UPDATE with a focus on PCI & PDI
PIMCO CEF Update | It's 2008 Redux
Summary
° The PIMCO UNII report showed some modest progress on coverage and UNII levels.
° Obviously, the traditional looks at this report are less important given what is happening in the markets and with these funds specifically.
° We expect distributions to be maintained in most of the taxable bond CEFs from PIMCO and that the muni funds are investable for the first time in years.
° Most funds earned their distribution in the month according to NII production with small shortfalls in the others. Nothing concerning.

I would tend to agree with his thesis and have begun to transition my portfolio along those lines. I am for the most part a 'dividend growth investor' holding perhaps 15-20 individual dividend paying securities of the buy-and-hold type and not as trading vehicles. I am evaluating each as I struggle to determine which will hold together as we move to this new investing market. In both the back of my mind as well as the forward looking view is which of these will my children view as worthy and which will be deemed dumb old dad stuff. Why did that goof leave us with this mess? Fun times.
Specific examples: Energy Sector I used to hold a number of MLP's but I've sold them all off. I now only hold EPD, primarily a midstream natural gas distributor. Lately I've mentioned toying with taking a trading position in XLE as I believe those companies have been excessively oversold. But primarily my future interests lie in the solar and alternative energy direction and this is where my investment dollars are headed.
The QQQ's - All things Internet or the Internet of Things a force not to be denied. Nearly everyone, everywhere has their face buried in a screen of some type (the sad reality) and how much of it is streaming services. About a month ago I mentioned consideration of taking a position on ViacomCBS premised around their streaming services. Analysts thought they were undervalued at $34 after having dropped from $60 something. A merger and owner Sheri Redstone were the main culprits precipitating that drop. I took a position at $32. It dropped further to $30 and I sold but continued to watch. Today it sits at $12 something and I'm not sure it's down falling. More research I guess. But still nearly all things will be online focused and why I'm watching the QQQ's like a hawk.
I still prefer a regular flow of monthly income but if it becomes one of capital appreciation so be it.

@Old_Skeet Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I currently have an order in that will do some rebalancing within my Mixed 1 Pot. That order will increase the % of that Pot invested in PFANX somewhat. But, I am also currently planning to DCA a few cash $'s into PFANX over the next few weeks. Its good to hear you think it looks like a long term winner at this point in time.

At the end of January the advisor for my retirement funds asked me if I'd be comfortable with a 17% drawdown in return for a chance at equivalent higher returns. I said yes, but I too was really not thinking that my portfolio (then about 57% equities) would decline precipitously. Not sure how I would answer the question today, nor how financial advisors are going to have to alter their advice. Maybe in hindsight this period won't feel like a game changer, but it certainly does now. FWIIW, no advised me to get into Alpha Centric.

Hi @davfor, Thanks for stopping by and asking for my thoughts on PFANX. I have owned this fund in the past. My answer is, though, in a question form. What is there not to like? It is selling off its 52 week high by 16%, has a yield of 5.85%. and carries a rating of 5* from Morningstar. MFO rates it in their system as a risk level 2 fund with an overall composite rating of 5.
Generally I position cost average into new positions; but, with an open to buy on the income side of my portfolio it could become a full position purchase in the near term.

This opinion piece has shades of @rono in it....and includes 3 specific investment ideas....

The unprecedented decline in consumer spending might signal an evolution of long term investing for retirement.
Value companies tend to be mature and rely on continuous consumer purchasing to continue paying dividends.
As this pandemic lags on, the investment dynamics might evolove for younger generations.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4334815-retirement-strategy-new-investing-paradigm-may-change-dividend-growth-investing-forever

"The former head of the Small Business Administration under Barack Obama hailed the arrival of the coronavirus stimulus package, but warned of catastrophic outcomes for a large number of American small businesses.
“I think we are going to lose a lot of small businesses here,” said Karen Mills on Yahoo Finance’s The Final Round. “There’s always small businesses on the edge. You know, this is clearly going to push some of them over.”
According to Mills, currently a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Business School, small businesses have just around 27 days on average in cash. Restaurants have even less, with 17 days of cash on average. And if you run out of cash, Mills said, "you're dead."
Article link

Not much talk about tax loss harvesting, but I did just that last week by selling PTIMX.
I'll now look at BMBSX as a replacement during the 30 day wash period.
Investors who manage taxable investments should have a list of similar funds for just this purpose.
Thanks for pairing these funds @FD1000.

