The following episodes are all with David Rosenberg.
June 12th Episode:

June 19th Episode:

June 26th Episode:

From where I sit, there are things I do like even if I’m not a buyer of the Dow, S&P 500 or Nasdaq outright. I still like growth over value; I like essentials over cyclicals; I like “Big Safety”; I like the “homebody” stay-at-home stocks; I like the long end of the Treasury curve; I like Japan as a secular Abe-led turnaround story; I like secular themes tied to medical technology and cyber security investments; ESG is here to stay; and my strongest conviction is in gold and gold stocks (silver too — “ poor man’s gold”). While the Fed may be backstopping the outer limits of the corporate bond market, I wouldn’t touch it. They are so mispriced for the current and prospective default wave, it’s not even funny. If you’re that bullish, just buy stocks. If you want to invest defensively and seek yield, look at preferreds, or the solid dividend yields in selective REITs, telecom with financial depth, and utilities.

Wealth-Track_Breakfast_with_Dave_2020_06_24.pdf

The yield in June was 1.26%, so 15% annualized...its come down some, practically no volatility in June. I allocated about 10% to it last week. After seeing how much Tad and other managers own of it, I trust it more. TCW is not Bernie Madoff.

VTI/SPY performance was higher than BND in the last 10-20-30 years. Nothing new. What is going to be in the next 10-20 years? probably the same.
That was easy.
If you don't care about volatility then you should be in 100% stocks, in fact, you should take a margin, interactive brokers charge only 1.5% on $300K(link)
So, why do you need bonds? for ballast. Many retirees who accumulate a large portfolio and need a low withdrawal rate (think under 3%) could invest a large % in bonds if they like a lower volatility portfolio.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/7-reasons-the-stock-market-may-face-a-severe-bout-of-turbulence-next-week-and-beyondonly-one-is-rising-coronavirus-cases-2020-06-27?mod=markets
7 reasons the stock market may face a severe bout of turbulence next week and beyond—only one is rising coronavirus cases
Buckle up, Wall Street investors!
The ride from here could get a lot bumpier after the Dow registered its worst one-day loss since June 11 on Friday, knocking the blue-chip index to its lowest point since May 26, and at least momentarily knocking the wind out of equity investors who may be gradually losing their bullish thesis as U.S. COVID-19 infection rates climb higher.

Same type of articles about bonds for years. HY Munis made over 6% since mid May. Bonds made me a lot more than inflation + 1%

https://www.barrons.com/articles/yes-investors-there-are-alternatives-to-stocks-51593084600
Incognito
https://www.google.com/search?q=Yes,+There+Are+Alternatives+to+Stocks+Out+There.+Lots+of+Them&oq=Yes,+There+Are+Alternatives+to+Stocks+Out+There.+Lots+of+Them&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60l3.1210j0j7&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
Yes, There Are Alternatives to Stocks Out There. Lots of Them.
By Randall W. Forsyth
TINA may have some competition.
TINA, of course, is the acronym for There Is No Alternative, the description applied to U.S. common stocks, especially the large-capitalization variety that dominates the major indexes such as the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
BHYAX
PHYAX
MEDAX
Em bonds
Junk bonds etf
Preferred bank stocks

https://www.forbes.com/sites/baldwin/2020/06/26/guide-to-municipal-bond-funds/#5e5dabcc54b5
Guide To Municipal Bond Funds
William BaldwinSenior Contributor
You’ll get a real return of maybe 1% from a tax-exempt portfolio. Should the middlemen get to keep most of that?
How hungry people are for a tax dodge—and how eager Wall Street is to satisfy them. So it is that there are 564 tax-exempt mutual funds. How to choose?

http://news.goldseek.com/Zealllc/1593346621.php
Gold stocks still undervalued
Recent gold-stock technicals support this bullish outlook, with gold stocks consolidating high since their mean-reversion surge stalled out. That price action looks like a healthy mid-upleg pause that’s necessary to rebalance sentiment. The gold miners’ earnings growth is going to be strong in coming quarters after the COVID-19 disruptions to mining operations pass. That should continue to fuel strong gold-stock buying.

incoherent |ˌinkōˈhi(ə)rənt; ˌi ng-; -ˈher-|
adjective
1 (of spoken or written language) expressed in an incomprehensible or confusing way; unclear : he screamed some incoherent threat.
• (of a person) unable to speak intelligibly : I splutter several more times before becoming incoherent.
• (of an ideology, policy, or system) internally inconsistent; illogical : the film is ideologically incoherent.

