Thanks so much for sharing Ted.. can I ask if you have equal weightings in each?

@MFO Members; The Linkster believes that dividends are the mother's milk of investing. For what its worth here is a current list of my dividend portfolio, and current yields.
Regards,
Ted
Bonds:
Navistar 8.25% 11/21 Callable 2017
Preferred Stocks:
ALLY-A: 8.125%
ARI-A: 8.33%
CIM-A: 8.96%
DDT: 7.50%
MLP's:
BX: 6.13%
KKR: 3.98%
Common Stocks:
CSAL: 9.04%: (Tax free spin-off of WIN)
CTL: 8.98%
FTR: 12.28%
NLY: 11.65%
NI: 2.96%
PFE: 3.94%
T: 4.59%
VZ: 4.30%
WIN: 7.62%

if you want to win you have to avoid all or most of the obvious answers . To me they are 1b,6c,.7b,.13a

@ bee: I paid $5.40 which gave me a yield of 8.1% at the time of purchase. A 11/22/16 Morgan Stanley research report believes that after acquiring VZ subscribers in the Florida the stock should stabilize and has has a price target of $4.20.
Regards,
Ted

@Ted,
I am a subscriber of FTR. This was as a result of a service vacuum left when AT&T (U-verse) folded in CT.
I have taken an interest in following this stock when you first mentioned you bought it earlier this year. I have also watched this stock tumble over the last year. At what point, do you as an investor, worry about the dividend being impacted by the company share price? One would have to go back to the 1980's to find a comparative share price to today's $3.42. Also, the dividend trend since 2005 has decreased from .25/share to .10/share.
How do you, as an investor, deal with what I would call the "sour cream stage" of a stock like FTR? What I mean here is, how does an investor endure a 30% drop in share price (I believe you bought this first at about $5/share)? Seems more like a drying up of the mammary gland (mother's milk) to me.
Has the stock become an even more incredible buy than it was when you first bought it?
I will say collecting a dividend does help an investor be patient, but does an extended drop in share price curdle that milk?
Your thoughts?

@MFO Members; The Linkster believes that dividends are the mother's milk of investing. For what its worth here is a current list of my dividend portfolio, and current yields.
Regards,
Ted
Bonds:
Navistar 8.25% 11/21 Callable 2017
Preferred Stocks:
ALLY-A: 8.125%
ARI-A: 8.33%
CIM-A: 8.96%
DDT: 7.50%
MLP's:
BX: 6.13%
KKR: 3.98%
Common Stocks:
CSAL: 9.04%: (Tax free spin-off of WIN)
CTL: 8.98%
FTR: 12.28%
NLY: 11.65%
NI: 2.96%
PFE: 3.94%
T: 4.59%
VZ: 4.30%
WIN: 7.62%

I continue to be a fan of low volatility investing, and the low volatility/high dividend ETF, SPHD, continues to work. This ETF has done reasonably well since the TLT peaked on 7/8/2016, and has outperformed the S&P 500 since its inception.
CHART
Kevin

FYI: “If you don’t know when you’re wrong, you certainly don’t know when you’re right.” – Adam Robinson
Regards,
Ted
http://awealthofcommonsense.com/2016/12/investing-when-it-doesnt-make-any-sense/

No fund site in the 70s, but perhaps starting in the late 80s ( I'm a little weak on the timeline) was misc.invest.funds (later named misc.invest.mutual-funds).
Not a "site" exactly, more of a feed. But definitely internet (i.e. uucp gateway'd to ARPAnet). FWIW, here's a page with the 1982 newsgroups (scroll to appendix near bottom). No mutual fund group back that far.

Hank - no offense taken! And yes, the modern Templeton isn't Sir John's, that's for sure. :/
In their defense, I've held their tax-free FKTIX in my portfolio since (I think) the late '80s, and also think their utility/income funds were pretty good, though I don't own those.
I'll echo someone's earlier point about Arnott's Research Associates. PAUIX/PAAIX were all the rage and hyped everywhere around the GFC, then (as now) you rarely see them mentioned and only sometimes see RA in the media.

Points taken about Templeton - I don't necessarily disagree w/the counter-arguments there, although I was referring to the firm and not just a specific fund.

No disagreement on my part with anything you said. And I'm aware they've had their share of losers - not just a single fund.
However, if you were investing in funds in the 70s-80s (as I was) when someone said "Templeton",

Templeton World lept to mind. It was their flagship fund, run by Sir John himself for many years. Don't know how many other funds they had back than, but it would be only a fraction of all the funds now under the Franklin Templeton umbrella. Sometimes bigger isn't better.
Ahh - Yes the loads too. I think loads were less of an issue for many of us in workplace plans in the 70s and 80s. First, we received group discounts. Second, we didn't have the plethora of no-load funds to choose from that are available today. And third, there wasn't nearly the amount of fund information which we now take for granted (this site being a prime example). Many of us new inexperienced investors were operating in the dark and relied on the advice of an experienced commission-based advisor, even if it did cost us a few pennies on the dollar.
PS - I'm not aware of a single Internet site devoted to mutual funds in the 1970s when I bought my first shares of TEMWX. :)

My pick is Matthews Asia. When Andrew Foster left, he took a lot of investment expertise with him. They have had some tough moments since. In Q4 of 2014, they did not pay a dividend on their Asia Dividend Fund (MAPIX). I started to sense things were not going well and pulled my money to go elsewhere.

