@msf. "A problem with putting too much faith in volatility figures over a generally quiescent period is that one is blinded to latent risks." Hear, hear. And yes, DODIX recovered. Think the Fed helped all IG bonds recover pretty quickly. But right before it stepped-in, I think even DODIX was down 10% in March. Yes too ... going back even further ... WWI, 1918 Flu, GD, WWII, Sputnik, Korea, Cold War (Duck & Cover), Missile Crisis, Vietnam, Watergate, gas crisis, Iran, Berlin Wall, AIDS, LTCM, tech bubble, 9/11, Iraq, housing bubble ... CV-19. You'd think with all that we would never forget that sometimes it really does feel like the world is ending. That certainly is how it felt in March. And when that happens and everybody really is running for the door, all investments look scary. I think at some level, however slight, when you are investing there is a real possibility that all could be lost. I estimate rock steady DODIX had $3B in redemptions in March, or about 5%. But if the Fed had not stepped in, how many folks would have continued to redeem? It holds about 8% junk and 25% in BBB. SEMPX's redemptions were much higher at 25%. Behemoth PIMIX lost $13B or about 10% of its AUM. Yes indeed, the 11 year bull made a lot of folks complacent, me included. Especially with its unprecedented stretches of NO volatility. Anyway, I'm rambling now. Time for another cup of coffee. Thanks again.

i own shares of mbeax fund which was managed by chicago equity partners. it has been renamed GW&K global allocation fund, effective 4/17/20. I was not happy with mbeax and was going to sell it when I found a fund I liked better. I will give the new sub-advisor a chance to see how they do. if anyone else owns shares in mbeax I would like to know what they think about the change.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4340466-municipal-bond-perspective-where-go-from
/where do We Go From Here
Given the financial strength of the sector, we believe airports have the requisite resources to weather a decline in air travel over the next several months.
If investment markets do not recover from recent declines before fiscal year-end (mostly June 30), schools will see significant investment losses in fiscal year 2020.
We expect that sales taxes and income taxes will experience immediate shocks as a result of social distancing and demand-side pressures.
As the COVID-19 pandemic evolved during the first quarter, the municipal bond market experienced one of its most volatile periods in years. Here, the Franklin Municipal Bond Department shares how they plan to navigate the market, which they think is likely to show signs of distress and elevated volatility for some time
elieve levels of municipal market volatility are likely to remain elevated over the next few months, and potentially longer. However, our seasoned team of analysts and portfolio managers have experienced difficult market periods in the past, and we are using that collective knowledge to navigate through this panic as well./
many municipals may end up bankrupted by late/summer fall unless market do rebounds and folks are less worried/install more monies into system/buying more. I think we are slowly getting there. The vanguard advisors that we talked to still recommends balance holdings of different products/vehicles and perhaps may lessen risks just in case another crash /W form recovery takes place
we are still holding to our munis and corp porfolios, have not buy nor added recently.
We did have one bond near bankruptcy past few weeks but we are still holding on since it did slightly recovered recently [RIG oil platforms]

SEC alleges willful violation and other funds were cited as well (Pimco etc.)

Outside of PIMCO, do you know of other bond funds inflating their early performance this way?
https://www.sec.gov/news/pressrelease/2016-252.html
The "willful" part wasn't exactly necessary. As the SEC pointed out, negligence would have been sufficient. It even referenced Steadman in this regard. There, the SEC said that "if we were to conclude that the [defendants] meant to defraud investors, we would have to believe that they did it for the sheer joy of it rather than for profit."
There were multiple problems with what both PIMCO and Semper did. Notably that they inflated performance figures and that they did not disclose this.
Lots of funds seem to do unusually well right out of the gate due to small size. If they can purchase small (odd) lots at a discount and actually resell them at full value, they can boost returns. PIMCO might have been able to do this for a short time, buying up small lots until it had enough to sell round lots. That would have made its performance figures legitimate but still misleading. That's why the lack of disclosure mattered.

It's so tempting to buy now IOFIX,VCFAX and especially EIXIX which I think is "safer" but I don't dare. These broken MBS might have a problem
[and later ...]
Corp bonds rated invested grade were down 13% from the top. Black swan is unknown ... Pimco top ones PCI, PDI lost 30-40%.

