In previous 401k account, I held PRGTX, PRNEX, and PRLAX for an year or two during 2015-16. All 3 of them made money anywhere between 20 to 30% though insignificant portion of the overall portfolio. I had to sell all 3 of them, when moving to a new 401k account as part of acquisition of our employer by another company.
I planned to buy all 3 of them in other IRA accounts that I held at TDA, but procrastinated, and in no time they were up anywhere from 10-30% this year except for PRNEX. Now, I feel it is too late to buy them, especially PRGTX. (:-

Buffett's rules .1Don't lose MOney 2 Don't forget rule 1 have been followed by all managers of this fund when they started managing and wrote that more or less in their first quarterly reportga

Don't lose money? Yes, agree. But than continue to generate these kinds of average annualized returns?
PRWCX:

Average annualized returns: 1-year 11.73%, 5-years 11.59%, Since Inception (21-years) 11.34% https://www3.troweprice.com/usis/personal-investing/mutual-funds/historical-performance.html
Talk about consistency!
BTW: The fund wasn't always so universally loved here. Here's a former poster named "Max" in November 2013 testing the waters. He was new to PRWCX and appeared in need of assurances from some of those familiar with the fund. I'm glad we were able to help at the time. http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/9085/changes/p1

Aw, shucks..... ;)

Buffett's rules .1Don't lose MOney 2 Don't forget rule 1 have been followed by all managers of this fund when they started managing and wrote that more or less in their first quarterly reportga

Don't lose money? Yes, agree. But than continue to generate these kinds of average annualized returns?
PRWCX: Average annualized returns: 1-year 11.73%, 5-years 11.59%, Since Inception (21-years) 11.34% https://www3.troweprice.com/usis/personal-investing/mutual-funds/historical-performance.html
Talk about consistency!
BTW: The fund wasn't always so universally loved here. Here's a former poster named "Max" in November 2013 testing the waters. He was new to PRWCX and appeared in need of assurances from some of those familiar with the fund. I'm glad we were able to help at the time. http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/9085/changes/p1

Interval funds are nothing new - they've been around for decades, but they seem to have reached more widespread awareness (including the relatively new term "interval funds") in the past few years.
Here's a page from CEFadvisors.com, with no date, but google says that the page comes from Sept. 25, 2004: "Some closed-end funds are excessively concerned with the discount. Many CEFs have successfully reduced their discount and enhanced performance by a combination of share repurchases and/or periodic tender offers at or near NAV."
My impression is that this accurately states where the idea of periodic redemptions came from - CEF trading at too high a discount. Periodic redemptions, as contasted with no redemptions (just market trading) would tend to keep them closer to NAV, somewhat like ETFs.
A couple of decades ago, fund sponsors took a stab at offering stable value funds outside of the 401k arena. These funds came to the interval fund structure from the other end of the spectrum - trying to mimic open end funds (daily redemptions) while clamping down on trading, since stable value funds need long term money to work. Sponsors gradually converted these to open end funds (my guess is because people didn't "get" interval funds); that and tighter SEC scrutiny killed off the stable value funds.
The point is that there can be different reasons why a fund chooses to offer periodic redemptions. The boomlet in these funds now strikes me as marketing. Instead of simply starting these funds as CEFs and watching how their market discounts moved, they're being sold from the start as pseudo-open-end funds to garner a wider audience.

Yeah, that -25% drop in 2008 for PFIDX vs. -5.8% for PONDX would give me pause, even if Ivascyn recently started co-managing PFIDX.

Surprised to learn of international stake. Don't monitor that closely. Hold it for inlaws along with RPGAX - which I expected to provide international exposure. I guess it is still okay to hold both.Curious that M* says "non us stock" is 3.25%. something wrong somewhere

From TRP's website (end of May): Domestic stock 59.1%, Domestic bond 20.4% Foreign stock 3.6%, Foreign bond 2.4%, Remainder in cash, convertibles and preferred.
Lipper, however, lists 26% in foreign holdings. I'm not sure if the 26% applies to all holdings or just to the equities. Agree with VF the numbers are confusing.
I've never known the fund to invest much in foreign stocks. Agree with the accolades. Owning it nearly since inception, I'm somewhat in disbelief. Suspect even the folks at Price are scratching their heads over this one's continued success under different managers and in different market environments.

Surprised to learn of international stake. Don't monitor that closely. Hold it for inlaws along with RPGAX - which I expected to provide international exposure. I guess it is still okay to hold both.
Curious that M* says "non us stock" is 3.25%. something wrong somewhere

A truly admirable fund. Smartly, they closed it to new investors a long time ago. It is not a balanced fund by any means. It is much more of a risk-aware global allocation fund. Current allocation of57% U.S. stock, 22% international stock, 22% bonds (mostly short-term HY, and about 15% in cash. Definitely NOT a balanced fund. But this do-your-own-thing approach has worked for the fund for three decades.