I'm gone from Matthews too, but not due to performance.

I thought it might be worthwhile to link to a couple of objective family rankings. Use them as you will - as evidence that families are worse (or better) than their reputations, or as a source for those reputations.
MFO: "How Good Is Your Fund Family" 2016 Edition
WSJ/Barron's: One, Five, and Ten Year Rankings, through end of 2015, plus methodology (Lipper)
              Best Fund Families of 2015 (adds category rankings, e.g. domestic equity, taxable bond)
I agree with hank that bigger is not always better. But it does increase the odds of finding a good fund among the also rans in a family. Hence Fidelity winds up well represented on many "best funds" lists by sheer size. Such lists are not family rankings and don't address family reputation.

Points taken about Templeton - I don't necessarily disagree w/the counter-arguments there, although I was referring to the firm and not just a specific fund.

No disagreement on my part with anything you said. And I'm aware they've had their share of losers - not just a single fund.
However, if you were investing in funds in the 70s-80s (as I was) when someone said "Templeton", Templeton World lept to mind. It was their flagship fund, run by Sir John himself for many years. Don't know how many other funds they had back than, but it would be only a fraction of all the funds now under the Franklin Templeton umbrella. Sometimes bigger isn't better.
Ahh - Yes the loads too. I think loads were less of an issue for many of us in workplace plans in the 70s and 80s. First, we received group discounts. Second, we didn't have the plethora of no-load funds to choose from that are available today. And third, there wasn't nearly the amount of fund information which we now take for granted (this site being a prime example). Many of us new inexperienced investors were operating in the dark and relied on the advice of an experienced commission-based advisor, even if it did cost us a few pennies on the dollar.
PS - I'm not aware of a single Internet site devoted to mutual funds in the 1970s when I bought my first shares of TEMWX. :)

Calamos - great selection. A boutique firm that built its reputation on a niche product (convertibles).
TEMWX - NTF at Fidelity (to address a concern with FT loads).
Another overrated family - Dimensional (DFA). Excellent for small cap value (domestic or international), less so outside of its wheelhouse. Its major advantage there (low cost) is impaired by its general requirement to invest through advisers. (Though there are more and more ways to circumvent this now, including 529 plans and VAs.)

Intriguing Question.
My experience only encompasses about 10 families. Can give only give a very limited perspective.
My nomination for most overrated: is Calamos. 15 years ago when I decided to invest with them, reviews from many reputable sites suggested they were top-notch. Could damn near walk on water - especially during tough markets. That was not my experience after a decade and I abandoned them.
My nomination for underrated: Oakmark: While overall reviews of OAKBX have been good, it's taken considerable flack, including here, for lagging benchmarks and peers. I've always felt this was a tough fund to benchmark. These are deep value long-term focused investors who try to avoid currently hot stocks and sectors. They'll buy things that are unpopular with the crowd and slowly build a position. They'd rather sell early than eat a big loss. So they abandoned long term bonds a few years too early which hurt them relative to peers. I don't fully understand their hedging strategy designed to protect against big losses. But it seems to depend on certain components like smaller energy producers, big defense contractors, financials, beaten down large caps, and, when appropriate, government bonds.
Re: Franklin Templeton (nominated by rforno): My first and only fund for the first 20 years was TEMWX. During the 70s, 80s and most of the 90s these guys seemed to have a license to print money. I and several coworkers did very well by them. So it's with sadness that I observe that fund's lackluster performance over the past decade or more. I don't know what happened to a once very fine company.
Clip from Wikepedia (the Free Encyclopedia) on their rapid expansion through acquisition and merger beginning in '92. Might have contributed to their problems:
"In October 1992, Franklin acquired Templeton, Galbraith & Hansberger Ltd. for a reported cost of $913 million, leading to the common name Franklin Templeton. Mutual fund pioneer Sir John Templeton was the owner of Templeton, Galbraith & Hansberger Ltd together with his son Dr. John Templeton and John Galbraith who together owned 70% of the firm. In November 1996, Heine Securities Corporation, known for the Mutual Series of funds, merged into the Franklin Templeton complex. In October 2000, Franklin acquired Bissett Funds to increase its Canadian presence, and Bissett remains a key brand from Franklin in the Canadian market. The Fiduciary Trust Company was acquired by Franklin Templeton in April 2001."

