Thanks @Mark.
“ policymakers around the world can't afford to let a massive deflationary economic collapse occur, and for millions and millions of people to be unable to afford the necessities of life and for half of large companies to go out of business, so they will be forced to keep the stimulus taps open, funded with printed money, with a willingness to devalue currency to avoid the worst case economic scenario."
Investors should keep in mind that the above is just one possible scenario. So if you bet on it by loading up on risk assets and instead global economies fall into the dumpster for the next decade, you'll lose a lot of money. Probably would have been better off in AAA bonds.
Listened to Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital on Bloomberg today. I thought he missed the “mark” a little. In addressing the steep equity valuations today Marks painted 2 possible outcomes: (1) A near term sharp retrenchment in equity valuations or (2) Continued CB easing and government stimulus which may keep equities / risk assets “levitated” for many years before they finally fall back to earth. (But possibly Bloomberg edited out other pertinent commentary.)
There is a 3rd proposition, which Schwartzer seems to address: Paper currencies will steadily erode in purchasing power owing to all the easy money & repeated government stimulus around the world so that the seemingly high valuations today may appear cheap in a decade or so. In other words, in a decade from now you may be glad you owned some of today’s “bloated” equities. I think we tend to underestimate the slow steady effect of inflation on our standard of living and on our investments.
“The fog creeps in on little cat feet.” - Carl Sandburg

Hi @johnN,
Thanks for posting the article on munis. It covers how to determine which offers the better investment value ... muni's, treasuries, or corporates? And, for me, cash as well.
Muni's are a part of my diversified income sleeve and I can hold up to about an 8% to 10% weighting in them. I have one more buy step to make before they (FLAAX) will be at full weight within the sleeve. Currently, FLAAX is 6.5% below its 52 week high and offers value, from my perspective, if purchased in the near term. FLAAX has gained 1.5% over the past 30 days. In comparison, one of my money market mutual funds, PCOXX, has returned a mere 0.04%. A couple of my multi sector income funds (JGIAX & LBNDX) that hold a large percentage in corporates has returned better than 3%. And, for the sleeve as a whole about 2.4% while it's more aggressive cousin, my hybrid income sleeve, is around a return of 4%.
From a yield review and since there is a tax advantage for FLAAX being a muni fund vs JGIAX & LBNDX which are taxable funds this puts FLAAX & LBNDX about even with a slight yield advantage to JGIAX after taxes are considered.
Looking back over the past five years the best performing fund within my income sleeve has been ... you guessed it ... FLAAX.
For me, on a risk adjusted basis muni's are currently offering up good value and there is space within the sleeve to add more, which I plan to do.

Hi guys, I take the print edition and it might get released before the online one becomes available since it comes through the mail. Not a typo ... June 1, 2020 ... edition is correct.

@hank - and so it shall be.
Lyn Alden Schwartzer's May 19 article, "First Liquidity, Then Solvency," is a brief, detailed and chart-laden description of today's economy and market.
"Does it get better from here, or is this a big fake-out for another round of selling as we move deeper into this year? ...
"The next several years are likely to be challenging for many companies with weak balance sheets, so make sure you know what you own.
"...the top 5 mega-cap stocks have held up the major American stock market indices like Atlas holding up the world, and reached levels of concentration not seen in nearly four decades."
"...policymakers around the world can't afford to let a massive deflationary economic collapse occur, and for millions and millions of people to be unable to afford the necessities of life and for half of large companies to go out of business, so they will be forced to keep the stimulus taps open, funded with printed money, with a willingness to devalue currency to avoid the worst case economic scenario."
Lyn Alden Schwartzer's May 19 article

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelfoster/2020/05/23/floating-rate-funds-in-a-covid-19-world-buy-or-sell/#6141b51b6eff
Floating Rate Funds In A COVID-19 World: Buy Or Sell?
Volatility has taken over, and if you’re like most folks, you’re wondering where to find the safe dividends you need to sustain your savings—and income stream—as this pandemic drags on.
enjoy

USAA recently "sold" their Investment division to Charles Schwab for $1.8 Billion. That's $1,800,000,000 in cash. USAA will transfer $90 Billion in assets to Schwab sometime in May 2020.

That time is now. A banner on Schwab's site reads:

Welcome USAA Members. We are so glad you are here!
We are working to transition your accounts this weekend to Schwab. On Tuesday, May 26, you will be a Schwab client. At that time, our professionals will be able to serve you over the phone and you will be able to log in to Schwab.com to access your account. Until then, please visit usaa.com/transitionhub to be guided to create your Schwab login and password or for information about the transition of your accounts to Schwab.

