* rates the average credit quality of that fund as AA. If you'd prefer, SIRRX is another multisector bond fund with 57% of its portfolio in IG bonds, and M* likewise rates its average quality as AA.
OTOH, PUCZX is a multisector bond with half (50%) of its portfolio in IG bonds while its average credit quality is BB. So one can tell virtually nothing about the credit quality of a fund from the figure being given, IG bonds as a percentage of AUM.
I'm reasonably confident that M* would rate MWFEX's portfolio as BB or possibly worse. While a somewhat larger percentage of the bonds in MWFEX are IG than in PUCZX, the junk bonds are of lower quality. The effect on average credit quality, as M* explains in its methodology, is nonlinear. So a few really bad bonds can drag down the whole average.
Moving on to convexity. This is another risk of this fund, where the convexity is almost nonexistent (0.09). While there are various techniques for pushing down duration some of them also drive down convexity. This is undesirable, as it tends to mitigate the benefit of shorter duration.
Finally, when people make statements about volatility, it would be nice to see hard numbers (standard deviations) included.