FYI: Steve Clarke and his team just gained a key distribution ally for their next-generation fund structure, NextShares.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.mfwire.com/common/artprint2007.asp?storyID=54397&wireid=2

Under the topic of: "Buying, Selling & Pondering" here is what I have been doing along with my thinking.
At these richly priced stock valuations I'm thinking of selling down more of my equities as they advance upward to new 52 week highs. This strategy is perhaps not for everyone; but, it is one I have followed for a good number of years with good success and one I learned from my late father and follows a buy low sell high theme.
Currently, my overall asset allocation for my master portfolio is 25% cash, 25% bonds, 30% domestic equity, 15% foreign equity and 5% other assets as of my most recent Morningstar Instant Xray analysis. In addition, within equities, I have been overweight the traditional defensive sectors of healthcare, consumer staples, utilities along with communication services and real estate. Combined these sectors account for better than one half of my portfolio's sector weightings and puts them well overweight to their sector weightings found in the S&P 500 Index. Year-to-date my portfolio has performed well with a total return of better than seven percent, 7%, (including cash) plus a little trading activity (buying during pullbacks and then rebalancing after the rebound) has enhanced my portfolio's performance. In addition, since I have stayed invested along my asset allocation guide lines, utlizing some adpative allocation strategies, I have enjoyed the income benefit that my portfolio provides.
In compairson, the Lipper Balanced Index has returned through the same reporting period 5.1%.
I wish all ... "Good Investing."
Old_Skeet

Thanks to each of you for sharing your strategies. I always learn a great deal from the wonderful members of this board... thanks so much for the detailed posts... You also help me hold in check some of my animal instincts...

@MikeW: " I'm currently pondering investing in Mathews Asia Strategic Income..." MAINX . I still track this one. I think that in spite of itself, it has shown itself to be a good choice. It's limited to Asia, though Morningstar puts it in their World Bond category. David Snowball has written quite positive things about it, too. M* reports 6.8% cash now. Corporates 52%, Gov't stuff is 19%. Convertibles = 19%. .....Foreign bonds are on a tear. My EM bonds are in PREMX, other foreign bonds in PRSNX. Much smaller domestic holding: DLFNX. The only thing I've done lately is to throw a tiny bit more into SFGIX. TRGRX (RE) is doing very well. All of this is wonderful, including DJIA and S & P new highs. But uncle Josh Brown warns:
http://thereformedbroker.com/2016/07/12/the-laws-of-capitalism-are-being-rewritten/

You have some nice performing funds there Crash.

@MikeW: " I'm currently pondering investing in Mathews Asia Strategic Income..." MAINX . I still track this one. I think that in spite of itself, it has shown itself to be a good choice. It's limited to Asia, though Morningstar puts it in their World Bond category. David Snowball has written quite positive things about it, too. M* reports 6.8% cash now. Corporates 52%, Gov't stuff is 19%. Convertibles = 19%. .....Foreign bonds are on a tear. My EM bonds are in PREMX, other foreign bonds in PRSNX. Much smaller domestic holding: DLFNX. The only thing I've done lately is to throw a tiny bit more into SFGIX. TRGRX (RE) is doing very well. All of this is wonderful, including DJIA and S & P new highs. But uncle Josh Brown warns:
http://thereformedbroker.com/2016/07/12/the-laws-of-capitalism-are-being-rewritten/

Hi @FundStudent,
Thanks for the question.
Although I have been buying during pullbacks I have been adding to certain existing positions in the growth and income area and when it is time to trim my allocation to equities (rebalance) I have been trimming in funds found in the growth area of the portfolio.
Within my portfolio's asset allocation my equity allocation ranges form a low of 45% to a high of 55% and is determined by a valuation matrix which is currently calling for equities to be set at their low range of 45%; and, with this, I have no spiff positions.

No, Ted, but the tax rate does differ enough in my opinion to warrant going after qualified dividends in some instances. I'll take the 15% over 25-28 or higher any day.