The funds you look at do seem broken. As corporates and MBSs recovered, these funds continued going down. Which is why, as Baseball_Fan wrote, it's important to know what you own, not just what their "stats" are.
Every once in awhile, a picture really is worth a thousand words. Here's a graph showing YTD curves for MBB (iShares MBS), PTRIX (Pimco MBS fund), VTC (Vanguard Total Corporate ETF), VCFAX, and SEMRX.
All dipped to varying degrees, but the first three recovered and are positive on the year.
VCFAX flattened and is down 13%; SEMRX continued to plunge and is down 22%.
SEMMX is negative over 1, 3, and 5 years. (It has not been around for a decade yet.) Next to that, DODIX looks pretty good. A problem with putting too much faith in volatility figures over a generally quiescent period is that one is blinded to latent risks.
These "black swan" events come almost like clockwork. 2020, 2009, 2000, 1987, 1974. Pandemic risk is unknown? That sounds like a politician.
"Over the past quarter century, warnings have been clear and consistent from both US government leaders, scientists, and global health officials: A pandemic was coming—and whenever it arrived, it would be catastrophic to the global economy."
https://www.wired.com/story/an-oral-history-of-the-pandemic-warnings-trump-ignored/

Majority may probably get better. Family was/[? from me? ]is heavily exposed (even w ppe and proper precautions working in medicine floor and sub acute setting]. She had stay home feel very bad few days....did not get tested because was long waiting at testing centers. Supervisor was understaffed and told us -we have come back work 3 days later instead of 14.
Even the infection disease physicians at facility changed the guidelines folks whom are well can return 3-7days instead of 14. We were hesitant/concerned but did confirmed reaffirmation with CDC guidelines and came back to work. We are doing extremely well now..We did discussed with the infection disease team, they state 70-98.5% gets it may have no issues [depending on different studies]
Unfortunately one 57 yo lady with many health issues passed away at facility. We do keep her in our prayers

The latest from the CDC as of April 29, 2020. See Table 2.
Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)

Here is a little more info:

In the vast majority of younger adults, covid-19 appears to result in mild illness with the risk of more severe consequences rising with every decade of age. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, 0.8 percent of U.S. deaths as of Apr. 18 were in people ages 25 to 34; 2 percent among those 35 to 44; and 5.4 percent among those 45 to 54.

From: https://washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/24/strokes-coronavirus-young-patients/
Also, there seems to be a fairly strong link between having a severe case of Covid-19 and being obese among young people:

Young adults with obesity are more likely to be hospitalized, even if they have no other health problems, studies show.

https://nytimes.com/2020/04/16/health/coronavirus-obesity-higher-risk.html

I said it. It's pretty easy to conclude based on the numbers and people I know who have had it.
According to the Mass. DPH website: Average age of those hospitalized is 69. Average age of those who have died, 82. To date, the rate of deaths for those 40 years of age and younger is 4 out of 100,000 people. So yes, it affects older people with pre-existing conditions at much greater rate. It's startling, really. Again, this number of saying "young" people, under 60, is ridiculous.
https://mass.gov/doc/covid-19-dashboard-april-29-2020/download

Baseball fan, all the things you said to watch for didn't work. Corp bonds rated invested grade were down 13% from the top. Black swan is unknown and if you invest based on that you will only own treasuries which are fine for some but not all investors.
Charles, the idea of CEFs is good but most were down significantly, even Pimco top ones PCI, PDI lost 30-40%.
I basically sell any bond fund I own that lose 1%.
Lastly, to investors who say lesson learned, I don't. I don't look at the last crash and invest based on it in the next several years. I just wait months until I feel markets come down to take more risk in bonds.

@Charles - no doubt small comfort but IOFIX is up 10% over the last month.
With respect to the SEC filing against Semper this is an old issue about pricing of odd-lot MBS securities in 2013-2014.
The SEC states that 126 odd lots were priced according to round lot prices, leading to an overstatement of approx 3.5% of their value, and thus an elevated NAV during that period.
SEC alleges willful violation and other funds were cited as well (Pimco etc.)
It is not related to the most recent fund collapse.

@carew388. You're in good company.
@NormPeterson. I found the sub-adviser for IOFIX, the folks at Garrison Point, to be of high character. I was never crazy about the AlphaCentric adviser, but the GP folks said they were left alone. I suspect that's true except for letting AUM grow. But only speculation on my part. Have not been in touch since it's (relative) collapse. Still hurts.
@FD100. Wouldn't CEFs be a more transparent and ultimately safer play in this space? While they may (and have) experienced deep NAV drops and deeper discounts, the fund managers don't need to sell the holdings at fire sale prices. So, leaving assets in tact for a rebound during better times.

