Interesting
PRCFX is less than a year old (automatic eliminate for me despite being run by a star manager).
Boils down to timeframes one is looking at (I don't care about daily returns including pivot days like yesterday). Minimal evaluation period for me is 12 months plus.
To each their own, good luck with your journey.

As a retired investor, my timeframes are probably considerably shorter than yours. As you say: "To each their own".
Along those lines, I am currently exploring investing in a combination PRCFX and QQMNX, a Market Neutral fund.
Good luck.

I recently opened a CMA account as a replacement for a Vanguard Cash Plus account. That is, an account where we could access a better yielding treasury only MMF and get a decent yield on FDIC-insured money (non-sweep). My SO also opened a new IRA (for promotion $$) and I added to my existing IRA for promotion $$. The experience has been largely disappointing.
On the plus side:
- good promotions: fairly high bonuses for fairly low amounts brought in; relatively short 90 period for bonus
- BofA Preferred Rewards (based on Merrill balance): increases cash back on BofA credit cards
- Decent rate on FDIC-insured account (though not a sweep account)
- Access to high yielding (institutional) MMFs with $1 mins
On the minus side:
- 24 hr phone service is limited; was told I needed to wait until 8AM for "financial advisor" to be available to deal with some issues
- preferred award system missed one new account in calculating level of benefits we were qualified for
- bond research/trading issues
Trading Treasuries:
- cannot buy Treasuries at auction except through rep with fee
- search tool is limited
--- no depth of book
--- does not display bonds if min purchase quantity is greater than one (i.e. greater than $1K)
- cannot buy a bond, even by CUSIP, if min purchase required is more than one bond
We have these accounts for the plusses above. We don't really use them for trading. E*Trade also offers access to higher yielding third party MMFs.

Is Dell really going to let over 10,000 associates go? Super micro margins going down down down....this is not good news for the markets, nor the Ai bubble... Could get interesting over the next few weeks....

I won’t wade into AI / Tech / Consumer staples or other specific sectors. But sometimes I get tired of people talking about “the markets” as if they are all unified and all move in sync. At any given time there are stocks or other assets that are overpriced and other stocks or assets that are reasonably priced or even underpriced. “Verification” is always in hindsight months or years afterward. If we knew for sure what was going to be up 6 months or a year from now and what would be lower 6 months from now investing would be a dream. We’d all be incredibly rich.
Thank you to the vast majority here who have kept politics largely out of the investing forum. Much appreciated. Let’s focus on making money, long term financial health and having some fun together. There are always lively political discussions in the OT section and we who hang out there were recently privileged to have longtime mfo member @Graust, an R, drop by for some civil chatter which takes a lot of balls to do because it’s a bit on the liberal side over there. Perspective from those who disagree is always appreciated.
Just 1 political comment here. I spoke to a neighbor yesterday who “unloaded” on the USA. The country’s “shot” / ”going to hell in a hand-basket”. The government, politicians and public servants are “all crooks”. Everything’s “rigged.” There isn’t a candidate on the ticket of either party that’s worth voting for. To top it all off, he’s so upset with things he will not vote in November!
I thanked him saying, “For every person who chooses not to vote … that makes my vote count a bit more.”

Check out the HY spread on FRED; make the time frame 1y for most interesting results.

Is Dell really going to let over 10,000 associates go? Super micro margins going down down down....this is not good news for the markets, nor the Ai bubble...
Could get interesting over the next few weeks....

Interesting
PRCFX is less than a year old (automatic eliminate for me despite being run by a star manager. I do hold his TRAIX fund and that has struggled recently).
QLENX has performed a lot better than VNMIX last 3-4 years albeit with a higher level of volatility than VNMIX.
Boils down to timeframes one is looking at (I don't care about daily returns including pivot days like yesterday). Minimal evaluation period for me is 12 months plus.
To each their own, good luck with your journey.

If you are quoting the orange one, its got to be for either 1) shock value or 2) a laugh.

Macro trend following and mean reversion, the kind of trading BLNDX probably does, is difficult to do for most players because there is no "fundamental" value for Sugar or Coffee or the Yen. Thing can move and these days everything moves faster than it used to. Macro portfolio deal with this problem using risk limits - for position sizing as well as when to cut losses. BLNDX experienced one of those events in the last few weeks. This should be considered normal for the fund, just as 10-20% drawdowns in stocks should be considered normal in a given year. I have no exposure to BLNDX. When a fund reports it made money on getting Sugar contracts move right, I know I know nothing about what they might do next. They have a good track record and if one is to put money into a fund because of their track record, the next logical thing is to stop asking "why the fund moved" questions. The only thing that matters is performance and your own risk limit for how much you can tolerate a selloff. Someone should consider researching if its a good idea to buy into such strategies AFTER the 10% selloff. It might lead to better entry points if one still likes the fund/manager.