We use TGBAX as a core hold in many accounts, with GSDIX for some larger accounts. Although TGBAX is not EM per se, Hasenstab uses a lot of EM currencies and has not been afraid of owning EM bonds (currently about 60%). It is clearly the "chicken" way to own some EM bonds. We have used FNMIX some in the past, and really like the manager. Should we be in a prolonged dollar slide, a local-currency fund like GIMDX could be advantageous (and it has done well YTD), and we have used it in the past under those circumstances. Unfortunately, M* lumps dollar and local funds together, skewing the dollar-based funds much higher because of the dollar's recent strength. I do not see much attraction for DELNX. The very low yield does not compensate me for the EM risk.

What do you think of a fund like PFSIX? I have been considering an EM bond fund also, but am hoping for a fund that is a combination of both dollar hedged and local currency (hopefully the holdings would be strategic based on how the managers see the currencies moving in the different countries it is invested in). PFSIX is currently divided between the underlying 3 individual funds (50% local currency bond, 26.5% dollar hedged bond, and 22% corporate bond, which I believe can be both dollar hedged and local currency depending on the managers views). Rather than having to choose one or the other, do you or anybody know of any other EM bond funds that invest in both dollar hedged and local currency?

My quick observation is that the three strategies may end up cancelling each other out. Then, as I look at the fund's three-year number of -0.45%, perhaps that is exactly what has happened? Perhaps not, but in the face of a strong dollar, this three-pronged strategy faces a lot of headwinds.

Yes, I am a fan of OSTIX, a big fan of Carl Kaufman and his team. OSTIX does have a transaction fee because Osterweis funds refuses to pay Fidelity, TD, Schwab, or anyone else the extra fees. It helps to keep the asset base down, which is a good thing. We use OSTIX as a core hold in most accounts for its ability to go where and when it wants, with very little volatility and risk. Duration around 1.3, current yield around 5%. Please don't look at OSTIX as another high-yield fund. It isn't. We don't worry about this fund in terms of tightening corporate spreads since its average maturity and extremely short duration have proven its ability to withstand prevailing winds.
PONDX is also a good fund. We would use it in our more aggressive fixed-income allocations.
PTIAX is not something we would use now because of its rather long maturity. We are focusing on short maturity with shorter durations.

Why is POGRX easier to add to at Fidelity? I don't see it being NTF.

It's $50 when first purchasing, but then the fee is reduced to $5 on each additional purchase. Hopefully that has not changed...

To do a single additional investment to an existing TF-fund position at Fidelity, the drill is to set up (online) an auto-invest plan for the amount you want to add, let the first investment go thru, and then cancel; each auto-invest buy is $5. Take this route: Accounts & Trade // Account Features // Payments & Transfers // Automatic Investments. It still works.

Why is POGRX easier to add to at Fidelity? I don't see it being NTF.

It's $50 when first purchasing, but then the fee is reduced to $5 on each additional purchase. Hopefully that has not changed...

We use TGBAX as a core hold in many accounts, with GSDIX for some larger accounts. Although TGBAX is not EM per se, Hasenstab uses a lot of EM currencies and has not been afraid of owning EM bonds (currently about 60%). It is clearly the "chicken" way to own some EM bonds. We have used FNMIX some in the past, and really like the manager. Should we be in a prolonged dollar slide, a local-currency fund like GIMDX could be advantageous (and it has done well YTD), and we have used it in the past under those circumstances. Unfortunately, M* lumps dollar and local funds together, skewing the dollar-based funds much higher because of the dollar's recent strength. I do not see much attraction for DELNX. The very low yield does not compensate me for the EM risk.

What do you think of a fund like PFSIX? I have been considering an EM bond fund also, but am hoping for a fund that is a combination of both dollar hedged and local currency (hopefully the holdings would be strategic based on how the managers see the currencies moving in the different countries it is invested in). PFSIX is currently divided between the underlying 3 individual funds (50% local currency bond, 26.5% dollar hedged bond, and 22% corporate bond, which I believe can be both dollar hedged and local currency depending on the managers views). Rather than having to choose one or the other, do you or anybody know of any other EM bond funds that invest in both dollar hedged and local currency?

Keep in mind that much of this is RETAIL money, investors trying to follow whatever trend is hot. I would suggest that more than a few of the funds on this list could have banner years. MALOX is ahead of the S&P 500 ytd. TGBAX is up more than double the gain of VTABX. JPMorgan Core Bond is ahead of VBTLX. At some point, investors will abandon the current "hot" funds and sectors, and move on to something else that has caught the next trend.
On the other hand, this is not to suggest that more than a few of the funds on this list are in serious trouble, if not on the brink of liquidation. How many times can a fund sustain outflows of more than 50% and survive? WASYX is a case in point. M* numbers are incorrect on it. Current assets are only about $230 million, down from about $1.5 billion just 3.5 years ago. It would appear this one is a goner, for a number of reasons. M* numbers must include privately-managed dollars as well as mutual fund assets for each fund. This being the case, the situation is even more dire for the mutual-fund only assets.

