I own DLFNX since Sept, 2012. $50 BILLION AUM in DBLTX. That fund oughta be closed. With so much in there, he's driving the market, not investing in it. $50B is nuts. This thread caused me to look once again at the portfolio. DLFNX is 47% in AAA-rated stuff. If I was aiming for a not very risky solid, reliable, tame fund, I guess I found it.
Signed,
----The MFO resident Rank Amateur.

"I actually don’t know of anything other than U3 [the official unemployment rate] that would make you want to tighten. All the price indicators (including wages) scream weakness, as do all the other labor market indicators. If we didn’t have the unemployment number, nobody would see a reason to hike.”-Paul Krugman, Econ professor, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, op-ed columnist for The New York Times, Nobelist.
Wow! I'm worried that I agree with this guy. Then again he had a 50/50 chance of being correct.

This interesting 'survey' might be of interest:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/02/are-there-any-economic-indicators-pointing-towards-the-need-for-a-fed-rate-hike-some-of-my-econ-pals-weigh-in/

Just some ramblings from perspective of a T. Rowe Price investor,
I owned PRHYX for many years. It's one of those conservative funds that are said to earn a "B" during up markets and an "A" on the way down. Vaselikov is good. He's been there nearly 20 years however - a long time by TRP standards. He also manages their new Global High Income Fund, RPHIX - in existence less than a year. I'd view that as a good alternative to PRHYX, which is closed, as long as Vaselikov stays.
Not very familiar with the HY sector since selling PRHYX couple years ago. But as one who sometimes likes to speculate on beaten up sectors, I'd urge caution. That's always the case with beaten up sectors. You just don't know how long and how far they'll tumble.
An outside-the-box thought is to consider Price's RPSIX (Spectrum Income) for some moderate growth potential. While not fond of the investment grade bond part, I like that the fund is experiencing a rare bad year and that approximately 50% of its holdings (owned through other funds) are having miserable years. These include high yield bonds, EM bonds and a dividend-paying stock fund (PRFDX). When these beaten up sectors turn, you'll get some nice payback out of stodgy RPSIX - without having undertaken a lot of risk.

I've been looking at both funds to round out my bond portfolio and noticed a few things:
DBLTX seems like a mortgage fund disguised as a total return fund. Essentially, Gundlach must have at least 50% of assets invested in mortgages. Thus far, he's been very successful. What happens when that sector hits the skids?
DFLNX has been slightly less successful with Gundlach at the helm when he spreads out to treasuries and corporates. Again, this fund has a large part dedicated to mortgages, but not as much as Total Return.
Do you consider DBLTX a true "Total Return" bond fund or just a mortgage fund? Also the AUM for DBLTX is enormous compared to DFLNX. Do you think that will hurt performance in the future? It doesn't seem to have been an issue thus far.
Thoughts and input/suggestions?
Thanks.

@little5bee, She left on her own to run a new fund. I read that she would expecting to succeed Dan Fuss as he retires, but that was not his plan. There are already two other (more junior) co-managers, thus the transition plan is to be more team-managed.

@Sven
In going head to head Katleen Gaffney (EVBAX) vs. Dan Fuss (NEFZX) here are my findings for total return ... EVBAX ytd -13.79% and for 2014, 4.69% ... NEFZX ytd -7.62% and for 2014, 5.65%. Seems as though the additional risk Ms. Gaffney (EVBAX) has taken on thus far has been a detractor when compared to the results of Dan Fuss (NEFZX). I am going to keep NEFZX and most likely will pass on my repurchase of EVBAX anytime soon. I am thinking about opening a starter position in BAICX now that I have dialed the number of funds owned down to 45 form 52, that I once owned. I did this during my recent process of raising my cash allocation to about 25% and reducing my allocation to equities to about 50% while keeping my allocation to income at 20% and to other assets (as classified by M*) at 5%.
Skeet

Final amount $39.67...ugh!!!!
http://www.fpafunds.com/docs/fund-announcements/2015-09-div-distribution.pdf?sfvrsn=2

FYI: (Click On Article Title At Top Of Google Search)
The third quarter of 2015 started off well, but the volatility that followed was dramatic. Stock and bond funds, almost regardless of type, ended with a loss.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/#q=A+Bad+Quarter+for+Stock+and+Bond+Funds+barron's

FYI: (Click On Article Title At Top Of Google Search)
The sky is not falling for high-yield bonds. Eight funds and ETFs with yields ranging from 5.7% to 12.8%.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/#q=High-Yield+Bonds+Look+Attractive+barron's

