This fund company seems to take the flavor vanilla and slice it 12 ways to Sunday.
A mere one fund is offered also as:

I compared AMCPX and RAFGX. RAFGX is a R6 shares class has a low minimum (as they all do) and an ER that is half the A share class (AMCPX). AMCPX also comes with a 5% load.
How do investors make a choice between all these flavors?
I'm looking for a brokerage platforms that offer the cheapest share class of American Funds that offers these shares NTF (No Transaction Fee). R6 share (in this case RAFGX) seem to be the cheapest through my brokerage, but I have to cough up the transaction fee.

Last filing:
https://jivedata.com/13F/860643/

Actually, the paper seems to say something a bit different.
All else being equal (i.e. same fund family, similar "size, value, and momentum scores"), the researchers found no meaningful difference in pre-tax performance between tax-managed and non-tax-managed funds.

The average before-tax return is very similar for tax-managed funds and non-tax managed funds (0.27% vs. 0.26% per month). ... The average before-tax return is not significantly different between exchange-traded funds and matched open-ended index funds (0.50% vs. 0.51% per month).

Aside from keeping turnover lower (and hence costs lower), other techniques used by tax-managed funds tend to limit what a fund can do and thus potentially impede pre-tax performance. Quoting from the paper's abstract:

Mutual funds can reduce the tax burdens of their shareholders by avoiding securities that are heavily taxed and by avoiding realizing capital gains that trigger higher tax burdens to the funds’ investors. Such tax avoidance strategies constrain the investment opportunities of the mutual funds and might reduce their before-tax performance.

The abstract continues: "Surprisingly, more tax-efficient mutual funds do not underperform other funds before taxes, indicating that the constraints imposed by tax-efficient asset management do not have significant performance consequences." Emphasis added. That is, the conclusion is only that tax-managed funds don't do worse, not that they do better.
What improves pre-tax performance is not tax-efficiency, but keeping trading costs down (a side effect of minimizing trading to keep realized gains down). So look directly for funds with low trading costs
There are lots of papers that discuss trading costs. Brokerage fees can be found in SAIs, and should correlate well with turnover ratios. Market impact is likely affected by how much of a company a fund owns. ISTM that these are the factors that one should be looking at, not tax-efficiency, which is at best a proxy for these costs.

I keep about two years of cash within my portfolio as a safety net plus the portfolio itself kicks off enough income to meet my current annual withdrawal needs. Any cash held above ten percent, for me, would be considered excess and held due market conditions. Therefore, I am presently 10% cash heavy due to market conditions at 20%. And, I could still raise another 15% within the cash area while remaining invested towards the low end of my asset allocation ranges for the income, growth & income, and growth areas by reducing equites from 50% to 40% and other from 10% to 5%. I think most every investor needs to know where they can best raise cash within their portfolio should they need to do so.

Dex, STHBX a dog of a dog. In the same short term junk arena it is completely outclassed by ASHDX and OSTIX.

I was going to suggest a combination of OSTIX and WHIYX.
ASHDX has a short history from what I have researched.

STHBX is for 'near cash' it was bought about 2 years ago and is down 1.3% from my purchase price. A fund with a stable price and some interest is better then a fund with a volatile price and higher interest. The interest has more then offset the loss - so the fund did the job.
When doing the comparison you have to look at the interest rate at time of purchase and change from purchase price.
What did those fund pay for interest 2 years ago and how did the share price change +/-%?

Edit: You are lucky to have a pension. Shouldn't you be just fine once you begin taking SS? You may still have a little out of pocket but not much. I assume that will come from your nest egg?

I'm looking at taking SS at 63.5. That would give me 13 years where I don't have to touch my dividends/interest/principal. If I buy a new truck it is 8-9 years. This is another, example of what we both said before - How do people without a pension or a large investment account pay their bills??????????

@JohnC - Not sure what strategy I'm following - but I've come to like multi-asset funds more and more in recent years - specifically the TRP low-fee variety. I think of them more as "I don't know what the f* to do with this money" type funds. Won't make a lot. But won't lose a lot either.
RPSIX is one good example. It's a fine multi-asset income fund that might fit your needs. The semi & annual reports are exceptional at showing graphically how the fund is allocated, normally among 10-12 other funds. And, that's what you're buying: a broad collection of funds - but from people who know how to allocate and how to fine-tune along the way. (Anyone so interested can easily pull-up the reports for this fund on TRP's website.)
I differ from most here in not keeping a significant stash of cash for emergencies or unexpected needs. Other than the currently 18% overall portfolio allocation, viewed as ballast, there's nothing additional outside the normal budgeted living expenses. In our case, anyway, we're conservatively enough invested that a separate stash isn't necessary. We'll pull those unexpected expenses from across the total portfolio. It'll "ding" our returns a bit if taken at an ebb in the markets. However, holding lots of cash also dings you.
Am not recommending the above approach for others. Wouldn't be advisable for younger or more aggressively invested folks. ..... Have a good weekend.

