@fred495, to add to the conversation and add to your post, which I think is a good one, I'm wondering if others, especially those near or in retirement, own or are looking at alternative type 'absolute return' funds in their portfolio. I actually like the idea of some percentage of these to smooth out the ride. Problem (maybe) is that there are so many in the alternative section to choose and they can be vastly different.
So, I'll give the ones I'm using. If others want to chime in that would be great.
I hold:
JHQAX, at about 10%, an options fund recently discussed in this month's commentary by @Devo
BLNDX/REMIX at about 5%, a multi asset fund, labeled as a L/S by M* (I don't agree)
LCR, which can be closer to a balanced fund, at about 5%
By the way, to give an opinion on your starting post, I do thing QDSNX would be as good a choice as others available to accomplish the "smoother" portfolio ride.

update:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1413594/000110465924044129/a24-8908_3497.htm
497 1 a24-8908_3497.htm 497
abrdn Funds
(the "Trust")
abrdn Emerging Markets Sustainable Leaders Fund (the "Fund")
Supplement dated April 5, 2024 to the Fund's
Summary Prospectus, Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information (the "SAI"),
each dated February 29, 2024, as supplemented to date
This Supplement updates certain information contained in the Summary Prospectus, Prospectus and SAI for the Fund, a series of the Trust, dated February 29, 2024, as supplemented to date.
On March 13, 2024, the Board of Trustees of the Trust approved an Agreement and Plan of Reorganization relating to the reorganization (the "Reorganization") of the Fund into the abrdn Emerging Markets ex-China Fund (the "Acquiring Fund"), a series of the Trust. The Reorganization does not require approval by shareholders of the Fund. The Reorganization is anticipated to occur after the close of business on or about June 21, 2024 (the "Closing Date").
The Fund's investment adviser, abrdn Inc. ("abrdn"), proposed the Reorganization, in part, because of the Fund's decrease in asset size and increased distribution opportunities available to the Acquiring Fund. abrdn also serves as investment adviser to the Acquiring Fund.
A combined information statement and prospectus describing the proposed Reorganization in more detail will be mailed to shareholders of the Fund prior to the anticipated Closing Date. In the Reorganization, each shareholder of the Fund will become a shareholder of the Acquiring Fund and will receive, on a tax-free basis, shares of the Acquiring Fund with the same aggregate net asset value as their shares of the Fund. Shareholders of each class of the Fund will receive each corresponding class's shares in the Acquiring Fund. A Fund shareholder who does not wish to become a shareholder of the Acquiring Fund may redeem shares of the Fund at any time prior to the Reorganization.
In connection with the pending Reorganization, effective after market close on April 12, 2024, shares of the Fund will no longer be available for purchase by new investors. In addition, the Fund will depart from its stated investment objective and policies on or about June 12, 2024 because the Fund will need to dispose of any securities that are not transferrable or cannot be held by the Acquiring Fund. During this time, the Fund will hold larger amounts of uninvested cash than is customary leading up to the Closing Date, and there will be times when the Fund is not fully invested in accordance with its investment objective and strategies during this transition period, which may cause the Fund to forego appreciation in value of portfolio investments, if any.
The pending Reorganization of the Fund may be terminated and/or abandoned at any time before the Closing Date by action of the Board of Trustees of the Trust.
Please retain this Supplement for future reference.

WSJ: At Close 4:00 PM EDT 04/05/24
$40.59
-5.56
-12.05%
:)

So much winning....

Investors will eat those realized losses (when they eventually sell) - that's the tax "gift".
And they will like it.

WSJ: At Close 4:00 PM EDT 04/05/24
$40.59
-5.56
-12.05%
:)

So much winning....

WSJ: At Close 4:00 PM EDT 04/05/24
$40.59
-5.56
-12.05%
:)

