Looking at DODGX's holdings as of 12/31/19 and their highest stake was financials at 26%, followed by healthcare at 23%. I did notice their 10% stake in energy, which is more than double the S&P index. Big underweight of tech, too.

@MikeW. I hold CTFAX in my hybrid income sleeve as it kicks off capital gains coming from its investment activity. Plus, it pays a dividend. Check it's disbursement activity on its mutual fund site. It is a good fund to own in volatile markets. Generally, it holds more bonds than equities. But, in stock market pullbacks it loads equities. And, as the market recovers it trims equities and loads bonds. It went in this downdraft from an equity allocation of 15% and increased it to 70% towards the bottom on March 23rd. It employes a 31 day trading rule so it will be around April 24th before it begins to sell down equities should current price levels hold and/or increase and move higher.

The two funds I sold were held within my hybrid income sleeve. I'll be buying during the next pullback within this sleeve thus maintaing my allocation. If the pullback comes soon I'll be buying other funds after 31 days I may by back one of the ones sold. I have targeted some of this money to go into CTFAX. CTFAX positions based upon the movement of the S&P 500 Index.

Hi @MikeW.
Perhaps you are correct. However, for me, I running with their revised TTM earnings number published 3-31 and those projected thru September. I expect it to change. But, I feel it is the best currently available.
I,m staying invested within my asset allocation which is set to my risk tolerance. Thus far I have performed pretty much along what my conservative asset allocation funds have performed.
I am just posting how I am governing and what I am seeing. I am sure others think differently and will govern differently.
With this I did some tax loss selling this morning and plan to reposition these sale proceeds back into my portfolio.
Take care ... and, thanks for posting your thoughts.
Skeet

Hi, guys.
Sorry for the early-month silence. This whole "running a college by remote control while fretting every time your throat tickles" thing is enormously time-consuming, and surprisingly tiring.
We tried to avoid trivializing the pandemic by having a bunch of fund-specific pieces in the issue. The hope was to keep reinforcing the "breathe, plan now, act later, we'll get through this together" ethos.
Traffic is down by about a quarter from the same week a year ago. That's partly, I think, the desire of many folks not to look. And, too, our late launch on April 1, occasioned by the aforementioned "running colleges" challenge.
May's an anniversary issue. Hoping for a good one. A couple Launch Alerts are cued up (GP US Stalwarts, T Rowe Price Global Value Equity). Maybe profiles of Bruce (BRUFX) and T Rowe Price Multi-Strategy Total Return (TMSRX). Might update the RiverPark Long/Short, since it's atop the top performing fund in its universe over both the short- and intermediate term. And thinking a lot about the question of where to look for the next phase of the market.
Cheers to all,
David

I'm an asset allocator. I'm working within the confines of my allocation of 15-40-45. So, yes to the question. We all have to govern as we feel best.

Hi guys. Pick a number for a low. Mine is 2000 for the S&P 500. With a 5 percent earnings yield equates to the Index's earnings being about $100. Currently S&P's projects earnings to be in the mid $130's thru summer. With a 5 percent earnings yield this puts the Index in the 2600 to 2700 range. As I write the Index is at 2580 range. BINGO. Sure it will move around some from here based upon the news.
I'm doing some tax loss selling today. This will raise my cash by about 5 percent. And, I will do some select buying mostly on the income side of my portfolio in the near term.

Other than DODIX, I would not own any other D&C funds. I got burned by DODGX during the financial crisis in 2008 and vowed never to return once I got to a point where I felt comfortable selling. IMHO, they are operating on their past reputation pre-2008. I'm not surprised to see DODGX and DODFX doing worse than their respective categories during this current mess. There are plenty of better alternatives, IMHO.

Well put and what I have been saying for years. I think maybe D&C managers are more comfortable investing in financial/banking stocks which were their biggest category and not realizing this category has been lagging the SP500 while the high tech is where you have all the value+growth.

@davidrmoran: har, imagine saying of FAIRX, CGMFX, or even FMAGX that they were operating on their pre 08 rep

I used to own FAIRX,OAKBX,SGENX for about 7-8 years until 2009. In these years when I own a very high % in stocks, it fit my criteria for good risk/reward funds. PV (link) I don't believe in investing based on prior reputation.

At first, I thought the hit would be more like 1987 or 9/11. Rapid, event-driven shock. But then, given its unprecedented and widespread nature, I believed this would be as bad as the Great Recession if not worse. That's the way I thought most folks thought ... but I must be wrong. Otherwise, why haven't equities rolled over? Fed and world central banks to the rescue? Or, is it that tech drives S&P (Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook, Microsoft), which will suffer less. But even there, I just don't see an easy way out of this crisis for any sector in the economy. How will future earnings possibly support the current levels?

Hi @Bitzer. No worries on a hard time. I'm looking for my thoughts to be challenged :) and I appreciate all feedback. But what you said is exactly my point for possibly picking up a L/S fund now. "BTAL clobbered VTI in 2018, 2020". My crystal ball sees more downside in 2020 and maybe beyond, and that ball works 50% of the time!
I'm not looking for a long term holding here. I've always been an advocate against these funds long term (balanced funds will always win is my motto). I'm looking for something that holds up in a recession environment better that straight equities - VTI. I mentioned above, I think bonds are risky and corporate bonds may become even more so. Gold ETFs, "paper" as described by some, may also have more risk than I appreciated and I don't need another IOFAX surprise.
I don't plan to sell any equity funds. Probably to late for that. Just looking for diversification with possibly less risk than bonds and gold ETFs - during this upcoming recession.