ISTM that these "overratings" come from people's high expectations of new funds (sometimes that works out, like Seafarer) or looking in the rear view mirror over selected periods. I suspect people will come up largely with boutique families, both because they pin such high hopes on them and because, having few funds, these families' average performance can be much more volatile.
In thinking about naming a family, what came to mind was one that I've been underrating. Fidelity. My mind is still stuck in the 90s, when it pandered to mediocrity (pension funds), and most of its offerings struggled to meet that low bar. These days, their fund managers hang around longer, and they've put together some very respectable funds.
Following JohnChism's thinking, a family that comes to mind is FPA. FPACX has always been a fine fund, but always overpriced (with costs out of line with the rest of its family). As Rodriguez moved out of active management, his charges (FPPTX, FPNIX) lagged, and funds seemed to shift categories. I suspect few people here followed this family since it was until recently a load family, but it seems to be clinging to its former reputation.
I disagree with rforno about FT. First, because it is much, much bigger than Templeton (the question was about fund families, e.g. VF mentioned Janus, not its Perkins subbrand). Second, because performance of funds in his rear view mirror may appear smaller than they are :-) TGBAX ranks top 1/8 over the past year, top 1/4 over the past three, top 1/9 over the past five.
That said, its Mutual Series funds are not the funds they were under Michael Price, any more than its Templeton funds are the same ones managed by Sir John. But that doesn't automatically make them overrated.

My pick is Matthews Asia. When Andrew Foster left, he took a lot of investment expertise with him. They have had some tough moments since. In Q4 of 2014, they did not pay a dividend on their Asia Dividend Fund (MAPIX). I started to sense things were not going well and pulled my money to go elsewhere.

Those allocations seem to be the standard for income now. One fund I have has 62% corporates. Bank loans are 19%. The fixed income holdings are weighted more to B and BB. The managers play an important role here in how the fund will perform, more so than usual.

High Yield Continues Near Ytd Highs
Artisan ARTFX Nov 30 Commentary
In an environment characterized most notably by extraordinarily low yields, it has been our view that the non-investment grade market offers a better risk/reward proposition than most areas of fixed income. This month exemplified the substantial interest rate risk that resides in some of the lowest-yielding parts of the market.
Portfolio Composition (% of total portfolio)
Corporate Bonds 75.2
Bank Loans 19.7
Equities 0.6
Cash and Equivalents 4.5
https://www.artisanpartners.com/content/dam/documents/monthly-commentary/vr/2016/nov/ARTFX-APDFX-MCommentary-1116-vR.p
Henderson High Yield Opps HYOAX
November 30th
Corporate Bonds 87.8 %
Bank Loans 6.2 %
Cash 4.9 %
Low Global Gov'nt Bond Yields continue to drive strong demand for HY and leveraged loans.Effort to add risk to portfolio but liquidity challenges and fewer new issues in the lower quality space has been a hindrance.
https://az768132.vo.msecnd.net/documents/22438_2016_12_21_08_33_38_483.gzip.pdf
As of November 30, 2016 Barings U.S. High Yield Fund BXHAXCorporate fundamentals outside of commodities have remained stable recently making high yield returns attractive relative to other income producing investments http://www.barings.com/assets/user/media/Barings-US-High-Yield-Fund-Factsheet.pdf
M* High Yield Returns
http://news.morningstar.com/fund-category-returns/high-yield-bond/$FOCA$HY.aspx
Related
Bank loan funds back in favor
Dec. 23, 2016 2:24 PM ET|By: Stephen Alpher, SeekingAlpha News Editor
Bank loan funds (also known as senior loans or leveraged loans) have seen $5.6B of net inflows this year, with a nice chunk of that coming in the weeks since the election, writes Chris Dieterich at the WSJ.
It's no secret why: First, investors view bank loans as lower risk than junk bonds as they're ahead in the corporate structure in the event of a default. Maybe more importantly given the current environment, these loans are floating rate, making them popular in times of rising interest rates.
http://seekingalpha.com/news/3232452-bank-loan-funds-back-favor

Hi Zoneblitz!
Your lineup looks really good. Now, what are the percentages going to be, I wonder? Just like football, it's all in the odds regarding what it is you do and why you do it. In other words, the game plan (Blitz or Play Zone or maybe Man). It's what your strengths are and what areas of the field you own.
God bless
the Pudd
p.s. What are you going to do? Just curious.....

I actually help coach youth football :) We run all types of blitz and coverage packages. It's a lot of fun.
Anyhow, I'm content with the portfolio for now. May include a floating rate fund and change allocations.
VWINX - 30%
PONDX - 10%
GIBLX - 10%
PTIAX - 10%
OSTIX - 10%
DGRO/HDV - 10%
Cash - 20%
I'm going to use the cash position to dial up/down my equity exposure - buy preferred stocks, etc. I do believe that we will have a pullback in equites after the new year. Everyone I know is buying stocks and that scares me.