See last large paragraph below (I suggest you view image in separate page and magnify). It begins: Except as noted below, all data provided by Morningstar, Inc.
The exception is in the next (one line) paragraph: Market data for Daily Fund (NAVs) and charts provided by Markit on Demand.

I belatedly agree with @msf. I searched and couldn’t find where it’s illegal to access these sites through the back door. Nor has anyone alleged that it is. More of a personal comfort level I guess. I’d rather pay for the goods I consume.
Subscriptions to top quality publications are dirt cheap considering the quality of writing and analysis one can receive for $15-25 monthly. For around $40-50 monthly I receive 2 top quality national newspapers 7 days a week (ad free) delivered to my Kindle reader, plus 2 top-notch science magazines monthly, also on the Kindle, plus one free audiobook of my choosing every month (great for falling asleep at night). And my $$ goes to support good journalism. What a deal.
Tend to agree with @Sven on a couple points. Admire LB’s writing. And, I’ve little use anymore for Barrons. Received it for the past year for their $52 special rate and rarely picked it up. I suspect some of that may be a degradation of the content over the past 50 years and some of it a maturation of the reader over the same time span.

msf % of muni at dodix = 3.71 % via Schwab. Where did they get these #'s ? I just checked with Schwab & no mention of 'M'
5:38:18 PM : David M.: S&P Global, CFRA, Reuters and Markit Digital, which are not affiliated with Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. ("Schwab") or any of Schwab's affiliates
Have a good weekend, Derf

My thinking falls somewhere in the cracks here.
I will only read content at a third party site if it is licensed there. For example, T. Rowe Price used to provide select WSJ articles online to Personal Services investors (back when that required "only" $100K invested). Some articles are reprinted on MarketWatch (another Dow Jones company).
I would not hack into a site merely because I had another channel to access the same content. For example, some publications (WSJ, Consumer Reports, etc.) sell paper subscriptions separately from online subscriptions. IMHO having a paper subscription does not justify accessing the content online if one does not subscribe to that medium.
That said, I consider using well publicized back doors (google, anonymous browsing) fair game. These portals to the content sites are provided by the vendor. Barron's, as sister pub to WSJ, could easily shut down anonymous browsing if it did not have a business purpose in making it available.
It's not as though the publishers aren't gaming us at least as much as some may think they're gaming the "system".
https://www.niemanlab.org/2018/02/after-years-of-testing-the-wall-street-journal-has-built-a-paywall-that-bends-to-the-individual-reader/

FYI: U.S. stocks at the end of March posted their best quarter in nearly a decade, but they did so without help from investors in U.S. stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, which have seen sizable outflows since the start of the year, according to data from Lipper and EPFR global.
For the quarter, the S&P 500 SPX, +0.46% rose 14%, and added another 1.9% so far this month, putting the broad-market index just 1.3% shy of its Sept. 20 record, even as U.S. equity funds posted outflows of $39.1 billion, according to a Bank of America analysis of EPFR data.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-is-this-possible-analysts-puzzle-over-stock-markets-rally-amid-equity-fund-exodus-2019-04-05/print

No worries sir thx... With that high equity you may have gain 15s to 30s%at that time... Similar to mine previous holdings
Regards thx for the post

Hi @JohnN: I'd have to do a look back into my records to answer this question without making comment outside of best recollection. My recollection was back then I was much heavier invested in equities, being in the accumulation phase of investing, and running an asset allocation, at times, of somewhere around 10% cash, 20% income and 70% equity. I was also still working at this time and playing the stock market rebound as were many from the 2008 Great Recession. So, the returns were pretty strong.
My portfolio back then was configured much different than it is today.