Bought long treasuries ( TLT ) on Friday near close to hold for 3rd quarter. During neutral / high risk years, favorable bond market setup during 3rd quarters has led to statistically significant positive outcomes. seekingalpha.com/instablog/1109542-market-map/4897108-market-map-allocates-long-bond

Under the topic of: "Buying, Selling & Pondering" here is what I have been doing along with my thinking.
At these richly priced stock valuations I'm thinking of selling down more of my equities as they advance upward to new 52 week highs. This strategy is perhaps not for everyone; but, it is one I have followed for a good number of years with good success and one I learned from my late father and follows a buy low sell high theme.
Currently, my overall asset allocation for my master portfolio is 25% cash, 25% bonds, 30% domestic equity, 15% foreign equity and 5% other assets as of my most recent Morningstar Instant Xray analysis. In addition, within equities, I have been overweight the traditional defensive sectors of healthcare, consumer staples, utilities along with communication services and real estate. Combined these sectors account for better than one half of my portfolio's sector weightings and puts them well overweight to their sector weightings found in the S&P 500 Index. Year-to-date my portfolio has performed well with a total return of better than seven percent, 7%, (including cash) plus a little trading activity (buying during pullbacks and then rebalancing after the rebound) has enhanced my portfolio's performance. In addition, since I have stayed invested along my asset allocation guide lines, utlizing some adpative allocatin strategies, I have enjoyed the income benefit that my portfolio provides.
In compairson, the Lipper Balanced Index has returned through the same reporting period 5.1%.
I wish all ... "Good Investing."
Old_Skeet

Good job Old_Skeet.
And nice post.
Always good to read your posts.

@dryflower.
Hi again.
Thought I'd share this from a response I just posted to teapot:

On the premium site, you have 21 selectable evaluation periods (lifetime, 20, 10, 5, 3, and 1 year, plus full, down, and up market cycles) for all risk and performance metrics... Here is link to display metrics available.
We will be adding even more evaluation periods to the premium site, but intend to leave the main site search tools in legacy form.

@teapot.

1) Does every category use the same top % as Owl fund threshold line?

If I understand your question, yes. MFO return ratings are relative to peers, so done for each category. MFO risk ratings are relative to overall US market (SP500). Here is link to definitions.

2) For miraculous search, can you enhance it to allow multi-category/type search (similar to what Fidelity research mutual fund screen offers)?

On the premium site, you can search up to 25 categories simultaneously, along with some 50 other parameters. Here is link to MultiSearch parameter list.
We decided a while back to maintain the search tools on main site in current form and put all recommendations received from David and MFO community into the premium search tools site.

3) Is it possible to display those measurement (e.g, Ulcer, Martin) for the same time period for all funds? You already have those numbers. What I would like to see is for age group of 5 years, the result will also include those funds over five years but will only calculate for the past 5 years not the life period of funds. So it is easy to compare between lines in the same period.

On the premium site, you have 21 selectable evaluation periods (lifetime, 20, 10, 5, 3, and 1 year, plus full, down, and up market cycles) for all risk and performance metrics to enable the direct comparisons you describe. Here is link to display metrics.
We will be adding even more evaluation periods to the premium site, but intend to leave the main site search tools in legacy form.

4) How about offering premium member on a quarter basis or a free 14 days trial?

Ultimately that is up to David. From my perspective, I think we provide enough insight into all that is available on the premium site through a myriad of screens shots on the welcome page (see lower right corner), periodic descriptions of new features in the monthly commentaries, and selected results on the discussion board. Enough to make a donation decision. Here is link to David's invitation letter when we launched the premium site last December after several months of beta testing.
Hope that helps.
Thanks again teapot.
c

Under the topic of: "Buying, Selling & Pondering" here is what I have been doing along with my thinking.
At these richly priced stock valuations I'm thinking of selling down more of my equities as they advance upward to new 52 week highs. This strategy is perhaps not for everyone; but, it is one I have followed for a good number of years with good success and one I learned from my late father and follows a buy low sell high theme.
Currently, my overall asset allocation for my master portfolio is 25% cash, 25% bonds, 30% domestic equity, 15% foreign equity and 5% other assets as of my most recent Morningstar Instant Xray analysis. In addition, within equities, I have been overweight the traditional defensive sectors of healthcare, consumer staples, utilities along with communication services and real estate. Combined these sectors account for better than one half of my portfolio's sector weightings and puts them well overweight to their sector weightings found in the S&P 500 Index. Year-to-date my portfolio has performed well with a total return of better than seven percent, 7%, (including cash) plus a little trading activity (buying during pullbacks and then rebalancing after the rebound) has enhanced my portfolio's performance. In addition, since I have stayed invested along my asset allocation guide lines, utlizing some adpative allocation strategies, I have enjoyed the income benefit that my portfolio provides.
In compairson, the Lipper Balanced Index has returned through the same reporting period 5.1%.
I wish all ... "Good Investing."
Old_Skeet

@willmatt72: Are you in the 39%+ tax bracked ?
Regards,
Ted
Fidelity:
https://www.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/information/year-end
How ETF's Are Taxed:
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/061615/how-etf-dividends-are-taxed.asp
ETF.Com:
http://www.etf.com/sections/white-papers/21207-definitive-guide-to-2014-etf-taxation.html
Qualified Dividends:
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Qualified_dividend

Vanguard has this info for their mutual funds and ETFs here: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/insights/taxcenter/qdi/yearend-qualified-dividend-income-2015?Sc=99

One can invest directly with Seafarer for the institutional shares. If you agree to the automatic investment purchase ($100/purchase), the $100K minimum is lowered to $1,500. Very nice for small investors.