With the S&P 500 coming off of the 2200 range towards the last part of March the trend is up. Now at the 2580 range as I write! I would not be surprised to see a near term upside to 2700 range. Perhaps, even 2800.
With a 5% earnings yield 2200 = $110 in earnings ... and, at 2800 = $140.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/05/stock-market-futures-open-to-close-news.html

@fundfan The more I read SPIVA reports and the Spindices blog, the more I like them and the State Street target date (index) funds. I still like to have fun with my 10% "fun" investments (most of which I wish I had used to purchase index funds)

@MikeM I'm not trying to give you a hard time here, just looking to join the fun on a boring Sunday evening
Re: BTAL I took another look at BTAL against my favorite benchmark, VTI. Ok, I know VTI is the wrong benchmark, but that (or a target date fund) is where my money goes without a better (for me) idea.
Taking a look at BTAL for each calendar year of it's existence (ok, I know that's the wrong comparison tool), I see that VTI had greater returns, except for 2018 and 2020 (thus far) when BTAL clobbered VTI.
It looks like BTAL only came to life in the past 6 weeks or so. I'm looking to invest some "fun money" but I think I can do better than BTAL.
Does anyone understand how that fund works?

PVCMX
NAV pricing for the past 12 months.
They may find their time to shine.

@MikeM I guess I can rephrase that. I found the info on the fact sheet of the fund to give me what I needed to determine what the bond portfolio looked like. I then looked at the holdings of other funds and landed on the low duration fund.
I think my issue is the fund down a little more than than the s&p or large value and there seems to be the thought of something wrong with it when Mstar shows it is more volatile.
@Bitzer I agree with you but I am probably 50/50 or so not 90/10. I have been on the site since FundAlarm and I have gone through the list over the years and many funds are no longer around or sounded promising and just weren't. I guess just like the Spiva reports we are lucky to find any funds that consistently beat the benchmarks or at least do well on a risk adjusted basis. I started using mostly factor ETFs/Funds like DSEEX kind of is because of this.

Portfolio Visualizer offers a free tool to test various combinations of funds and ETFs in one portfolio to see how they perform together. They have some pre-loaded combinations if you click on the gear icon above Portfolio 1 or 2 or 3. You can choose your benchmark, and how often it rebalances. Of course, past performance is no guarantee of future results.

QQQ is the Nasdaq 100, more precisely.
At some point I am planning on doing something quite like this, in my case 1/3 - 1/2 BND (slightly superior to AGG and the others) and the rest in CAPE and VOOG.

Hi @MikeM
I'm a nope, too; with @Mark . Too many spinning wheels; and mood swings/whims of the managers must also be taken into account.
You can build your own long/short/neutral fund.
At times one of the choices will be "long", meaning a better return and at other periods the other choice will be "short", not performing as well. In either case, the anticipated blend return could keep you ahead and no less than "neutral", meaning "flat".
The two choices are AGG (mixed bonds) and QQQ (large cap growth). Below is the average return of both combined, with the assumption that annually one would have to rebalance to maintain a 50/50% mix. I picked these two for the long term data available, and QQQ in particular, as I maintain that large growth will still perform better going forward in the equity world.
YTD = -10.6% (to be determined, eh?)
1 year = +4.8%
3 year = +8.6%
5 year = +8%
10 year = +9.7%
15 year = +8.3%
Life = +5.6% (AGG incep. = Sept. 2003, QQQ incep = Mar. 1999)
Compare these returns to the time periods available for the funds you noted, and then make your choice.
Be well.
Catch

@davidrmoran Folks could argue forever on what a fair benchmark for DSENX would be. For me, it's VTI, because that's what the balance of my domestic holdings is in. My takeaway is that DSENX has underperformed a domestic index fund. I know that's an overly simplistic analysis, but that's the one I use. (see below)
@fundfan Yes, many of the profiled funds do underperform (again, it would be difficult to agree upon an appropriate benchmark). That's why I use my version of a core and explore portfolio (90% index funds and 10% funds that I learn about on boards such as this one).

here is msf:
I was simply addressing the comment that the fund is opaque. Its practices and use of derivatives seem rather transparent (IMHO moreso than many funds); its bond holdings and the equity index it is tracking are not.

from FD1000:
DSEEX-First, managers invest in global bonds then, they look at 11 US stock sectors and select 5 undervalued sectors, then take 4 sectors out of 5 with the best momentum. They don't invest directly in the index but in a derivative that is similar to the index.
Basically, you get 200% investments for the price of 100%. You get real bonds + derivative of stock indexes.
To make even simpler, let's assume they invest in just one sector SPY and assume the bond portion makes 3-4% annually. It means, the performance will be SPY + 3-4% - (paying for derivatives).

long thread discussion, if anyone wants to get into the weeds of volatility and more (ah, those were the days):
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/114551