A while back I bought into a income fund that is multi asset in nature. My thinking on this was a place to park money for the short term before it goes into cash instead. For example, if I keep 12 months cash available, I would have 3-5 years in this fund to temper any hiccups in the markets.
Anyone else use a similar strategy? It could be a form of bucket or sleeve investing of sorts.

Seems like a reasonable approach.
Instead of thinking that there might be market hiccups I try to plan on the hiccups happening during my draw down periods. I try to do this by using back testing (historical data). You can explore mutual fund MaxDD and recovery from Max DD here at MFO thanks to Charles' efforts using this tool here.
A website I visit to back test mutual funds is Portfolio Visualizer. I'm attempting to get a close approximation of future "MaXDD" (Maximum Draw Down) of different mutual funds or etfs (cash can be entered as CASHX). This site lets you enter your mutual funds as individual holdings (100%) or as a combination of fund percentages (which also must add up to 100%). When reviewing the results I pay close attention to this feature (which you have to hover over with your cursor to open...located next to the MaxDD results). It looks like this:

At this website:
https://portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio
Max DD is expressed in a percentage and recovery time from MaxDD is expressed in a time frame it took the fund to overcome MaxDD (return to profitability for a buy and hold investor).
On a separate note:
I would argue that cash has a Max DD equal to inflation that can be measure in percentage and time. This might be the most misunderstood MaxDD...the buying power of cash. When you get down to it this is what we all are trying to do preserve or increase... buying power.
My portfolio often feels like a balloon that changes in size, but needs to at least overcome the deflationary pressures of inflationary leaks (the buying power of money).

A while back I bought into a income fund that is multi asset in nature. My thinking on this was a place to park money for the short term before it goes into cash instead. For example, if I keep 12 months cash available, I would have 3-5 years in this fund to temper any hiccups in the markets.
Anyone else use a similar strategy? It could be a form of bucket or sleeve investing of sorts.

FYI: Most of us don't worry about taxes when it comes to mutual funds.
We don't need to because we invest in them through a 401(k), IRA or another account designed to delay taxes until after retirement. More than half of all money invested in mutual funds is in tax-deferred accounts. That makes it easy to ignore whether other shareholders in the same fund are getting a big tax bill just because they're holding it in a taxable account.
Even so, it can pay to consider a mutual fund's tax history, regardless of whether your money is in a taxable or tax-deferred account. That's because funds that keep tax bills down tend to have better returns, even before taxes are taken into account.
Regards,
Ted
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/print?id=31217658

FYI: WHEN Ken Kavula of Genesee, Mich., retired from his job as a high school principal at age 53, he decided to defy conventional wisdom and manage his own financial life — including his retirement accounts and a mix of stocks and bonds he had either accumulated on his own or inherited.
Fifteen years later, Mr. Kavula, now 68, has ridden the huge highs and crushing lows of the markets so well that he has enough to live off, for now, without even tapping some accounts.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/23/your-money/the-risks-and-rewards-of-self-managing-investment-portfolios.html

@msf Thanks a bunch. Got it! As someone who once managed a branch office of a not-for-profit law firm for several years, another example that one should always go first to the opinion before proceeding elsewhere, to avoid confusion and the risk of being misled.
And so the stake in the heart of Hope will remain, until something else comes along to pull it out. :) [perhaps "cognitive bias" at play here with my first impression; I so very much loathe 12b-l fees]

FWIW, my take on the 9th Circuit ruling, the SC ruling (which only had to do with statutes of limitations, i.e. time limits on claims), and on people's wishful thinking.
The 9th circuit ruled that revenue sharing is generally okay (though it is fact-specific, and can vary from case to case). Revenue sharing is where the mutual funds pay the Plan's administrative service provider (bookkeeper), and the service provider in turn reduces the fees it charges to the Plan Sponsor (employer). Basically, employees paying 12b-1 fees to cover some of the plan's administrative costs, so that the employer pays less.
Without going into the subissues or reasoning, I'll just quote from the 9th Circuit opinion: "Today we have held that the [revenue sharing] practice here did not violate the terms of the Edison Plan or violate ERISA § 406(b)(3) [prohibiting kickbacks]."
The 9th circuit also ruled that for the funds that were added (in 2002) to the plan within ERISA's 6 year statute of limitations, using retail class shares was a breach of fiduciary duty. But not for the reason you think. The reason was not that they were more expensive than institutional class shares, but that the employer had not even bothered to check whether there were cheaper shares available.
Quoting again from that ruling:

The trial evidence ... shows that an experienced investor would have reviewed all available share classes and the relative costs of each when selecting a mutual fund. ... [W]e have little difficulty agreeing with thedistrict court that Edison did not exercise the “care, skill,prudence, and diligence under the circumstances” that ERISA demands in the selection of these retail mutual funds.