I was under the impression that it took more than just taking out an AIP, automatic investment plan.
I thought you had to commit to meeting the $100K minimum over time, and have every intention of doing just that.

One can invest directly with Seafarer for the institutional shares. If you agree to the automatic investment purchase ($100/purchase), the $100K minimum is lowered to $1,500. Very nice for small investors.
For traditional and Roth IRA, make sure your annual AIP does not exceed the maximum annual contribution. Also there is a $10 IRA account maintenance fee.

They are very late to the party. The PCI discount was over 15% in December, 2015. The more savvy CEF traders will be selling into their buy recommendation.

Just fyi, here's what a decent/more or less actionable level of analysis of multisector FI cef's looks like. Zoom in to read the tables.

The article has a fair description of the problem, but offers no suggestions.
I see three reasons for traditionally holding bonds: income generation (more stable cash flow than selling appreciated assets), improved risk/reward profile (give up a little total return in exchange for significantly reduced volatility), and ballast (sleep at night).
To varying degrees, the investment grade bond market no longer helps the first two. Yields are not much above cash, so while bonds still generate more income, they don't seem worth the risk. As far as ballast is concerned, one may sleep better with cash (that won't go down in nominal value) than with bonds (interest rate risk).
Of course the problem with moving to other types of bonds is that either correlation with stocks increases (junk bonds) or one adds currency risk (foreign bonds) or political risk (esp. EM markets) or some combination. But such a move can increase generated income.
So IMHO one approach is to move some of one's investment grade bond allocation to a mix of more aggressive bonds (e.g. multi-sector) and cash. The former to boost yield, the latter to mitigate some of the risk without severely damaging yield (since cash isn't yielding that much less now).
I remain a fan of short-intermediate munis in taxable accounts. Not much better pre-tax yield than cash (and often less), but post-tax yield seems a little better with not that much more risk, while preserving a traditional benefit of bonds - low correlation with stocks (reduced volatility).
For example, VMLTX (2.5 year duration, 0.86% SEC yield), or BTSMX (2.3 year duration, 0.99% SEC yield). Each has a higher min share class that does about 0.2% better.

@Ted. Thanks for the link. An interesting write.
Okay. I've only had one cup of coffee, out of bed at 5:30 am, outside work for awhile (as the heat index is going to be near 100 degrees this afternoon) so some outside work has to be done now, BUT................I'm having a problem with the info in this article.
From the article: "But the portfolio padding provided by bonds may be wearing thin. To fully offset a 10% drop in the S&P 500 index, a 60/40 portfolio would need to see a rally in bond prices, pushing yields to new record lows. The 10-year Treasury note’s yield would need to fall by 1.62 percentage points to negative 0.24%, according to calculations by Morgan Stanley. That’s not impossible, but it would take a huge move lower from already record low levels, and relying on such an outcome is inadvisable, the bank found."
I suspect the writer intended to state "would need to fall by XXX basis points or yield or whatever". A yield move from the current (about) +1.40% to a -.24% yield is a tremendous percentage move. The "balancing act" chart in the article is also very confusing.
At many different trading day periods for this year, relative to the 10 year note yield; has found very large percentage changes at a daily basis, let alone the percentage change YTD.
Perhaps I'm "Dazed and Confused" (from that generation).
Help me out, if I've dug an improper information hole.
Okay, I have not performed the math on the yield change move noted above; as I gotta get me arse outside again.
Regards,
Catch

You can't use traditional technical analysis with junk bond ETFs ala JNK or HYG. In reality, junk bonds hit all time highs on 6/8/16 and then again on 6/23 right before BREXIT. Previous all time high was 5/31/15. They are on a roll now hitting all time highs 6 of the past 7 trading days. Looking at a chart of JNK or HYG is simply not reality.
Edit: I left a comment at the site of your link but seriously doubt it will get published.