Hi, Catch.
Two versions of the fund: All Asset and All Asset All Authority. Both have a contrarian bent (i.e., more value than momentum hence less US and more foreign than their peers). The difference is the All Asset All Authority is permitted both leverage and shorting, which I warned folks about many years ago.
The vanilla version has substantially and consistently outperformed the souped-up on. Peer comparisons are hard because M* has changed All Asset's peer group three times in 10 years but, in generally, it has been a very solid performer (a little below average to substantially above) except for one period of about 30 months (in 2013-15). All Asset All Authority has kept the same peer group, has never excelled and has frequently stumbled. I'm guessing, though without detailed examination, that that's the cost of leverage and shorting.
For me, that is brief.
David

FYI: Confirming what markets everywhere had expected, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell all but promised Congress Wednesday that the central bank will be lowering its federal-funds rate target, starting with a cut of one-quarter percentage point, most likely at the end of the month. He admitted that the economy already was “in a good place,” perhaps an understatement with the record-long expansion entering its 11th year, unemployment at a half-century low, the major stock market averages at record highs, and the biggest apparent problem being inflation falling short of the Fed’s 2% target. A cut would trim the bank’s key policy rate from the current 2.25%-2.50%, hardly an exalted level.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-to-play-the-coming-rate-cut-51562943633?mod=hp_INTERESTS_funds&refsec=funds

Hi Mark and @David_Snowball
No heavy lifting with this question, just a "top of your head" thought; as I'm not going to take time to research any of Rob Arnott offerings or managed for Pimco and such.
But, are there any of the RA related products that actually make any money above whatever the benchmark may be???
PAUIX can't even outrun the simple TIP etf.
Is there not a thought on a given day that someone in the "office" wonders about their offerings and long term performance; and scratches the head to wonder what is not being done correctly?
Fifteen year total return chart of PAUIX, FBALX, ITOT and TIP
The briefest amount of your time is appreciated.
Thank you and good evening,
Catch

Thank you David for your thoughtful response. What prompted me to post this discussion was a comment provided by FD1001 on a M* discussion board. It suggested to me that despite the availability of the tool and the thought process behind it there is no guarantee of a successful outcome. That's true at least for PAUIX managed by Mr. Arnott compared to selected competing funds.
Morningstar Discussion

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/12/business/spectacular-performance-bonds.html
Bond Returns Have Been Spectacular. Don’t Count on a Sequel.
CreditLynn Scurfield
Image
CreditCreditLynn Scurfield
By Carla Fried
July 12, 2019
Bond interest rates were supposed to rise in 2019. They have dropped instead, showing how dangerous it can be to make investing decisions based on assumptions about the direction of interest rates.

I don't keep up with the various offerings from all of the fund families (especially funds like these, being more of a DIY person myself), so I hadn't looked into TRLAX.
Apparently T. Rowe Price rebooted the fund two years ago, changing it from a target date fund into a managed payout fund. So the short answer is that this fund isn't much different from other managed payout funds now, but it used to be.
https://retirementincomejournal.com/article/t-rowe-price-reopens-the-market-for-payout-funds/
Viewing 4% as a "safe" withdrawal rate, that's what Vanguard targets. It adjusts the amounts periodically based on performance (as do virtually all managed payout funds). As @hank noted, T. Rowe Price fund targets 5%, while pointing out that it is designed to pay out more early in retirement and less later on (possibly not keeping up with inflation). That's not necessarily a bad idea; generally retirees are expected to spend more in early retirement while they are still more active.
You're not giving up flexibility with managed payout funds. As T. Rowe Price notes on the overview page, you have the "Freedom to withdraw additional funds", and to "Increase (or reduce) your monthly payouts ... by adding or removing investment assets."
The expense ratio does seem high, and is due to "other expenses", not management fees. I don't know why Price isn't operating more efficiently. In theory, you could mimic the fund yourself (it's a fund of funds), except that (a) you'd pay more than the 0.47% it pays for the aqcuired funds because you can't buy institutional class shares, and (b) some of the funds it uses are closed. Using retail class shares (if you could) would bring your expenses up to around 0.60%. (That's about the same as Fidelity charges for its 2020 RMD fund.)
Can one do better on one's own? Maybe. ISTM this question is not much different from asking: why invest in any allocation fund; can't one do better by investing one one's own in separate large cap, small cap, investment grade, junk bonds, international? Or would one do better by paying that same 0.71% and just buying PRWCX?