Hi Bob,
*M recently put MALOX "under review" due to the upcoming departure of one of the managers on Aug. 1. Does this departure concern you at all? Thanks.

Anyone have any experience and/or thoughts on this fairly new (September 2016) RiverPark fund. It is not managed by Cohanzick Management (David Sherman) of the Riverpark High Yield (RPHYX/RPHIX) & Strategic Income (RSIVX/RSIIX) funds, and there's no real history but it looks interesting as a commercial real estate mortgage play with a yield based on the monthly LIBOR rate resets. Mr. Snowball posted a Launch Alert back in October but I see nothing else in the archives.
The main drawback I see to this fund (other than its being an MBS) is its structure as a closed-end "interval" fund and a limitation of only being able to redeem (sell) shares on a quarterly basis. In all probability, the 5-25% of outstanding shares quarterly repurchase limitation would never (probably never?) be invoked, but it is a consideration limiting ones personal liquidity.
Other comments?
/dave

Whoa! The author noted that Mortgage Backed Securities funds can be as volatile as gold funds........ya, ok; dude, you're on my list of smart folks. Perhaps I misread the article about this. Please correct me on this, as needed.

I just alluded to this concern in my post here, but I don't think the article is saying that MBS funds can be as volatile as gold funds.
The financial community typically "measures" volatility as standard deviation, which represents the fluctuations of a security over time.
That's what distinguishes the effect the article was conveying from volatility. Most of the time, MBS funds are well behaved and return slightly more than vanilla bond funds of comparable duration and quality. So they are not especially volatile. But under the right (wrong?) conditions, they can become unstable; prices can fall fast and hard. It's largely because of their negative convexity.
There's a built in expectation that a certain number of people will redeem the mortgages early - either because they're selling their homes or because they can refinance at a lower rate. As interest rates rise, there's less propensity to refinance, and you wind up stuck with lower paying bonds that people aren't redeeming as fast as you expected. That makes them longer term and thus further depresses their prices.
There can be economic conditions (e.g. a shrinking job market) that might dissuade people from moving (and thus paying off their mortgages). This too means that the bonds effectively become longer term, which causes their price to drop.
Or people may not refinance when interest rates drop because they're underwater and are unable to. That would be positive for bond prices, as you get to hold onto bonds with above market yields.
Then there are behavioral factors as well. Just because it makes economic sense for someone to refinance doesn't mean they will. People are not entirely rational.
Add it all up and there are lots of factors that can trigger a rapid movement of MBS prices. You don't see this effect often (hence the funds aren't extremely volatile), but the risk is always there.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pimcos-new-bond-king-is-nothing-like-bill-gross-1497605409

With a 2-year time horizon I would go with Pimco Income and if you have $25,000 to invest, I would open a Brokerage Account at Vanguard to purchase institutional shares (PIMIX). There is a 34 basis point difference in the expense ratio between PONDX and PIMIX.

I would use Vanguard, but I invest for the long term. Over two years, after taxes, this would save someone about eighty bucks. Not chickenfeed, but not a king's ransom either. Depends on how much you value your time and effort. (I'll walk an extra 1/2 mile to save 25 cents on a bottle of soda - but I also benefit from the exercise - the 25c is just an added bonus.)
Increased yield: $25K x 0.34% x 2 years x 75% = $127.50 (25% tax bracket)
Increased cost: $35 to buy, $20 to sell = $55 x 85% = $46.75 (15% tax savings on reduced cap gains)
Net after tax gain by using Vanguard: $80.75

With a 2-year time horizon I would go with Pimco Income and if you have $25,000 to invest, I would open a Brokerage Account at Vanguard to purchase institutional shares (PIMIX). There is a 34 basis point difference in the expense ratio between PONDX and PIMIX.

Another lens is to look at them as far as credit and rate sensitivity go (and what you think might happen to those categories of reward:risk over your holding period). They're pretty different on those metrics.
OSTIX is almost entirely credit sensitive; It's basically a low duration high yield fund, with not a lot of surprises -- a good play on high yield, usually slightly on the junkier side.
PONDX plays on both sides of the street, and the Ivascyn crew has been really adept, especially lately, figuring out how to do that successfully. And they do it with a yield that's plenty generous for the risks.
PTIAX is mildly rate sensitive overall, and the only one of the three that, given its current and historical construction, would be a reliable, if partial, offset to an equity downturn. The credit risk is entirely in non-agency mortgages, mostly legacy mortgages as I understand. The barbell pairing of munis and non-agency mortgages has been a pretty decent balance for reward: risk; a mild equity hedge with a yield over 5% is unique as far as I'm aware.
All said & done, just IMHO, looking at a 2y horizon, I'd go 50-50 PONDX-PTIAX.
P.S. What Catch said about Pimco's use of tools most other bond managers don't use (e.g., swaps, options) ... I think that's a reason to be somewhat less concerned than you might normally be about AUM.