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1314414/000158064224001994/equity-hedged_497.htm
497 1 equity-hedged_497.htm 497
Navigator Equity Hedged Fund
Class A Shares NAVAX
Class I Shares NAVIX
Class C Shares NAVCX
(a series of Northern Lights Fund Trust)
Supplement dated April 4, 2024 to
the Prospectus and Statement of Information dated February 28, 2024
The Board of Trustees of Northern Lights Fund Trust (the “Board”) has determined based on the recommendation of the investment adviser of the Navigator Equity Hedged Fund (the “Fund”), that it is in the best interests of the Fund and its shareholders that the Fund cease operations. The Board has determined to close the Fund and redeem all outstanding shares on May 24, 2024.
Effective at the close of business April 4, 2024, the Fund will not accept any purchases and may no longer pursue its stated investment objectives. The Fund may begin liquidating its portfolio and may invest in cash equivalents such as money market funds until all shares have been redeemed. Any capital gains will be distributed as soon as practicable to shareholders. Shares of the Fund are otherwise not available for purchase.
Prior to May 24, 2024, you may redeem your shares, including reinvested distributions, in accordance with the “How to Redeem Shares” section in the Prospectus. Unless your investment in the Fund is through a tax-deferred retirement account, a redemption is subject to tax on any taxable gains. Please refer to the “Tax Status, Dividends and Distributions” section in the Prospectus for general information. You may wish to consult your tax advisor about your particular situation.
ANY SHAREHOLDERS WHO HAVE NOT REDEEMED THEIR SHARES OF THE FUND PRIOR TO MAY 24, 2024 WILL HAVE THEIR SHARES AUTOMATICALLY REDEEMED AS OF THAT DATE, AND PROCEEDS WILL BE SENT TO THE ADDRESS OF RECORD. IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS OR NEED ASSISTANCE, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR FINANCIAL ADVISOR DIRECTLY OR THE FUND AT 1-877-766-2264.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR RETIREMENT PLAN INVESTORS
If you are a retirement plan investor, you should consult your tax advisor regarding the consequences of a redemption of Fund shares. If you receive a distribution from an Individual Retirement Account or a Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) IRA, you must roll the proceeds into another Individual Retirement Account within sixty (60) days of the date of the distribution in order to avoid having to include the distribution in your taxable income for the year. If you receive a distribution from a 403(b)(7) Custodian Account (Tax-Sheltered account) or a Keogh Account, you must roll the distribution into a similar type of retirement plan within sixty (60) days in order to avoid disqualification of your plan and the severe tax consequences that it can bring. If you are the trustee of a Qualified Retirement Plan, you may reinvest the money in any way permitted by the plan and trust agreement.
This Supplement and the existing Prospectus dated February 28, 2024, provide relevant information for all shareholders and should be retained for future reference. Both the Prospectus and the Statement of Additional Information dated February 28, 2024, have been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, are incorporated by reference and can be obtained without charge by calling the Fund at 1-877-766-2264.

I lost count of how many times this forum has discussed PVCMX as an Absolute Returns fund. E.g., You can search David Snowball’s posts on PVCMX. QDSNX touts itself as an Absolute Return fund and hence the comparison with other Absolute Return funds. My post with the comparison started by quoting from the OP. Did I quote out of context?
I rechecked and stand by the approx 6% drop for QDSNX during SVB tantrum I had reported. (5.7% drop if I am getting paid to do this work.)
I do not believe in BS asymmetry and take great pains in trying to ensure I am objective and accurate in posting / sharing investment information because others may rely and make choices based on what I post. So, I appreciate others cross checking the information I post. You can either ask me how I got my information / numbers or simply post that I am wrong, whatever furthers a useful / productive conversation for the forum.
Disclosure: I did make money on AQR funds in the 2017 time frame and have not owned them since. I never owned PVCMX.

Balu said: "I only know PVCMX and for the year 2023, PVCMX did much better than QDSNX which lost 6% during the March 2023 SVB tantrum ..."
Sorry, but just for the record I checked Portfolio Visualizer, and I see that in March 2023 QDSNX lost 3.7%, not 6%. That's actually the highest monthly loss for QDSNX.
For the year 2023, PVCMX gained 9.5%, whereas QDSNX gained 8.5%. However, there is also a considerable difference in the standard deviation of these two very different funds. Why compare them?
Fred

Comfort Sys/FIX (nice ticker) is a Houston-based HVAC company and is an infrastructure play on construction boom.
KRUZ has oil/gas, infrastructure, tech in Top 10. Ticker CRUZ wasn't available, so it's KRUZ.
NANC has tech and media in Top 10.
BTW, NANC is ahead since 02/2023 inception (by StockCharts - linkable, M*, MFO Premium), so double check the data.
https://stockcharts.com/h-perf/ui?s=KRUZ&compare=NANC&id=p78187968875