As to the SC ruling, it was (based on ERISA being modeled after trust law) that the employer/sponsor has an ongoing duty to monitor the plan offerings. So the 6 year statute of limitations runs not from the original selection of a fund, but from the time it should have last taken a look at the plan offerings. Thus the suit could proceed.
But the SC also said that (a) it had no opinion on what constituted that duty to monitor (it could be a lesser duty than in making the original fund selections), and (b) whether the plaintiffs could even argue this (because they had not argued that the defendants breached a duty to monitor distinct from the duty to carefully select the funds).
All the SC did was remand to the 9th Circuit to figure out whether the plantiffs would be permitted (procedurally) to argue for a breach of monitoring duty, and if so, what that duty was and whether the defendant actually breached it.
With respect to what people are reading into this case - the SC gave no particular reason for hope. Any ruling about share classes or share costs was decided in the trial court, affirmed in the circuit court, and not appealed to the SC. There's no open issue here on which to be hoping for anything better than was already decided.

After this decision was released, I read two short legal blogs about it, and both of them speculated this could lead to the reassessment of many fund fee charges, possibly including a reduction or elimination of 12b-1 fees. Not sure I followed the "why" of it; it had to do with specific wording in the opinion, which neither blog adumbrated.
Could dreams come true?
Do you believe in "miracles"?
(Keep Hope alive?)

I've been posting a lot about budgeting, near cash, and cash flow.
Here is my current cash flow calculation for this year as of today's date.
Budget (28,500)
Cash Back 243 - credit cards
checking/Int 753
STHBX 16,449
Money Market 1,700
Pension 8,058
Spent 12,494 - this the amount spent to date
Total 11,197 - this is the amount remaining of STHBX I estimate I will have at year end.
I could show you future years but basically it is a adding in dividends and reducing STHBX until SS begins.
This is the first year that the pension kicked in.
Get back to basics with your planning. But, as I said before, the younger a person, the less likely they will be able to have a comfortable retirement.

Thank you MJG and msf for the time and thought you put into your replies. I was unclear with the article in regard to the word fee/fees . I thought Mr. Evensky was trying to focus the writer on the 15-20% improvement on the portfolio return net of portfolio fees , taxes, and inflation. If a were a client , I would be considering my total return ( risk adjusted as Mr. Evensky advises ) which would include Mr. Evensky's approximate 1.33% fee, all in, as given by the writer. I was thinking, as I read , that the word fees as used by Mr. Evensky meant portfolio expense ratios/transaction costs but did not include his and Mr. Katz's 1.33% fee.

Love solar panels but I stay away from solar stocks or etfs that have them. I had solar panels installed in 2010 and have not paid an electric bill since:) We get 300+ days of sun here, a no-brainer.

@TSP_Transfer, More info on Hanergy. Problem is that this spills over to several ETFs particularly in the solar energy sector. I have a small position on EEMV that is supposely minimal volatility index but contains 1.4% Hanergy. What does it imply for all Chinese stocks (H or A shares and those traded in US markets) since many emerging market indeces such as Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index, VEMAX, which has 29% exposure to Chinese stocks?
https://google.com/search?q=Hanergy+Investors+Get+Burned&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 Click on Barrons links.

You have substantially increased your payday before taxes

Some adjustments to the calculations above:
- Evensky is talking about real (inflation adjusted) returns after taxes as well as after expenses
- The typical (dollar-weighted average) cost of investments is closer to 1.0% than to 1.5% (from memory, cite corrections as appropriate)
- Evensky is suggesting just a 0.5% absolute improvement in ER + taxes
The general concept is right - that he's referring to relative improvement. That is, 0.5% could be as much as 15%-20% of the net, real, after-tax return. But all the figures, numerator (0.5%) and denominator (current net return) are smaller.
I haven't yet delved too deeply into the following article from Thornburg, but if you're interested in getting a sense of "real" real returns (i.e. returns net of expenses, taxes, and inflation), and trying out your own numbers, here's an historical analysis on different asset classes.
FWIW, Thornburg uses 0.50% as its estimate for average expenses, so if you like my figure (1.0%) or MJG's (1.5%), subtract off 0.5% or 1.0% from the stated average returns.
http://www.thornburginvestments.com/pdfs/th1401.pdf

Hi Morningstars,
Costs matter even more when portfolio expectations are lowered. Bogle has been playing this song for decades. Here' an example.
Suppose a balanced portfolio expects a market return of 7.5% with expenses at 1.5 %. Your return is 6.0%.
An option is to go the low cost route so that the return is the same, but costs are only 0.5%. Your take home payoff is now 7.0%.
You have substantially increased your payday before taxes. Like 7.0/6.0 or roughly 1.167 or 17%.
It's important to consider stats in both an absolute and a relative framework.
I hope this helps.
Best Regards.