There is no free lunch. You pay for it one way or another, 12b1 or TF. pick your poison

I would add that some TF fund share classes can actually be cheaper than their NTF brethren. Compare an NTF share class (ER) with the combined cost of (TF fee + TF ER). The TF ER is often lower enough to make this the better long term selection.
Also, many brokerage houses will allow investors to set up periodic withdrawals and periodic contributions so that future sales / purchases of shares are TF free. I have done this successfully with many TF funds at USAA brokerage.
@VintageFreak, I have used the Portfolio Visualizer website to acquire Max DD and Recovery time data.
Here's the link.
https://portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio
Here is what IRNIX details:

There is no free lunch. You pay for it one way or another, 12b1 or TF. pick your poison

Thank you Mr. Snowball.
I opine...
SSTHX - out of the reckoning on first principles. Wells Fargo...FAR GO I.
GABCX - Succession issues.
ZEOIX - not available at Brokerages (I know, I know, I'm being picky)
MWSTX - Just look at the chart and see what happened in 2008. No sirreee...
ENIAX, SEEAX - $100,000K minimum. Nope
ITAAX - After Dot Com Bust can't look at this fund company ever again, just like can't look at Invesco ever again
HLGFX - $1MM minimum, so looked at ONUAX which dropped a M*, then looked at chart around 2008. Nope dee doo.
RPHIX - I own RPHYX
BRASX - BATAX may be more accessible to buy, but BRASX is Corporate Bond and BATAX is Intermediate Bond, and someone please put M* out of business.
So all in all, ZEOIX is it for me looks like...
Question - Where do I get max DD numbers if MFO does not track fund. I own IRNIX and wanted to see how it did. Rolling returns on 1 year basis at M* not looking too bad at first glance, but I'm worried I am not evaluating correctly.
Finally - I also own FPNIX. Thinking RPHYX, RSIVX, IRNIX, FPNIX - I should just chill out.

TGLDX = 21.23%
HSGFX = -3.74 (but OTCRX is getting there :-()

As folks were debating the options for "cash alternative" funds, I thought I'd poke through the MFO Premium data to see what I could find. I wanted to see if there were funds with meaningful annual returns, at least by the standards of the "cash-like" part of a portion, that also had reassuringly limited downside.
I operationalized that desire at "annual returns over 2%" (because, really, 0.6% is close enough to zero that I'd rather put money in an insured savings account and not worry about it) and "a maximum drawdown of less than 2%" (which implies a worst-case recovery period of less than one year). I screened for the last five years worth of data, since many of the cash-alternative funds are relatively young.
I ended up with ten two-and-two funds. In each case I'll report the five-year returns and maximum drawdown over that period, then the actual time it took to recover from the max DD then, finally, the Sharpe ratio. Remember that the Sharpe isn't keyed to max DD or recovery, so those figure imperfectly reflect the Sharpe ratio.
RiverPark Short-Term High Yield (RPHIX): 3.1% annually, max DD of 0.5%, seven-month recovery, Sharpe 4.62. The fund is closed and has the highest Sharpe ratio of any fund in existence. Also one star from Morningstar.
SEI Opportunistic Income Fund (ENIAX, a great computer): 3.2% APR, max DD of 0.9%, nine-month recovery, Sharpe 2.65
Zeo Strategic Income (ZEOIX): 3.4% APR, max DD of 1.5%, five-month recovery, Sharpe 2.57
JPMorgan Limited Duration Bond (HLGFX): 2.3% APR, max DD of 0.6%, six-month recovery, Sharpe 2.42.
BlackRock Allocation Target Shares (BRASX): 2.5% APR, max DD of 1.4%, six-month recovery, Sharpe 2.20
Metropolitan West Strategic Income (MWSTX): 4.2% APR, max DD of 1.4%, six-month recovery, Sharpe 2.10
Transamerica Short-Term Bond (ITAAX): 2.5% APR, max DD of 1.0%, five-month recovery, Sharpe 2.10
SEI Enhanced Income Fund (SEEAX): 2.3% APR, max DD of 1.8%, 13-month recovery, Sharpe 1.90
Wells Fargo Short-Term High Yield Bond (SSTHX): 3.2% APR, 1.6% max DD, five-month recovery, Sharpe 1.75
Gabelli ABC (GABCX): 3.1% APR, 1.9% max DD, five-month recovery, Sharpe 1.52
For what interest that holds,
David