And I'm still failing to see your point. His client's can see the portfolios you refer to and can judge for themselves whether to stay or go. He's under no responsibility to share them publicly with non-paying interested parties such as yourself much like you or I.
Hopefully we all formulate our portfolios in accordance with our own tolerance for expectations in line with the risk we're comfortable with taking. If I, or he and/or his clients failed to see this event coming we're in good company:
Mohamed El-Erian: 'We Did Not Prepare for Something As Severe As What We’re Facing’
Surely a drawdown seemed to be coming but I doubt that very few figured it to be this massive. Similarly, I would venture to guess that very few expected the unusually large gains seen in their portfolios in 2019. It works both ways. My point is that there's no reason to rub peoples faces in the mess on either side of the fence and that's how I read your post.

PTIMX YTD=0.1%....BMBSX YTD=0.5% and its bond rating is much higher.
For 1-3 years PTIMX has better performance.
It depends on what you try to achieve.

As of market close March 27th, according to the metrics of Old_Skeet's stock market barometer, the S&P 500 Index remains extremely oversold with a reading of 175. This is on the high side of the barometer's scale. A higher barometer reading indicates there is more investment value in the Index over a lower reading.
This past week, the weekly short volume average increased, a little, from 59% to 60% of the total volume for SPY. However, the VIX (which is a measure of volatility) declined from a reading of 62 to 54. This is good as the stock Index's valuation gained ground during week moving from a reading of 2305 to 2541 for a gain of 10.2% but has a decline of 25% from it's 52 week high. With this, the Index remains in bear market territory.
From a yield perspective, I'm finding that the US10YrT is now listed at 0.68% while at the beginning of the year it was listed at 1.92%. With the recent stock market swoon the S&P 500 Index is currently listed with a dividend yield of 2.29% while at the beginning of the year it was listed at 1.82%. As you can see there is a good yield advantage for the stock Index over the US Ten Year Treasury at this time. With this yield advantage, I'm favoring my equity income funds on the equity side of my portfolio as I'm investing more for income generation more so than capital appreciation being retired. And, I feel my equity income funds presently offer me greater total return going forward, more so, than most of my bond funds.
I also feel that the stock market is oversold; but, not so much for bonds. It seems bonds are just now starting to look more attractive due to the sell off some have received this past week due to liquidity factors. According to my advisor, with whom I speak with weekly, the good stuff is still getting sold to cover margin calls as those margined are short of cash. For some asset classes, that are thinly traded, there seems to have been a liquidity crunch which has created downward price pressure. This for some investors could mean opportunity. And, now that I have a near full asset allocation in equities I have now begun to shop on the income side of my portfolio. Some funds that are on the income side of my portfolio that I'm seeing value in along with opportunity are FLAAX ... FRINX ... and, JGIAX.
My three best performing funds this week were all found in the growth area of my portfolio. They were LPEFX +16.51% ... PGUAX +14.04% ... and, AOFAX +12.87%.
Thanks for stopping by and reading.
Have a good week ... and, I hope all goes well for you.
I am, Old_Skeet

@FD1000 and @Crash. Thx for sharing.