It's so tempting to buy now IOFIX,VCFAX and especially EIXIX which I think is "safer" but I don't dare. These broken MBS might have a problem

What are the odds IOFIX did the same thing?

Featured in the May edition of Bottom Line Personal ... MFO's David Snowball picks the following funds for lower volatility in rocky times. They are Arke Focus (AKREX) ... Bruce Fund (BRUFX) ... and, Wellesley Income (VWINX).

Hello ... and, Good Mroning! Here in the States, as I write, stock futures are up across the board along with oil. Could be a good day for stocks. Treasury yields are up which means bond prices have declined as yields and prices generally move in an opposite direction of one another.
Inspite of the decline in the S&P 500 Index yesterday my portfolio did well due to a good number of foreign markets having an up day as I have about a 30% weighting to foreign. My three best performing funds yesterday were PMDAX +1.98% (a domestic small/mid cap dividend value fund) ... DWGAX +1.23% (a developing world dividend paying equity fund) ... and, HWIAX (1.11%) a deep value dividend paying hybrid fund). Seems some investors might be in the hunt for dividends, and value, now that equity valuations appear to be streached.

There are many different features that lead someone to prefer one financial institution over another. I came up with a number of relatively minor features that I personally place some value in. Haven't found a single perfect institution though. YMMV.
- individual 401(k): free, Roth option, in-service distributions, investment options (full brokerage or house funds). See The College Investor for other features and major providers. Some brokerages provide Roth options; Fidelity and Schwab do not. Vanguard and T. Rowe Price do provide a Roth option, but limit investments to house funds.
- Retail HSA account (not through employer): free, no min cash balance required to invest. Fidelity is the only brokerage I know of that offers HSA accounts directly. Lively (an HSA provider) gives you a brokerage window to TD Ameritrade. See The HSA Report Card for detailed analyses of HSA providers.
- Cash management (bank) services: bill pay, checking, good interest (relatively speaking), ATM access. Vanguard has high interest and checking, but no bill pay or ATM card. At Vanguard and Fidelity, if your core account does not have enough cash to cover a check, they can automatically draw from another (higher yielding) MMF. Many brokerages other than Vanguard provide bill pay and ATM access with surcharge rebates. These features are not so important if you employ a regular bank account.
Schwab's ATM card charges no foreign (international) transaction fee; Fidelity's sometimes charges a 1% fee. Others tend to charge at least this much and may limit surcharge rebates to US ATMs.
- Fractional share purchases of stocks/ETFs (e.g. $100 exactly of MINT). This is something Schwab promised. AFAIK only Fidelity has delivered. (Robinhood rolled out fractional shares earlier this month but it doesn't support limit orders.) Fractional shares is the only "yet to use" feature on my list. It should make buying ETFs easier - more like mutual funds.
- Donor advised funds:low min to open, low grant min, low maintenance cost, low cost funds, wide variety of funds. T. Rowe Price seems to have the lowest "all in" (admin + fund expenses) cost for actively managed funds, but not lowest if using index funds. Fidelity and Schwab have the lowest mins and are low cost. Fidelity has a small advantage on fund costs and variety of funds. Not that one needs many funds for this type of account. It's convenient if the DAF account is with your brokerage as that makes contributing easier.
This list of 74 DAFs is about a decade old, but still gives a good sense of costs and what's out there.

SEC brings enforcement action against mgr of Semper MBS Total Return Fund.
https://twitter.com/syouth1/status/1255232240809922561?s=20

Hi @Crash, I'm thinking that S&P 500 pushing 3000 streaches things a bit. With this, I'm looking for it to trade sideways and range bound for a while. Again, earnings are going to have to come in around the $150.00+ range to support a 3000+ valuation. I don't think we are there yet. Perhaps, by late summer or early fall things will be somewhat sorted out by then with Q3 and Q4 earings looking better.

...And yet, the day's action fizzled. NASDAQ got killed. International was better, I hope, as I reach for a 2nd cup of Joe at 10:50 a.m.

Off-topic, but HSA contributions and earnings aren't tax deductible in CA (and AFAIK NJ).

Not déductible on state income in some states, but federally deductible in all.
https://irs.gov/publications/p969
State Info:
https://thehsareportcard.com/the-hsa-report-card-1/2017/12/2/any-bank-basiconlinecom