This post is for anyone (not necessarily responding to @fred495)
"The Fund invests in a portfolio of AQR mutual funds, providing exposure to both Absolute Return strategies and Active Multi-Asset strategies."
Its benchmark is 3 mo T-Bill index
It has six managers four of whom have Ph.D.s.; the 2.62% ER is kind of justified! Joking aside, I generally do not pay attention to ER if a fund has return history. The ER includes acquired fund fees.
https://funds.aqr.com/funds/alternatives/aqr-diversifying-strategies-fund/qdsnx#about
Fact Sheet and Fund Profiles can only be downloaded as pdf at the link above.
Just sharing what I observed -
May be someone can compare this to other credible Absolute Return funds. I only know PVCMX and for the year 2023, PVCMX did much better than QDSNX which lost 6% during the March 2023 SVB tantrum and took five month to recover. I am sure bond gurus in this forum can come up with bond funds that had a much better risk adjusted or absolute return than QDSNX for 2023. However, QDSNX did well in 2024 with a 11.8% YTD total return (a nice chart)!
The fund started in June/July 2020 and so I am not aware of any left tail things to test against. Was SVB a real left tail? The fund did not impress at that time. is it a predictable trend follower? Per M*, the fund started with five managers, four of whom left before the third anniversary. Of the current six managers, only one has invested in the fund (>$1m).
M* portfolio indicates 221% net long exposure - use of leverage or derivative notional being reflected in net long?
May be others can fill in the rest.

Lately, I have been following the AQR Diversifying Strategies N Fund (QDSNX) and been pleasantly surprised by its excellent risk/reward profile.
The fund company describes its investment approach as follows: "Leveraging AQR’s research and 20-year track record in alternative investing, the Diversifying Strategies Fund is designed to complement an investor’s traditional stock and bond portfolio. The Fund invests in a portfolio of AQR mutual funds, providing exposure to both Absolute Return strategies and Active Multi-Asset strategies."
With a Standard Deviation of 7%, the fund has a YTD total return of 11.8%, and a 3 Year return of 12.7%. In 2022 it gained 14.5%.
QDSNX is available at Fidelity with a minimum investment of $2,500 and no transaction fee.
I am curious of the opinion of anyone who has used this fund in their portfolio.
Looks like it could fit nicely into a conservative retirement portfolio.
Fred

According to Morningstar data, two funds now report owning: Fidelity Nasdaq Composite ETF and Unusual Whales Subversive Republican Trading ETF (KRUZ). The Fidelity fund is boring and predictable. Unusual Whales is sort of intriguing.
"Unusual Whales is an affordable options and equity data platform . . . they have started a reinvigorated effort on how lobbying, committee conflicts and finance changes Congress." With the Unusual Whales Subversive Republican Trading ETF, which tracks the stock trading disclosures of Republican members of Congress, you can invest right alongside the folks with the indefensible conflicts of interest! The ticker for the Democratic version is NANC. As in Ted Cruz and Nancy Pelosi as our inspirations.
The site reports "Unusual Whales has reported on political trading and worked on this ETF with the hope of getting the practice banned all together."
Since launch, by the way, the Democrats are kicking red butt: up 41.73% since inception (February 2023) versus up 22.53% for the Republicans. Top Republican holding: Comfort Systems USA, a provider of mechanical contracting services. (Why?) The Dems are a big Mag 7 crowd.

@yogibearbull and anyone else that owns GE and GEV,
do you mind sharing if in your brokerage account, the gain shown for GE is only about 15% higher than that for GEV? More info in my previous post in this thread.

I received GEHC and GEV from owning GE. I understood these to be tax free spin offs in which case the cost basis in my GE shares should be allocated to GEHC and GEV proportionate to the fair value on the date of distribution. Looking at my account, GE has 163%, GEHC has 58%, GEV has 115% gain, respectively. The newest one is GEV which had more appreciation in stock price than GE since GEV debut on March 28. Though charts show GEV stock price from March 28, evidently the spin off happened before the market open on April 2. GEV stock price has lost about 10% (more than 8% just today) while GE stock price appreciated about 5% since the spin off. I am not sure why GEV gain is so much lower than GE's gain. What am I missing?
(I did not pay attention to the cost basis after GEHC spin off.)
Just want to make sure I adjust / correct the cost basis in my brokerage account if the brokerage is not doing it correctly.
Foot note of this filing gives the dates -
http://archive.fast-edgar.com/20240404/AG2ZBQ22Z222RZP2222E2Z42NLKSZK22BA62/