Nice basic portfolios. I find it interesting that he selected DODBX over VWELX.
As I've written in other posts, 2020 skews the figures. A 6% performance difference YTD is enough to make VWELX look better over any time frame. But this is (we hope) a once in a century situation. Outside of this period, DODBX looks better. OTOH, what 2020 highlights is the higher risk inherent in D&C funds.
David Snowball perhaps addresses this in his sidebar on index funds: although not best in bad markets, good over the long term. The same could be said of D&C funds.
One small nit to pick: PONRX is a load fund. As it says in its prospectus: "distribution fees ... may cost you more than other types of sales charges, such as [front end loads]. Therefore, ... the distribution fees payable on ... Class R shares may, over time, cost you more than Class A [front end loads]".
Better to buy PONAX load waived. The embedded (level) load in PONRX is reflected in its lower Morningstar (retrospective) star rating and its lower Morningstar (prospective) medal rating.

In this months edition of Bottom Line Personal MFO's David Snowball has a featured article titled: Simplify Your Investment Mix.
The bullet points of the article follow.
The articles covers, from his view, the advantages of streamlining ... Better Returns and Less Effort.
He offers up a one fund portfolio ... a two fund portfolio ... and, a three fund portfolio.
In the one fund portfolio he offers two fund choices: DODBX & VWINX.
In his two fund portfolio he offers both a basic and conservative route. The basic route contains the following fund choices. They are JENRX and HABDX. The conservative route is made up of PRBLX and FTBFX.
For his three fund portfolio he offers both a basic and conservative route. For the basic route he list the following funds. They are VDIGX, TROSX and DODLX. For the conservative route he uses PRDGX, TBGVX and PONRX.
The article covers suggested weightings along with some other comments.
Nice article for those that are wanting to streamline.
Old_Skeet

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jrose/2020/05/22/do-you-have-a-long-term-plan-if-the-coronavirus-bear-market-continues/#73b450b0c391
Do You Have A Long-Term Plan If The Coronavirus Bear Market Continues?
2020 has been a wild ride in the stock market. After setting an all-time high on February 19, the market slid a stunning 34% by March 23 – a space of barely 5 weeks.
Then it did something probably nobody at the time saw coming – it took an equally dramatic turn upward. Through April 30 the market recovered 32% from its March lows, as measured by the S&P 500.

Using your "good until it wasn't" Pimco bond fund PONAX, one sees that DSEEX's performance since April 30th was roughly the sum of CAPE's and PONAX's. (Remember that DSEEX is leveraged for 200% exposure: 100% CAPE, 100% bond.)
See graph here. (Graph only shows CAPE through 5/21; it closed up 0.24% on 5/22)
The graph does show fairly clearly that the bond portion of DSEEX is not, however, mimicking PONAX. If it were, the spread between DSEEX and CAPE would have been microscopic until a week ago (since PONAX was roughly flat for the first couple of weeks in May).
DSEEX: +1.86%
PONAX: +1.20%
CAPE: +0.35% + 0.24% (Friday)
Total: +1.79%

The Dividend Builder ETF prospectus, as yet incomplete.
My understanding is that the conversion was pursued in order to level the playing field by eliminating structural costs. The managers win if and only if the new wrapper carries dramatically lower fees than the original, and fees lower enough to win back the attention of the advisor community. So far, those haven't been published.
Jim Atkinson, btw, once noted that this fund was vastly more popular in Europe than in the US. "Something about the underlying logic really connects with the German investor," he said.

2020 skews results. Some funds have done way better than their long term performance would suggest, LLSCX has done remarkably worse (99th percentile of mid cap blend category).
Looking instead at 1/1/2010 through 1/1/2020, LLSCX has done okay. Not an endorsement or a commentary on its investments, but rather a suggestion to look at more than one snapshot in time. Especially given that the outsized impact of the 2020 market effectively transforms some "long term" figures into "what have you done for me lately" pictures.
Here's a chart over that timeframe comparing LLSCX, R2K (its stated benchmark), midcap blend (its M* category since 2011), and small cap value (it claims to buy small cap companies, and Longleaf generally claims to be a value family). It just edged out R2K (210% cumulative return vs. 206% for R2K), and did better against the MCB and SCV category averages.
M* comparison chart
If you don't like looking at charts (personally I prefer to read numbers), the LLSCX summary prospectus says that the fund's average return over the past ten years was 11.98% vs 11.83 for the R2K. That's 2010-2019.
Why bother? Lots of better funds out there.
Can't argue with that :-)

[Did not see David's post above as I was constructing this one.]
LewisBraham:
Of course I am not sure, but I believe that it is (more or less) a first.
Did a Google search that came up only with one story from 2008 [!]:

Claymore Advisors announced that the shareholders of Claymore/Raymond James SB-1 Equity Fund (RYJ) have approved the [closed-end] fund’s reorganization into an ETF format.