Regarding Boeing, it's quite possible that the company is just using the virus as a cover for eliminating its dividend. Sure, it put on a brave face in January ("Boeing CEO says it will keep paying its dividend despite Max crisis").
But it did that by choosing to stop 737 production (thus "saving" cash), rather than cutting its dividend and using the cash to keep its supply chain in place. Now with the virus Boeing has the perfect excuse for doing what it should have done in the first place, suspend its dividend.
It had exhausted its credit lines. "According to AFP banking sources, the aircraft manufacturer drew on the full $14 billion credit line it only just secured from banks last month". It had negative shareholder equity (-$8.6B) at the end of 2019. It couldn't have sustained the facade much longer, virus or not.
From The New Republic, December 23, 2019, Boeing Axes CEO as Company Hits New Heights of Self-Denial
https://newrepublic.com/article/156092/boeing-axes-ceo-company-hits-new-heights-self-denial

Literally everyone The New Republic has approached on the vexing question of why Boeing keeps coughing up dividends throughout this fiasco has said the same thing, using almost the exact same words: Boeing has been extremely effective at pacifying Wall Street. Throughout this nightmarish year, Boeing’s stock has remained rock steady and may yet end the year with a modest gain. “Investors”—“people” even—“rely” on those dividends. If Boeing slashes or suspends its dividend, it will send “shock waves” throughout Wall Street.

From the NYTimes, December 16, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/business/boeing-737-max.html

At the very moment Boeing announced it was ceasing production of its most important product, the company took steps to meet Wall Street’s expectations. As it announced the shutdown on Monday, it sent a simultaneous news release announcing a regular quarterly dividend for shareholders.

I think you missed my main point. If you use his services he has 3 portfolios for you to select from, the funds/ETF/CEFs/whatever in each and all the trades he does. So yes, you do know his portfolios in detail.
Going to cash with these portfolios and/or what other managers do? I doubt many do it because most managers don't have this flexibility, after all, you pay them to invest your money. Over the years I looked at many mutual funds and from memory, I remember Romick with FPACX at 30-40% cash and Eric Cinnamond in 2008-9 (can't remember the fund) was over 50% in cash.
I don't know any fund that invests at any given time so much in cash.
But, I can do what I want and it's the first time I ever sold everything. It was a great move I will remember for many years to come and probably saved me about 25-30%.
I did sell in the past 20-40% but never that much.
My situation has changed too, I'm retired now so protecting my capital is very important.
So, maybe you should say good for you. I love when other investors are making money and making great moves.
Since I'm flexible I can own any fund at any given time and since last week I'm mostly in HY munis. Why do you need to see my portfolio at all times? if you know my style (2-3 funds) and I said in January this year and several times after that I owned HY Munis and the 3 funds I like are NHMAX,ORNAX,OPTAX and the rest are in Multi and I mentioned IOFIX as the best one, you don't need to be rocket scientist to know that I probably own 2-3 funds out of these 4 funds.
In the last 1-2 days, I also said that since last week I'm in again mostly in HY munis, which funds do think I have? really?

This contents of this article may be behind a firewall if you press on the link. The following excerpts provide a general sense for its contents:

The Federal Reserve’s unprecedented step into U.S. corporate bonds helped cure many of the massive dislocations in exchange-traded funds -- and may have saved mutual funds from a similar fate.
After prices for the biggest fixed-income funds held in a kind of dazed stillness during the worst of the sell-off -- presumably because the bonds they owned simply weren’t trading -- net-asset values on some of them dropped precipitously earlier in the week as their outflows forced sales on a frozen market.
The steep declines were beginning to mirror prices reached in fixed-income ETFs, which were already trading at deep discounts to their underlying securities. Faced with $149 billion of redemptions so far in March -- after not seeing a monthly outflow since January 2019 -- mutual funds were forced to sell their holdings into a market caught in a cash crunch.
However, the Fed’s pledge Monday to buy investment-grade credit and certain ETFs helped halt the slide in mutual fund net-asset values and sparked a rally in higher-rated debt. That’s largely due to the fact that fund managers now have a willing buyer on the other side of the trade, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
“Mutual funds dodged a big bullet by not having to unload bonds into a market with no buyers,” said Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst. “The Fed has now brought liquidity, and so they will get to avoid the ‘hell’ we saw ETFs in for the past month.”
The pain had just started to spread to mutual funds, which were initially able to satisfy redemptions by burning through cash and their more liquid securities, according to Kingsview Wealth Management’s Paul Nolte. The net-asset values began to drop as the fund managers were forced to try and liquidate harder-to-unload holdings into a market with few buyers -- but the Fed announcement broke the cycle, he said.
“They’ve stepped in, and we’re now finally starting to see a little bit more of a normal bidding process in the market,” said Nolte, a portfolio manager at Kingsview Wealth Management. “We’re probably a week away from a normally functioning market. It’s going to take some of these funds a while to work their way back to where they used to be.”