Top 3: PRHSX 10%, ARTYX 9%, SFGIX 8%
Bottom 3: HSFNX -1.50%, TREMX 3%, VISVX 3.5%
All rounded to nearest .5%. All look like risky EM and sector bets, but they are all a small portal of my portfolio. YTD -> 5%

re CULAX & PONDX, both available No Load/No Fee at Schwab.
CULAX: Net ER 0.77, YTD (from M*) = 0.23%
PONDX: Net ER 0.79, YTD (from M*) = 1.25%
Both w/ 90 day redemption fee.

Hello,
The below is throuh market close of 2/16/2017.
My three best ... SPECX +8.64% ... NEWFX +7.50% ... & LPEFX +6.89%
My three worst ... FMTNX +0.29% ... GIFAX +0.38% ... & THIFX +0.38%
My portfolio as a whole +3.27%

@hank. Excellent callout on TRBUX. I wouldn't have known it does not have the 30 day buy back rule. It really would be perfect for my situation. I just need to figure out if the settlement money market fund performance vs TRBUX is even worth it to take the added, albeit smaller risk. The MM fund NAV will stay at $1.0, not the TRBUX.

Funds I still hold at the moment:
Highest - MINDX 8.9%, MAVRX 6.3%, PGRNX 6.0%, PKO 5.2%.
Lowest - QMNNX 0.5%, PTIAX 1.0%, DBL 1.1%, PIMIX 1.3%.
I'm hearing bells too, Ben - been clicking the sell button a bit this week.

It looks to me that from all the input, the term "cash alternative" is very broad and different in everyone's mind. I would say any fund with a standard deviation much over 1.5 or 2 would be nothing like cash.

Including ETFs
TUR 12% VGHAX 9% ( and I was ready to sell it) SFGIX 7% VUG 7% VPCCX 7%
Bottom of Barrel
OTCRX - 3% SPCAX -0.5% VWITX 0.07 % FPINX 0.16 %

In my self managed portfolio:
SFGIX +7.73%
PTIAX +0.87
In my Schwab robo portfolio:
SCHE +11.72
BNDX -.82

Stock Funds highest: BPTRX 12.2 FSPHX 11.81 Lowest WFPAX 2.99
Bond Funds highest: PONDX 1.25 lowest RPHYX .29 (but meeting expectations)

DSEEX is up just under 6.5%, CoB yesterday. FLPSX +3.9%. PONDX +1.25%, PDI +2.85%, FRIFX 1.6%.

THQ - 12.21%
FAIRX - 12.17
HQL - 10.77
QQQX - 9.91
FCNTX - 8.35
TIBIX - 2.26

If you count an ETF then SBIO is up 11.82% at the moment. My best mutual fund is PTSGX and it's close behind at 11.71%. The worst is WAFMX at 1.66%.

@MFO Members: Here's mine.
Regards,
Ted
QQQ 9.12%
SPY 5.10%
IJH 4.62%
PFF 4.12%
CSCIX 1.33%
PONCX 1.15%

FYI: We could be asking the wrong questions about active versus passive management, a researcher says.
While most active funds fail to outperform their benchmark indexes over the long term, research from Martijn Cremers, the Bernard J. Hank professor of finance at the University of Notre Dame, has found that the more actively managed a mutual fund, the more likely it is to outperform.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.fa-mag.com/news/as-it-turns-out--the-more--active--an-active-fund-is--the-better-31394.html?print