Anytime I see “may” in a headline like this I’m wary of the actual substance of argument. But it’s a good read. TRP appears to offer a Target Income Fund. It appears quite new. Structurally, how would this differ from the target payout fund (VG and others) mentioned by @msf?
- Overview: https://www.troweprice.com/personal-investing/mutual-funds/target-date-funds/income-funds.html
- Detailed look: https://www.troweprice.com/personal-investing/tools/fund-research/TRLAX
Interestingly, the NAV for TRLAX appears quite stable (for now anyway) at around $10. I assume that was the opening value. It’s also noteworthy they appear to target a 5% annual payout from the fund. I recently locked away my anticipated cash needs for 2020 (in the face of strong first-half market returns) and 5% pretty much covers the projected 2020 needs (in addition to SS and pension).
The fund’s “real” ER is around 1.2% , which sounds extraordinarily high for this type of fund. After a fee wavier, it’s .71%. That still seems high.
I can’t see where this would be any better than investing on your own conservatively within a sheltered plan and than withdrawing a predetermined amount yearly. I suspect you could do better on the ER and have more flexibility in the needed withdrawal amounts (which will likely vary from year to year). You also may / may not do somewhat better at timing the withdrawals to coincide with more favorable market conditions.

"So what's needed instead? ... Well, it's something called target-income funds or TIFs. Those are funds that would provide investors with a specified level of income in retirement -- much like a defined benefit plan or an annuity."
There's already a product that provides investors a specified level of income much like an annuity. It's called an annuity. If this is what one really wants - a fixed, specified level of income that lasts a lifetime, no more, no less - one can already convert part of one's retirement savings into an immediate fixed annuity.
However, that might not be what one desires. If one wants an income stream that might grow with inflation and might leave something for heirs, and one is willing to take some risk with the variability of those payments and whether they will last a lifetime, there are managed payout funds, from providers like Vanguard, Fidelity, and Schwab.
https://www.myretirementpaycheck.org/How-My-Paycheck-Works/Savings-and-Investments/Managed-Payout-Funds
https://humbledollar.com/money-guide/managed-payout-funds/
"Savers know how much income they can expect to receive from Social Security and, if they have one, their defined-benefit plan. But that's not the case with a 401(k) plan which only tells the investor much money they've accumulated, and not how much income those assets will produce."
That's a matter of disclosure, not product design. If you like this idea, take a look at HR 2367, the Lifetime Disclosure Act.
https://govtrackinsider.com/lifetime-income-disclosure-act-would-project-your-monthly-retirement-paycheck-based-on-your-4b976ee2e8db
https://www.actuary.org/sites/default/files/files/publications/Academy_Comments_LIDA_07062018.pdf

https://www.thestreet.com/retirement/target-date-funds-may-fall-short-for-retirement-savers-15016076
Target-date funds, or what some call TDFs, have become the investment of choice for many folks saving for retirement. You buy one fund that is aligned with your anticipated year of retirement and you don't have to do much else.

more back on topic:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/business/stock-market-record.html

Another nice day for IOFIX as it reaches yet another all time high. The ever dwindling legacy non agency rmbs market seems to still have life left in it and looking for a nice second half in 2019. Please close this fund!!

An old (2007) piece, and pretty basic, but still worthwhile for descriptions of different types of MMFs. (It does not get into government vs. prime funds, which is a more recent development.)
The 7 day yields of the Vanguard MMFs seem to bounce all over the place. For a few days they may look unbelievably good, and then they look like they're not worth it.
The Treasury MMF, if you can meet the $50K min, may be a better option for those in high tax states like Calif. and NY. That's especially true now that SaLT deductions are limited. It used to be that if you were in, say, a 10% state/local bracket, and a 25% fed, then your effective state tax rate was 7.5% (because you could deduct state income taxes). Now more people are feeling the full weight of their state income taxes. So the state tax-exempt nature of the Treasury fund makes it even more valuable now.
Another thing that's changed since the article was written is that the AMT exemption amount was raised so high that virtually no one is subject to AMT. Thus the fact that Vanguard's muni funds are not AMT-free isn't a concern any longer.

Agree with Charles. After 5 years if you are still down on original investment (I'm boing to ignore whether you doubled your money in S&P 500 in that same time), AND you still want to hold on to the fund, you have lost your marbles. You have as much probability of moving assets to another fund and do as good for next 5 years. ASSUMING original fund regardless of whether it starts performing does not shut its doors because investors are not forthcoming and may not return.
Let no one take your tax loss away from you in the original fund.
And there are no such things as journalists any more. That word should be stricken from the english languages. I wouldn't even call them reporters, who as the word suggests simply report what they say, and don't try to ANALyse things. There may be maybe 2 / 1000 who are journalists.