Hi sir @old_skeet.. Thx for the post. How did your portfolio do in 2009 2010
Thx

@Tarwheel: As I have stated many times in the past, there are a number of ways to get around most sites that have a paywall. If you scroll and look at the number views ,over 100, of subscription links just this morning, many MFO Members are able to get around the paywall and read the linked article.
1. Copy & Paste article title to Google:
2. In Chrome browser use incognito window:
3. In Firefox browser use private window:
Regards,
Ted

Here is an update for Old_Skeet's market barometer (which follows the S&P 500 Index) for the week ending April 5, 2019 along with my thinking and plan.
Old_Skeet being a retail investor provides this information for information purposes only. It simply reflects what I am seeing in the markets, my thinking; and, my plan of action along what has worked best within my portfolio for the past week. It should not to be taken as investment advice.
For the week Old_Skeet's market barometer closed with an overbought reading of 135 which is down from last week's overvalued reading of 141. Generally, a higher barometer reading indicates that there is more investment value in the Index over a lower reading. Short interest in the Index, for the week, remained at 1.8 days to cover. The yield on the US10Yr moved from about 2.4% up to just short of 2.5%. The 500 Index moved upward from 2834 to 2893 for about a 2.1% gain for the week as money has now begun to flow back into stocks as some investors sold bonds and bought stocks. Perhaps, some investors are just too optimistic about the upcoming first quarter earnings reporting season that soon begins. For Old_Skeet, I'm not presently putting new money to work in either my stock or bond funds while I await a higher barometer reading indicating a better investing climate for stocks; and, I'm also awaiting better yields from bonds.
For the week my three best performing funds were all found in the Growth & Income Area of my portfolio. They were DWGAX +3.05% ... FDSAX +3.03% ... and, EADIX +2.56%.
I am invested in what I call an "all weather" asset allocation which consist of about 20% cash, 40% income and 40% equity. The benefit of this asset allocaton, with me being in the distribution phase of investing, is that it provides sufficent income, maximizes diversification, minimizes volatility, and provides long-term returns.
I most likely will add to the equity side of my portfolio during the next good stock market meltdown as I can tactically overweight my equity allocation by up to +5%. Before overweighting equities, with a special investment position (spiff), I'll need to see a sizeable rise in my barometer reading as a higher barometer reading indicates there is more investment value in the 500 Index over a lower reading. Currently, by the metrics of the barometer, stocks are overbought. And, if corporate earnings and revenues disappoint a sizeable pullback in stocks most likely will be coming.
I'm also thinking that most of the gains have already taken place, for stocks, with the Index being up thus far this year by 15.4%. My target for the S&P 500 Index, before year end, is somewhere around 3,000. This will only add about another 4% of gains from the present level ... and, we've got nine more months to go before year end. So, a lot can happen.
For now, though, I'm in a plain old just sit back and watch "the action" mode. I'm thinking big money has run stock valuations upward so they can cut and run ... book some profit in the process ... and, then buy the market again at better prices as the weaker investor begins to sell during the anticipated stock market downdraft. Hey, this has happened many times before as it seems to be part of many investor's reactions to stock market declines. Naturally, it may take some time for this thinking and my plan of action to play out; but, I look to see it take place sometime during the year.
For me, I've got some dry powder while I sit, I watch ... and, I await for a good buying opportunity to open a special equity mutual fund "spiff" position.
Thanks for stopping by and reading.
I wish all ... "Good Investing."
Old_Skeet
Trailing Comment: For those that would like to reference the March Barometer Report along with my prior weekly comments just click on the below link. You can also view my weekly fund leaders. Interestingly, in most weeks something different lead although there were a couple of repeats.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/47961/old-skeet-s-market-barometer-report-thinking-march-1-2019-a-3-29-update#latest

The quote below from M* is old (it refers to the 14 older bond sectors), but even then M* did its own bond fund sector analysis:

The fixed-income sectors are calculated for all domestic taxable-bond portfolios. It is based on the securities in the most recent portfolio. This data shows the percentage of bond and cash assets invested in each of the 14 fixed-income sectors.

http://quicktake.morningstar.com/DataDefs/FundPortfolio.html
The data on the Fidelity page, like the data on most third party web sites, comes from Morningstar: "Morningstar ratings and data on non-Fidelity mutual funds is provided by Morningstar, Inc."
Morningstar's curent set of bond fund sectors divides munis into taxable and tax exempt. The Fidelity page reports these for DODIX as 3.2% and 0.51% respectively. That adds up to 3.71%, the same figure as shown on M*'s own page.
I don't know why M* chose not to present this decomposition into taxable and tax exempt on its own pages, but the figures are consistent. They should be, they all come from the same Morningstar analysis.
It would be interesting to compare the figures with a those provided by a source other than M* (or D&C). Since most sites use M*, I haven't explicitly gone searching for other numbers.