Howdy folks,
"will there be a second wave?". Of course there will be a second wave and just like in 1918/1919 it will be MUCH WORSE than the first wave that we're still experiencing. Even if preventative measures hadn't be politicized, we'd STILL be looking at a much worse second wave due to the nature of the beast when it comes to us humans and particularly to us American's. We've all got a huge civil libertarian streak and we just will not and cannot stay inside this long. We gots to get out. We gots to go to the bar. We gots to see our friends and family.
Add in the politicization of the plague by DT and friends, and it's going to get very, very nasty next winter. Sorry folks, but looking around at all the people not wearing masks and not social distancing (and they probably don't wash their hands the lepers), we're well and truly screwed.
Next winter in America is going to look like the Black Death. Literally, it will be with carts in the streets, 'bring out your dead'.
Sorry. I wish I could be more positive, but look around . . .
and so it goes,
peace,
rono

Obama assembled a brain-trust of smart financial folks, including Tim Geithner, between election day and the inauguration. They met regularly and planned out actions they could take Day #1 to resolve the crisis. At that point the econ was on life-support. Their advance planning and the highly qualified team assembled helped turn things around. Inauguration Day - January 20. Beginning of greatest bull market in history - March 9. No doubt Biden will follow that model as concerns Covid 19 and be ready to hit the ground running.

Howdy folks,
"will there be a second wave?". Of course there will be a second wave and just like in 1918/1919 it will be MUCH WORSE than the first wave that we're still experiencing. Even if preventative measures hadn't be politicized, we'd STILL be looking at a much worse second wave due to the nature of the beast when it comes to us humans and particularly to us American's. We've all got a huge civil libertarian streak and we just will not and cannot stay inside this long. We gots to get out. We gots to go to the bar. We gots to see our friends and family.
Add in the politicization of the plague by DT and friends, and it's going to get very, very nasty next winter. Sorry folks, but looking around at all the people not wearing masks and not social distancing (and they probably don't wash their hands the lepers), we're well and truly screwed.
Next winter in America is going to look like the Black Death. Literally, it will be with carts in the streets, 'bring out your dead'.
Sorry. I wish I could be more positive, but look around . . .
and so it goes,
peace,
rono

For those scoring at home, we discussed this piece earlier:
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/126931/#Comment_126931
There’s good thoughts in the piece and the MFO discussion. Surprisingly, I don’t see a Boglehead discussion. Must be there, they discuss everything.

Public health officials do not get pay much while they carry heavy responsibility to the health of general public. Can't believe they have to face physical treats. Hate to teachers these days.
We have friends who have recovered from COVID-19 and their health have permanently changed. So we cannot take this virus lightly. As people relax and gather in close environments, transmission rate goes up rapidly.

Also, a chart comparison between HELOC and Reverse Mortgages:
https://screencast.com/t/HeeBfE0glggj

This table is inaccurate in at least one respect in my long heloc experience:
Under Traditional Bank Heloc it says "Becomes balloon after 10 year requiring full repayment". Nonsense, and naturally in the favor of RMs.
And to further qualify my assertion
"So it's not necessarily simply opening a line and letting it sit idle for use much later on"
You can sort of do this, depending. If you have dealings w or holding at a bank (checking, savings, mortgage, say) and good fico, it's entirely possible to get a fixed-low-rate heloc with a high limit (depending on your property equity amount and percentage of course) with a 10y or 15y term, take an initial draw of whatever minimum (bank's heloc people will tell you), stick it in something safe whose return covers half or a third of the interest, return it in a few months (bank will apprise you) and leave things alone and sitting for future needs (bank will give details of any minimum activity and thresholds etc).
I suspect this is not news to most here.
Example: You have a house and land worth a half-mil with $100k left on the bank mortgage where you also have your checking and auto-deposit and perhaps billpay. With many banks, national and local alike, you could get say a $200k heloc @ say 4%, take out $10k for say a car purchase, pay it down over the next year or longer (leave all else as is; you will be paying the low interest plus some principal).
This way you will have for the next decade or more a $190k and rising heloc for sleep-at-night at zero cost.
If you used the draw for a new roof, or say you did, you can possibly deduct the interest from your taxes too.