am linking to OT board for discussion.
ttax licenses

@Tarwheel concisely and accurately stated "Nobody knows where longer term rates are headed, despite all of the punditry." I would add that it's also regularly called a fool's game.
True story: Years ago and for a coupla years, I was diligently (some say "anally") projecting my defined benefit pension plan lump sum payment (one of three defined benefit pension plans in our household) that was largely driven by a coupla factors including the 10-yr rate. During one of those years, one of the most reliable investment houses projected a 3.5% change in the 10-yr in the coming 12 months. And voila! Amazingly they nailed the % move EXACTLY! Well, except for the all important direction of the move, which they said was going to be DOWN, but instead went (Oopsy!) UP.
The strategy for owning a CP CD ladder as one's fixed income sleeve has been posted about ad nauseum on this forum. I know that's true because I am one of its leading proponents and made a ton of posts about it. Any otherwise reasonably intelligent investor on this forum who still doesn't get it needs to go back and re-read some of the many other threads on the topic over the past year or so. It's pretty simple.
Basically, what are you hoping for (and I ask that pointedly as IMO, hope is what you're dealing with here) out of your dedicated bond funds over the next 5-yr period. 4%? 5%? 6%? And if your hopes are in that range, why did you NOT (when the option was available - it ain't now) instead take the stress, guessing and hoping out of the equation and guarantee a 5+% APY from an FDIC'd, CP CD 5-yr ladder?
BTW, the venerable Art Cashin used to routinely remind us, "I learned long ago that hope is not a viable, long-term investment strategy."
Disclaimer_1: We own a 5-yr CP CD ladder paying 5+% APY as our fixed income sleeve and it now serves as self-insurance for our projected LTC needs. The current 5-yr CP CD rate is still over our % hurdle and we continue to replace rungs as they fall off. This strategy has given us WAY more time to spend on our stock sleeve (IMO, where real money is made) and the extra time and effort afforded us by the ladder has resulted in blowout TRs over the past 1-to-1 1/2 years as we've accurately identified some of the best places to be in that market (that is, US, AI, LCG and Semis).
Disclaimer_2: I'm tired of posting the same thing over-and-over again and I trust some forum participants are tired of reading it as well. So this will be my last time. For those who still don't get it, maybe try reading it s-l-o-w-l-y one last time?

M* JR has a great piece on Kahneman (& Tversky, his mathematical collaborator who died young at 59 in 1996). After the Nobel in 2002, Kahneman said that it was really joint for him AND Tversky, but unfortunately, Nobel isn't awarded posthumously.
https://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance/daniel-kahneman-unlikely-economist

If you own GE, then you know own GEHC and GEV. We’ve got GE shares that we’ve own for 40-50 years. It’s finally starting to regain some of the value it lost over the past 20 years. My wife’s grandfather gave her the original shares, and she hasn’t wanted to sell for sentimental reasons. If we do sell, figuring out the cost basis would be a nightmare because we reinvested dividends until the past few years when the yield was cut.

Nobody knows where longer term rates are headed, despite all of the punditry. The so-called experts have wrong repeatedly. I deal with the uncertainty by covering all of the bases. My CD ladders extend out 5 years, and when issues mature, I reinvest where I can get the best yield furthest out. Long term, I assume my intermediate bond funds will eventually start gaining value again, particularly if rates drop.
My CD ladder in taxable savings is heavy on the short end, with issues maturing every 1-3 months. My IRA ladders have issues maturing about every 6 months.

AAII Sentiment Survey, 4/3/24
BULLISH remained the top sentiment (47.3%; high) & bearish remained the bottom sentiment (22.2%, low); neutral remained the middle sentiment (30.5%, below average); Bull-Bear Spread was +25.1% (high). Investor concerns: Elections, budget, inflation, economy, the Fed, dollar, Russia-Ukraine (110+ weeks), Israel-Hamas (25+ weeks), geopolitical. For the Survey week (Th-Wed), stocks down, bonds down, oil up, gold up, dollar flat. Good seasonality from Nov 1 - Apr 30; Q1 was best for SP500 since 2019. #AAII #Sentiment #Markets
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/1424/thread