FYI: There was a time when earning 1% from a short-term bond was acceptable. Five years ago, the average one-year Treasury bill yielded less than 0.2% and many money-market funds paid essentially nothing. Ultrashort-term bond funds, which took on a little more risk, but paid a bit more, were one of the few viable options for conservative investors seeking income from their cash.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/higher-rates-produce-more-short-term-bond-alternatives-51554512253?mod=past_editions

@msf You mentioned the muni's portion of your fund example. Is this composition listing at Fidelity valid relative to the other sites info you've viewed?

Fidelity composition view of DODIX
Thank you,
Catch

Okay, I think what you're talking about is classification into sectors (e.g. Treasuries, convertibles, etc.)
IMHO it's the fund industry that is bollixed up when it comes to bond sectors. M* defines a reference set of categories that can be used to compare funds apples-to-apples. In contrast, each fund may provide its own set of categories, making the comparing of fund portfolios problematic.
For example, consider DODIX, a popular bond fund from an investor-friendly company. You've suggested that it should be easy to find this fund's allocations on dodgeandcox.com. I couldn't find the percentage of muni bonds in this fund on the site. Perhaps you can do better.
Here's the fund page (sectors as of 12/31/18), the current (12/31/18) fact sheet, and the current (12/31/18) annual report.
They all have the same footnote on the government-related bond allocation figure: "The portfolio’s Government-Related holdings include tax-exempt municipal securities". They don't break out the muni holdings as a separate figure. M*'s analysis reports that as of 12/31/18, 3.71% of the fund's assets were in munis.
M*'s bond fund data provides value that one doesn't get on the funds' sites. It provides standardized sector classification for easy comparison, it provides a credit rating that quantifies the credit risk exposure of a fund.
With respect to M*'s overhaul of its supersectors and sectors, that occurred in 2011. M* created its first list of supersectors and sectors in 2004. Its current list is unchanged from the one it introduced in 2011.
To my eye, the regroupings of the supersectors makes sense. The old supersector of "credit" was a hodgepodge of munis, TIPS, asset-backed securities, convertibles, and straight corporates. Better to sort these out into appropriate supersectors and then create a clean grouping of corporate-related debt (such as prefereds and convertibles). At the sector level, the changes were largely refinements, e.g. differentiating between agency, non-agency residential, and non-agency commercial mortgages.
Clearly you feel differently ("M* bollixed up their bond analysis"). Some of this is a matter of preference. Could you say something about why you find the current categories worse than the 2004 edition?

I'd suggest skipping M* entirely when researching bond fund allocation. It's easy to find almost any fund's allocation, using their info, and that info usually has the distinct advantage of being basically accurate. M* bollixed up their bond analysis several years ago, and it's really not worth the time using them for bond allocation info any longer.

You seem to be conflating "allocation" with "analysis". M* reports funds' allocations exactly as reported by the funds. On the other hand, M* calculates its own weighted average of credit quality. It does this because a simple average isn't meaningful.
To understand this, think about star ratings. M* grades on a bell curve. That makes sense because fewer than 20% of funds perform at 'A' (5*) level, while lots more than 20% perform at a mediocre 'C' (3*) level.
If you don't like this bell curve, you can always look at Lipper ratings, which rate fully 20% of the funds "A' (5). But it's not as helpful. (I think the Lipper ratings are more helpful because they rate different aspects of the fund, like consistency and returns, but in terms of the scale they use, their unweighted scale isn't as helpful.)
Similar idea with credit ratings. According to S&P data (see figure below), virtually no AAA bonds (0.00%) default within a year, almost as few (0.17%) BBB bonds default, while a quarter (26.82%) of CCC bonds default within the span of a year. Now that default doesn't mean they go bust, more likely they just stop paying interest.
Still, think about a portfolio containing one AAA bond and one CCC bond, vs. a portfolio containing two BBB bonds. The latter has less than a 0.34% chance of any bond defaulting. The former has better than a 1/4 chance of defaulting, though the impact is cut in half since the CCC bond represents only half the portfolio.
Both portfolios "average" BBB in credit rating, if we take a simple average. That average doesn't tell us anything; these two portfolios have such disparate risk profiles.
What we can do with the first portfolio is weight the bond ratings by their impact. So while we might rate AAA as "A" (giving it a numeric value of 1), we might rate CCC bonds as 'Z' (giving it a numeric value of 26, corresponding to its 26+% chance of defaulting). Now when we average the two bonds, we get somewhere around 13, which might correspond to "high quality" junk.
That gives us a better sense of what to expect from the portfolio in terms of defaults. If getting a sense of portfolio default risk is what we want from an average credit rating, then this method of averaging is more meaningful.
If what we want from an average credit rating is to compress the bond allocation (how many A's, how many B's, etc.) down to a single number, then a simple average is better. Personally, if I want to know what the allocation of bonds is, I just look at a bar chart or table showing the whole distribution. It's not as though there are that many grades of bonds that the picture is confusing.