Looking at the 5 yr chart, and if you ignore the current drop from July 16, BLNDX chart held up pretty well. Look at that Covid crash performance. Not sure why it could not navigate the current situation. All good things and such. Apologies to all the long time holders that I bought into it.

Firstrade and as you observed, E*Trade (Morgan Stanley) impose no transaction fees.
Here's the thread that was started when E*Trade first switched to $0 TF pricing.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/60484/anyone-buying-funds-at-e-trade
Unfortunately, Firstrade does not seem to provide any sort of fund list if you don't have an account. (I have a login from an account I closed ages ago that enables me to check fund availability by individual ticker, though I cannot put through a test trade.)
Fidelity generally allows you to purchase additional shares for $5/transaction using its automated investing system. You schedule purchases starting at least a couple of days in advance. Then after your initial trade executes, you cancel the remaining scheduled trades. Occasionally a fund may not be "eligible" for automated investing. Also, Fidelity offers some institutional funds with lower mins in IRAs than Fidelity requires in taxable accounts. No way (that I know) to see this except with an existing IRA account or by calling.
Schwab tends to set the lowest mins for opening a new position.
If you have $1M invested with Vanguard (Flagship customer level), Vanguard will give you 25 free TF fund trades per year. NTF funds don't reduce your allotment of free trades. Many people dislike Vanguard's interface. I'm okay with it - it is fully functional. Vanguard's service however is very poor, and it recently imposed several fees and rules that many including me found disturbing.

And now N225 is up 10% after yesterday on what's likely a relief rally. As I said in another thread, buckle up, folks!
(US futs this Tues premarket are up less than .5% so essentially treading water as of now.)

In the June Standpoint commentary for BLNDX, it stated it's biggest winners as:

Biggest Winners
Long U.S. and Japanese equities. Short soybeans, corn, and Japanese yen.

I guess holding Japanese equity will be their biggest loser in the next report. Still, YTD the fund is up 7.6% compared to a couple other notables from another thread, QDSNX at 5.7% and QQMNX at 9.8%. After several years holding BLNDX, I have to admit, QQMNX is a tempting alternative in this alternative field for a less bumpy ride and, so far, excellent returns (+12.1 3Y).

Per a request, this link is added to this thread.
The data shown is an indicative gauge of direction and isn't a monitor of trading in an open and active market. REF: Finviz shows about +5% at midnight for Japan; while the active and open market there is +10% at this time.
FINVIZ futures

This post will get buried very soon. Is it not possible to add FinViz to your opening post?
Thanks

Per a request, this link is added to this thread.
The data shown is an indicative gauge of direction and isn't a monitor of trading in an open and active market. REF: Finviz shows about +5% at midnight for Japan; while the active and open market there is +10% at this time.
FINVIZ futures

Is Fidelity ATP having trouble too?

Outage tracking website Downdetector.com reported that Schwab’s services were down for over 3,400 users, while Fidelity’s issues peaked at over 3,500 reports. Vanguard wasn’t immune either, with nearly 2,500 users reporting outages.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/what-happened-with-charles-schwab-what-effect-was-there-on-investments/ar-AA1ogQln

I am now checking out two "Market Neutral" funds, QQMNX and VMNFX, which held up very well and provided some protection during the recent market downturn. New managers have been at the helm of both funds since 2021.

Today, when the US stock market sees the biggest daily loss in nearly two years (S&P = -3%), "Market Neutral" funds QQMNX only lost 0.05% and VMNFX 0.07%.
Both funds also have excellent 3-year total returns (QQMNX = 12.07% and VMNFX = 15.54%), with standard deviations of less than 8.6%, since new management took over.
So far so good.

I’ve been reading the lastest book by Lawrence McDonald, “ How to Listen When Markets Speak: Risks, Myths, and Investment Opportunities in a Radically Reshaped Economy”.
Very interesting, a cautionary tale. Very worthwhile…particularly now.

+1.
Just placed a HOLD on that one at my local library.

I now understand the title of this thread!
BLNDX is down 10% from its July 16 peak. SPY lost about 1.5% less. Did someone mention BLNDX is an All Weather fund? More like up the escalator and down the elevator.