(Ignoring Vanguard's patented mutual fund/ETF structure.)
These 2019 stories suggest that this could be a first.

https://www.etf.com/sections/features-and-news/how-mutual-funds-convert-etfs
https://www.bbh.com/en-us/insights/making-the-switch--turning-a-mutual-fund-into-an-exchange-traded-fund-38254
https://www.thompsonhine.com/publications/converting-a-mutual-fund-to-an-etf-key-considerations

The last (7-15-2019) from the Thompson Hine law firm, states:

To date, no mutual fund has been converted into an ETF. Such a conversion raises regulatory and operational issues, none of which are insurmountable.

So, think it is probably a first.
(Will you let us know what you discover?)
-----------------------------------------------
May 30 Update: See LewisBraham's May 28 post below.

I have been in and now out of Longleaf funds for decades. I finally gave up. While their reports are wonderfully detailed, and they make compelling arguments for all of their positions, the market seldom agrees.
I think they make some disastrous mistakes over the years, and stuck with large positions that were cheap and stayed cheaper or got cheaper.
Neither LLSCX or LLPFX have beaten their benchmark over the last decade. 11% of LLSCX is in Century Link which is down 35% since they first bought it. While CTL owns a large chunk of the internet backbone, it is loosing revenue quickly.
Why bother? Lots of better funds out there.

I glanced back & the last one I found was Oct. 2019.
Derf

Too much bad news still out there. I'm slowly selling things as market rises to build cash. I think we're going to have a lot more businesses going south this summer. We're starting to see small businesses locally (WA state) announce going out of business sales. I think that will continue. And big companies like JC Penney and Hertz announced this week too. I think that trend will continue as so many businesses are leveraged to the hilt (as the MBA degree folks think that is the best way to do things).
So right now I'm taking profits and building cash. I've made a bunch of money in this rebound with QQQ although I sold my last of that this week. I'm about 50% stocks now where I'm usually more like 75. Still about 10% down for the year; that happens but I don't want to take a big drop.

Hi guys,
Was reading The Economist magazine. It has some scary things regarding bankruptcies, and a wave is coming. Already it's as bad as 2009, and it's only starting. Bonds.....2/3 of the non financials are BBB or junk. Already huge numbers will go to junk. Of the 32 worldwide junk bond defaults in April, 21 were in the U.S. Oil and gas (shale) are going to be smashed. Other sectors include retail, restaurants, mining, transport, cars, utilities. Also there will be lots of zombie companies that will survive for years. Europe is in the same shoes. I'm glad I don't own small cap funds now. Still, I worry about the mid caps I own. This will get bad, I think.
God bless
the Pudd

I also wish to thank @Puddnhead for all the informative and entertaining B/ S threads over the years. I suspect that’s a favorite read for many who don’t actively participate.
@Mark - Your Lyn Alden Schwartzer article would also fit under the “What The Hell is The Stock Market Doing?” thread: https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/56135/what-the-hell-is-the-stock-market-doing-cullen-roche

Lyn Alden Schwartzer's May 19 article, "First Liquidity, Then Solvency," is a brief, detailed and chart-laden description of today's economy and market.
"Does it get better from here, or is this a big fake-out for another round of selling as we move deeper into this year? ...
"The next several years are likely to be challenging for many companies with weak balance sheets, so make sure you know what you own.
"...the top 5 mega-cap stocks have held up the major American stock market indices like Atlas holding up the world, and reached levels of concentration not seen in nearly four decades."
"...policymakers around the world can't afford to let a massive deflationary economic collapse occur, and for millions and millions of people to be unable to afford the necessities of life and for half of large companies to go out of business, so they will be forced to keep the stimulus taps open, funded with printed money, with a willingness to devalue currency to avoid the worst case economic scenario."

Why "too bad"? Isn't it only the "wrapper" that has changed - not the contents?

On May 14, 2020, the Board of Trustees of the Guinness Atkinson Funds (the “Trust”) approved the reorganizations of ... Funds into SmartETFs ... There will be no change in investment objective, strategies or portfolio management.

Also - would this be the "first" conversion of an existing mutual fund into an ETF?
If so (unsure), wouldn't that be big news, with respect to setting a precedent?
Re: SmartETFs
https://www.smartetfs.com/invest/
https://www.smartetfs.com/about-us/