https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-28/fed-lifeline-shields-bond-funds-teetering-on-brink-of-etf-hell

The guy who writes these articles is a very good CEFs analyst and sells his services. I love his writings and their depth. Late last year he was posting his portfolio results several times and how they did much better per risk/reward than stocks.
The following is what I posted about the article we are discussing

after years of great results, we are now seeing the real volatility of CEFs where many retail investors didn't understand the risk. While SPY lost over 30% PCI,PDI,PTY lost 43-46% and I'm guessing that your 3 portfolios were down accordingly at the bottom on March 23rd.
Another interesting observation: 3 year annual average performance as of 3/27/20202 is ...BND(index) 4.8.......price return...PCI 2.3%...PDI 3%.......NAV return is even worse...PCI 0.1%...PDI 1.1%. It's an eye-opener.

@FD1000 what muni funds are your highest conviction investments right now? Thanks for sharing your thoughts

PTIMX Performance Trust. Almost back to flat for the year. Best I've seen. The standard, clickable spots which let you dive deeper, to see more granular detail at Morningstar seem not to be working properly, Saturday, late morning, here.

@FD1000 what muni funds are your highest conviction investments right now? Thanks for sharing your thoughts

DODIX, FTBFX, BOND are managed bond funds while AGG,BND and VBTLX follow the US Total bond index and why they are very close long term.

Usually, but not always. Index funds, especially bond index funds, are also managed, though perhaps not in the way you are thinking. I'll just quote Vanguard from its 2002 annual report for VBTLX:

Of course, the objective of an index fund is to track its target benchmark closely. On this score, three of our four funds came up significantly short. The Total Bond Market Index Fund--our oldest and biggest bond index fund--returned 8.3%, well below the 10.3% return of the Lehman Aggregate Bond Index. Our Short-Term and Intermediate-Term Bond Index Funds also trailed their target indexes by about 2 percentage points. The Long-Term Bond Index Fund's return was within 0.4 percentage point of the target.
...
As we explained in our report to you six months ago, our funds' returns will typically differ from those of the indexes for two primary reasons: The funds incur expenses that the indexes do not, and the funds' holdings do not exactly replicate those held by the indexes. The expense difference will always work against us in our goal of providing close tracking. The difference in holdings arises from our "sampling" approach to indexing, which is necessary because it would be impractical and very costly to own all the bonds in the target indexes.

Around that time, the WSJ wrote:

Those are huge discrepancies in the bond world, and an embarrassment for the Malvern, Pa., firm whose name is practically synonymous with index funds. The flexibility to deviate from the benchmark index is disclosed in the Vanguard's prospectuses for its bond index funds, but nonetheless is surprising for those under the impression an index fund mechanically invests in the securities making up its benchmark.

"Indexing" is not synonymous with "unmanaged". Vanguard had tinkered with sector weightings. As the WSJ notes later in the article, it didn't change the prospectus in response to the poor management performance. The prospectus remains the same to the current day.
Prospectus wording then (April 2012) and now (April 2019):

In addition, each Fund keeps industry sector and subsector exposure within tight boundaries relative to its target index. Because the Funds do not hold all the securities in their target indexes, some of the securities (and issuers) that are held will likely be overweighted (or underweighted) compared with the target indexes. The maximum overweight (or underweight) is constrained at the issuer level with the goal of producing well-diversified credit exposure in the portfolio.

Italics in original. What's "tight"? At least Fidelity quantifies the guardrails for its "index" fund: "The Adviser expects the fund's investments will approximate the broad market sector weightings of the index within a range of ±10%."