Hi, Mark.
I haven't used the tool, per se. I've poked around a bit, and have read it in light of two other recent RA pieces. At base, this is simple visualization of the principle, "if value matters, then here's what has to happen for things to be more or less 'normal' a decade from now." So, given the prices people are currently paying for US large caps, it would take a decade of essentially zero returns (0.5% real) with normal economic growth for us to end the decade at "normal." If you happen to believe that "it's really different this time because (tech, the cloud, bitcoin, the Fed, politics, passive dominance, China)," you're unlikely to find this at all useful.
The two pieces of theirs that I've been thinking about are an advisor presentation in which they graphed forward returns against current valuations. I'll try to post the graphics in our August issue. The short version: the relationship between valuations and returns are essentially zero over any 12 month period, nearly zero over any 36 month period, emergent over any 60 month period, and dauntingly like a straight line - say 90% plus - correlation over any 120 month period. In short, we can delude ourselves in the short-run that price doesn't matter but, in the long run, it very much matters.
The second piece, published today, looks at bubbles and anti-bubbles. They got a lot of press in 2018 for their original piece defining a bubble but the section of that paper defining anti-bubbles was essentially ignored.

An anti-bubble is an asset or asset class that requires implausibly pessimistic assumptions in order to fail to deliver a solid risk premium. In an anti-bubble, the marginal seller disregards valuation models, which are indicating the asset is undervalued.

Today's piece identified three egregious current bubbles - Tesla, bitcoin and many large tech stocks - and issued the dual recommendation to avoid them and to avoid market-cap weighted indexes that are driven by them. The S&P 500 is 25% tech, with Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Facebook alone accounting for 13% of the index. If the two shares of Alphabet stock (GOOG and GOOGL) were treated as one stock, then the top five stocks would all be tech and about comprise 16% of the index with an average unweighted P/E of 37.
But RA also identified two anti-bubbles: emerging markets and, for people willing to enter the market slowly over time, UK stocks. They conclude, "Value-oriented smart beta strategies in both the developed and emerging markets offer investors promising investing opportunities outside the many bubbles in today’s global markets."
For what that's worth,
David

"Now consider the New America High Income fund (HYB), which has consistently outperformed the T. Rowe Price open-end fund even though both share the same managers and much the same portfolio. The key difference between the two is the former is a closed-end fund, which means it has a fixed number of shares."
Leverage is not a key difference? HYB, 30.44% structural leverage.
https://www.cefconnect.com/fund/HYB
Over the past ten calendar years, HYB outperformed in up years ( 8 ), and underperformed (more negative) in down years (2). I'd call those amplified (leveraged) returns, not consistently superior returns.
Here's a lengthy discussion of CEF leverage I just posted:
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/114894/#Comment_114894

Here's a clear, more in-depth explanation of leverage, especially as used by CEFs.
https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/investment-products/closed-end-funds/leverage
A couple of numbers in the original article caught my eye, as they were presented without explanation:
"According to the Investment Company Institute, the average leverage ratio for bond funds stood at 28% last year; for equity funds the leverage ratio was 22%."
What's an "average leverage ratio"? Is the numerator (what's being averaged) all leverage or just "stuctural", aka "1940 Act" leverage? Is the denominator (which funds are being counted) all funds or just the funds that actually use leverage?
I didn't find the ICI 2018 figures, but I did find the 2015 figures, which are similar. The ICI explains what exactly these averages represent. For 2015, "Among closed-end funds employing structural leverage, the average leverage ratio for bond funds was somewhat higher (27.3 percent) than that of equity funds (22.0 percent)."
https://www.ici.org/pdf/per22-02.pdf
However, as Fidelity notes "Leverage is leverage. Regardless of the source of the leverage, it has the same effects on a portfolio ... This is why transparency of a fund's true leverage is so important. ... Fund families have wide discretion in how they choose to actively report non-'40 Act leverage. Their websites may say a fund is unleveraged, when it actually has a lot of non-'40 Act leverage."
The original article gives a second figure: "Closed-end funds’ use of leverage can be relatively safe 'if the underlying assets are of high quality and have volatility of around 3% to 4%, commensurate with stable assets such as high-quality bonds,'"
What's volatility, and how does that relate to the safety of leverage? I'm guessing that the figure presented is standard deviation of a portfolio. The Bloomberg Barclays US Aggregate Bond Total Return Index is around 3 for various lengths of time (3 years to 15 years), per M*.
Is standard deviation a good way to measure safety of leverage? Here's an excerpt from a Schwab page from which one might infer that the low volatility of bonds is not necessarily comforting. (Consider my selection to represent confirmation bias, as it discusses what I regard as a significant risk of leverage - a flattening of the yield curve.)