As someone who (like so many here) studies the Commentary texts intensely, I am trying to fathom the extreme Leuthold valentine.
>> They’re an independent firm that produces financial research for institutional investors.
okay
>> They do unparalleled quantitative work deeply informed by historical studies that other firms simply don’t attempt.
Seriously, unparalleled?? Not just unsurpassed? Did you really mean to write that?
>> They write well and thoughtfully. x 2
Moreso than the best of the others who do so?
>> Quite beyond that, they put their research into practice through the Leuthold Core (LCORX) ...
k, who doesn't?
>> Core was a distinguished “world allocation” fund before the term existed. $10,000 entrusted to Leuthold in 1995 would have grown to $53,000 today (10/01/2015).
Lots of different managers were making decisions during those two decades, per M*, unless you are claiming Leuthold himself really ran the show, regardless of the group dynamics and inputs, until 2011, but also still, albeit mostly retired, that he has major say from jealousy-inducing Bar Harbor.
>> Over that same period, an investment in the Vanguard 500 Index Fund (VFINX) would have growth to $46,000 while the average tactical allocation manager would have managed to grow it to $26,000.
Not sure whether to go there, using many owned oranges. One would not want, over those two decades, to compare Core with FPACX or OAKBX; but are they tactical? One would not want to compare Core with FCNTX or FLPSX or PRBLX (management change here) or even GABEX, listed here since all equities (SP500) was mentioned.
>> All of which is to say, they’re not some ivory tower assemblage of perma-bears peddling esoteric strategies to the rubes.
All righty then.
>> The bottom line is that a cyclical bear began in August and it’s got a ways to go.
Huh. If they say so. Maybe they're right.
Whence this valentine and pitch ?

Ted's post has the info you need.....
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/23855/wealthtrack-preview-guest-kathleen-gaffney-manager-eaton-vance-bond-fund

What's the 10-year telling us? Very little I suspect. But a little ...
It says,
1. Trend persistency is alive and well (borrowing one of Junkster's phrases).
2. There's an aging population (pushing people into annuities and bond investments viewed as "safe").
3. There's fiscal uncertainty in the U.S. (the battle over the budget and a bunch of fruit-cakes running for President).
4. There's a slowdown in China (Surprise! Economies don't always grow exponentially and markets sometimes correct.)
That should cover it.
Crash's link is on Jeff Gundlach's forebodings about a rate hike (around the time of the last FOMC meeting). Fair enough. But I wouldn't read a tremendous amount into it. Economists seem about equally divided on the question. And, Gundlach does have a dog in the fight - so to speak.
http://news.investors.com/100915-775007-compounding-interest-and-investment-returns-to-help-your-kids.htm

I think Crash's post provides a snap shot of some of the concerns about weakness in the economy that are reflected in today's 10 year rate...
Crash's Post

Thank's I didn't see that. I think a bear market will also put a crimp in the Fed's plans.

I think Crash's post provides a snap shot of some of the concerns about weakness in the economy that are reflected in today's 10 year rate...
Crash's Post

Hi, Press.
The firm is supported by several minority owners:
From today"s news: "Lovell Minnick Partners is almost home after a trip through Asia. The firm agreed to sell a portion of its stake in investment management firm Matthews International Capital Management LLC to Japan’s Mizuho Financial Group. Matthews International, also known as Matthews Asia, invests solely in Asia and serves as the investment adviser for the Matthews Asia Funds, a group of 16 open-ended equity and fixed-income mutual funds organized in the U.S. and 11 SIVACs registered in Luxembourg."
The earlier stories are linked below. There is some concern from friends of the firm that the outsiders may have fostered a culture change of sorts, which might account for some of the manager departures and the launch of newer, narrow funds (their newest funds are Value, ESG, Emerging, Focus). As with all stories of institutional change, it's impossible for outsiders (and almost impossible even for insiders) to know quite why things transpired as they did.
For what that's worth,
David
http://matthewsasia.com/matthews-news/press-releases/article-342/default.fs
https://www.pehub.com/2015/09/lovell-minnick-sells-part-of-matthews-asia-stake/

The US 10 year 52 week high was 2.5% - now it is 1.98% with a unemployment rate at 5.1% and the Fed talking about a raise soon.
So what is that low rate telling us?

In the "PS: Where Eagles Dare" section, is the following sentence:
"Of more interest is the fact that Blackstone Management Partners is reportedly purchasing a 25% stake in First Eagle that is being sold by T/A Associates of Boston, another private equity firm. As we have seen with Matthews in San Francisco, investments in investment management firms by private equity firms have generally not inured to the benefit of individual investors."
I am not familiar with any transaction by a private equity firm as relates to Matthews. Can someone help me here? thanks,
press

The model portfolio has a very high (35%) allocation to international equities, IMHO.

Little bit of a home bias there @willmatt72?

Here are a few bullet points from the newsletter.
"Our current Model Stock Portfolio bears many resemblances to the one from a year ago since I still believe that several of its basic premises remain valid. These are
-International stocks remain the category with the most forward-looking promise.
-Value stocks are likely to be a better place to be than Growth Stocks.
-Sector funds, if chosen at all, should represent the most undervalued sectors available."
For information purposes ... I am about 35% foreign equity within my own portfolio. In addition, I am overwieght the materials and energy sectors (plus a couple of others) by a couple of percentage points above the weightings currently found in the S&P 500 Index. And, value stock make up about 40% to 45% of my equities. So, it looks like I am good to go as I have aligned parts of my portfolio along the lines of his bullet points not knowing his thinking until recently. Seems, we derived at much of the same conclusions.
Old_Skeet