I offer no opinion about the fund or the reported majority of its holdings, but this is what is discovered about the reported debt form.
Residential Subprime Mezzanine debt

Since Ted removed his post I'll B it has some may have missed Big Tom's LINK:
https://pressroom.vanguard.com/news/Press-Release-VG-Announces-Plans-to-Launch-Commodities-Fund-04-04-19.html
Good day & wked, Derf

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and suggestions!!!
wxman123, if understand you correctly, you are using VWALX as your "core" muni holding and supplementing it with other muni's?
I currently own GHYAX, Goldman Sachs HY muni; how (un)wise would it be to pair GHYAX with another HY muni? What if the the HY muni was of short duration such as NVHAX.
Any further input would be greatly appreciated!
Matt

Related... Job data has not slow down
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/march-us-jobs-report-morning-brief-101955875.html

FYI: Global stocks made modest gains Friday after President Trump struck an upbeat tone about the continuing U.S.-China trade talks but failed to set a date for a final summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
European gains were muted, with the pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 inching 0.1% higher in the opening minutes of trading. Gains were led by the index’s basic resources sector which climbed 0.7%. Those gains however were balanced by a 0.5% decline for the index’s real-estate sector.
Markets in Asia turned in a more mixed performance, with a number of major indexes closed for holidays. Japan’s Nikkei climbed 0.3%, lifted by gains for Sony and Nintendo and a softer yen, while Australia’s ASX 200 dropped 0.8%. Stock markets in Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan were closed.
In the U.S., futures pointed to opening rises of 0.2% for both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500.
Germany’s DAX index lagged behind its counterparts in Paris and London as positive data on the nation’s industrial production failed to allay investors’ concerns about country’s economy. The index was flat while the U.K’s FTSE 100 and France’s CAC 40 made gains of 0.1%.
Separate figures released Thursday showed orders for Germany’s manufacturing sector slumped 4.2% in February, increasing the likelihood that Europe’s flagship economy could contract in the first half of 2019.
Investors were awaiting data due Friday on the state of the U.S. labor market. Concerns about signs of slowing growth across the world have weighed on investors this year, with data from China and Europe pointing to slowdowns and increasing the focus on U.S. economic data.
Regards,
Ted
WSJ:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/global-stocks-edge-up-as-trump-signals-trade-progress-11554452170
Bloomberg:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-04/asia-stocks-to-start-mixed-as-trade-deal-not-ready-markets-wrap
IBD:
https://www.investors.com/market-trend/stock-market-today/dow-jones-futures-chip-stock-market-leaders-amd-broadcom-apple/
CNBC:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/05/stock-market-us-china-trade-nonfarm-payrolls-in-focus.html
U.K.:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-stocks/oil-stocks-and-miners-boost-britains-main-index-to-six-month-high-idUKKCN1RH0NJ
Europe:
https://www.reuters.com/article/europe-stocks/european-shares-little-changed-before-u-s-jobs-data-idUSL3N21N18I
Asia:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/nikkei-gains-on-renewed-optimism-over-us-china-trade-talks-2019-04-04/print
Bonds:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/04/us-bonds-treasury-yields-in-focus-amid-auctions-fed-speeches.html
Currencies:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/05/forex-market-us-china-trade-optimism-us-jobs-report-in-focus.html
Oil:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/04/oil-market-us-crude-inventories-tightening-global-supply-in-focus.html
Gold:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/05/gold-market-dollar-moves-us-china-trade-talks-in-focus.html
Current Futures:
https://finviz.com/futures.ashx