Leveraged closed-end funds tend to benefit from a steep yield curve—that is, a large spread between short- and longer-term interest rates. By borrowing at lower short-term rates and investing at higher longer-term rates, the fund typically can generate higher income. ... [T]he spread has narrowed over the past few years.
Rising short-term interest rates can have a big impact on closed-end fund prices. In general, rising short-term rates will increase the cost of leverage for closed-end funds. If the yield curve flattens as rates rise, it can be a double whammy: The fund has to pay more to borrow, while the bonds in the fund may drop in value. If the spread between the cost of borrowing and the yield earned on the underlying bond investments narrows, some funds may not be able to generate as much income as in the past, leading to a cut in the income distribution.
When that happens, a fund’s price may fall, as investors may look elsewhere for income. In addition, leverage can increase the fund’s effective duration—that is, the sensitivity of its price to changes in interest rates. Consequently, closed-end funds can experience far greater price volatility than unleveraged funds.

https://www.schwab.com/resource-center/insights/content/closed-end-bond-funds-how-they-work-and-what-you-should-know-as-rates-rise
On the subject of risk, the original column talks about steady payment streams, but doesn't say anything about how CEFs do this or what the risk is: "the ability to distribute returns more equally throughout the year makes income more predictable and can help clients manage their taxes more efficiently."
The fund smooths out these "managed distributions" by estimating annual total return, including cap gains (both realized and unrealized) and paying that out monthly or quarterly. By distributing all return, the CEF hopes to maintain a steady price. Here's a page from Nuveen explaining how this works:
https://www.nuveen.com/understanding-managed-distributions
Nuveen notes that even if the estimates are accurate, part of the distributions may represent a return of capital (coming from the unrealized gains). Worse, if the fund overestimates total return, "some or all of the distribution represents return of capital that includes part of the shareholders’ principal."
As Fidelity notes, consistent use of this latter "destructive return of capital is a huge red flag, especially if the return of capital comprises the bulk of a distribution."
https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/investment-products/closed-end-funds/return-of-capital-part-one

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4274288-new-residential-investment-corp-another-fixed-floating-preferred-stock-issued-mreit
Preferred Stock Issued By A mREIT
Jul. 10, 2019 12:40 PM ETNew Residential Investment Corp. (NRZ), NRZ.PA17 Comments19 Likes
Summary
Overview of New Residential Investment Corp.'s new preferred stock - NRZ.PA.
Brief view of the company.
Comparison with the sector.
Where in the context of all Fixed-to-Floating preferred stocks does NRZ.PA stand?
Comparison with the other mREITs' preferred stocks.

FYI: The next time somebody propounds the notion of efficient markets, do smile politely.
You may reasonably concede that all possible knowledge about the 500 biggest stocks is fully discounted in their prices, so passive ownership of that broad index beats active stock picking. But when it comes to bonds and bond funds, the exceptions are prevalent enough to dispute the efficient-market rule.
This is by way of introduction to two such examples. First, consider the T. Rowe Price High Yield fund (ticker: PRHYX), which has consistently out-returned the popular exchange-traded index fund that tracks the junk market, the iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYG), over almost every time period.
Now consider the New America High Income fund (HYB), which has consistently outperformed the T. Rowe Price open-end fund even though both share the same managers and much the same portfolio. The key difference between the two is the former is a closed-end fund, which means it has a fixed number of shares, while the latter is an open-end mutual fund, which means it expands and contracts the number of shares to accommodate investor purchases and redemptions.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/t-rowe-price-junk-bond-closed-end-fund-51562119150?refsec=bonds
M* Snapshot PRHYX:
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/prhyx/quote.html
M* Snapshot HYB:
https://www.morningstar.com/cefs/xnys/hyb/quote.html

FYI: Given the thin margins in the retirement business, firm says it was justified in cutting deals with money managers to boost profits
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=X6IlXfPLMsu4tQbGr5XADw&q=Fidelity+says+it's+entitled+to+alleged+'secret+payments'+in+401(k)+plans&oq=Fidelity+says+it's+entitled+to+alleged+'secret+payments'+in+401(k)+plans&gs_l=psy-ab.3...3664.3664..5791...0.0..0.274.340.1j0j1......0....2j1..gws-wiz.....0.VxBR-Lln1ck

@hank @davidmoran Ya, I know my negative comment was gratuitous and unsolicited. I may not be successful, but I appreciate your words and will either stay away, or edit myself, going forward. This is not a political discussion board--- unless we go to the off-topic threads. Nevertheless, when it comes to the current occupant of the White House, there are 10 gazillion others whom I might not like, but The Trumpster as "leader" is simply a superfluously disgraceful excuse for a human being. You've not changed my mind, but I certainly do hear what you're saying.