Please don't misunderstand me. I like the idea of reverse mortgages if obtained at reasonable cost and rates for a well defined purpose, as I wrote above. They have gotten a somewhat undeserved bad rap, and they've been improved significantly. They're likely superior for a variety of well defined purposes.
But @bee raised HECMs as a great way to hedge sequence of return risk. For that particular well defined purpose, they may not be the better product. ("Hedge" = "insurance" or "protection".)
Sequence of return risk is the risk that one's decumulation (spend down/retirement) phase may begin during a market downturn. It's not a risk of ever having a market correction. So a hedge against this risk is protection that's needed during the first few years of retirement. This has a few implications:
1. Sequence of return risk is not concerned with what happens after, say, 10 years. So it doesn't matter that a HELOC only enables you to draw against your line of credit for 10 years. Like term life, that's the period that you're "insuring".
2. Since you're only "insuring" for a relatively short period (say, 1/3 of your anticipated retirement period), the fixed (up front) costs of the line of credit weigh more heavily. They are amortized over just a few years, as contrasted with closing costs on a traditional 30 year mortgage. (They also weigh more heavily because you pay these fees even if you never need to draw upon the line of credit.)
3. The amount of protection you need is capped by your anticipated expenses over the first few years of retirement. So the fact that a reverse mortgage credit line grows doesn't matter. (The fact that it might shrink with a HELOC does matter, however.)
4. Since this "insurance" is needed at the point of retirement, one might be able to apply for the line of credit shortly before retirement, thus making it easier to qualify for a HELOC.
In a sense, the whole question of how easy it is to get a HELOC is irrelevant to the question of which one is better. If you cannot get a HELOC then there is no choice to be made.
Permit a metacomment here: I've been fastidious in citing objective third party sources: the FTC, HUD, the CFPB. Pages from provider products can be informative and accurate, but still incomplete. This is something to watch for not just in this thread, but generally.
The Reverse.Mortgage page purports to be presenting information on reverse mortgages generally. But then it quietly slides into features that apply only to HECMs, such as being federally insured. You have to flip to another page to find out that this feature costs 2% of the total line of credit up front, plus 0.5% of the outstanding balance annually.
The comparison chart says that HELOCs become due (balloon payment) after ten years. Some do. But the chart is deceptive here. The Fed writes: "Many existing HELOCs are structured such that when they reach the end of the draw period, they convert from open-ended, non-amortizing lines of credit to closed-end, amortizing loans."
What is best depends on your intended purpose (including risk tolerance) and the terms (including special features) offered.

Maybe this news will help slow down the increase in confirmed cases in Texas. As the moron said at his rally, "we need to slow down testing".
From Barrons:
Coronavirus Testing Sites Will Lose Federal Funding in July
Updated June 24, 2020 5:32 pm ET / Original June 24, 2020 11:35 am ET
• The Trump administration is halting federal funding for 13 coronavirus testing facilities at the end of July, including seven in Texas. The Texas testing sites are of particular concern as the state’s cases spike, with more than 5,000 new confirmed cases a day. On Tuesday, Gov. Greg Abbott advised Texans to stay home and gave mayors and county judges the authority to restrict gatherings of more than 100 people.

https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/news/state/t-rowe-price-2020-midyear-market-outlook-path-ahead-for-financial-markets-depends-on-how/article_356ab962-38a8-59d3-8fc8-91f3dd26301c.html
T. Rowe Price 2020 Midyear Market Outlook: Path Ahead For Financial Markets Depends On How Quickly Global Economies Navigate Through Pandemic
By T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. Jun 23, 2020
BALTIMORE, June 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The longest equity bull market in history came to a sudden and shattering end in March as the Covid-19 pandemic killed hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, forced governments to impose a strict and prolonged quarantine of citizens, and plunged the shuttered global economy into recession. By mid-June, some countries began to emerge from quarantine, leading to concerns about a second wave, while some developing market countries continued to see a troubling rise in new infections. The global economy and markets are likely to remain volatile as scientists race to develop effective treatments and to deploy a vaccine in mass quantities, potentially sometime in 2021.

https://www.schwab.com/resource-center/insights/content/higher-education-bonds-covid-19-world
Higher-Education Bonds in a COVID-19 World
By Cooper Howard
As the economy reopens from COVID-19 restrictions, a question looms: What will colleges and universities look like come fall? Will students return to a more normal on-campus learning experience, some form of online experience, a combination of both … or will they simply not return? The question is important to municipal bond investors because the education sector accounts for roughly 7% of the investment-grade muni market.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/retirees-it-may-be-time-to-ditch-your-investment-strategy-11593008864
Outside the Box
4 ways to build your wealth and make it last longer
Retirees: It may be time to ditch your investment strategy
By Jonathan Clements
What to do with your money now that yield has dried up?
They’ve long been endangered, but 2020 may mark their demise: After four decades of falling interest rates, it seems safe investments offering attractive yields have finally disappeared.