I have to trust the fund managers. If I've selected a stinker, I look for a moment to unload it. But that's never immediately clear. It's all about portfolio construction. I own junk. The junk is 63% of my bonds. Bonds in general are 35% of portfolio. Others know better than I do. I try to learn and stay on top of all this kinda stuff. I've heard repeatedly that "junk" companies are in a better spot than in the past right now. Better funded. Defaults are low. I enjoy the higher dividends than with I.G. these days. I have read negative stuff about dealing with TreasuryDirect: clunky and un-user-friendly. CDs? One of my CUs offers stinky rates. The other CU plays games with small dollar-limits. Getting one of the online CDs and having to upload my ID in the process, is a pain I'm unwilling to experience, with no smart-phone. Unless the sky falls and things turn inside-out, I'll stick with the plan. And sticking with the plan is giving me a great yield, while stocks are in a funk, except for ONE of my holdings.
If it can be trusted, Morningstar is telling me that my portfolio is yielding me 150% more than the SP500. But of course, that's an apples-to-oranges comparison. No one invests in the SP500 for yield.

Meanwhile, this asshole
https://thehill.com/business/banking-financial-institutions/4006252-sherrod-brown-blasts-svb-chief-over-bonuses-stock-sales/

Fidelity Flex® funds are a lineup of Fidelity mutual funds that have zero expense ratios, and include proprietary active and passive funds. Flex funds are currently available only to certain fee-based accounts offered by Fidelity, like Fidelity Go®. Unlike many other mutual funds, the Flex funds do not charge management fees or, with limited exceptions, fund expenses. Instead, a portion of the advisory fee you pay is allocated to access the Flex funds in which your account will be invested.

https://www.fidelity.com/managed-accounts/fidelity-go/investment-account-faqs
They're generally good funds. Be advised that Fidelity is still tinkering with its lineup. For example, Fidelity recently shuttered the Intrinsic Opportunities Fund (FFNPX), a MCV offering. It looks like Fidelity decided to change its lineup from mostly actively managed funds to mostly indexed funds. Here's the original lineup (CityWire PR) and the current lineup (M* search by name)
One of the few actively managed funds is FJTDX. It is managed by the same team as the retail fund FCNVX, with similar ultrashort duration, though the actual holdings while similar don't seem to be identical. That is, these funds are not clones. Nevertheless, performance difference seems to approximate the difference in ERs, i.e. 0.25%. Here's a Fidelity comparison page for the two funds.
The slightly better performance of the Flex fund is somewhat illusory. As noted above, the fund is getting paid management fees out of your pocket. They're just getting laundered through advisory service charges. So the management fees aren't subtracted from the performance figures of the Flex funds, making the Flex funds look a little better than they actually are.
It's a matter of perspective - how you want to allocate the advisory fees in your mind - do they all go for advisory services (when you compare advisory fees from different providers), or do you mentally reduce the advisory fees and add that to the Flex funds' ERs, thus reducing the funds' performance numbers?
Finally, with respect to Vanguard changes, Vanguard dropped the free financial plan offering years before the pandemic. I'm just not sure of exactly which year.

Using solely Flex funds without other ETFs and non-Fidelity funds will not work for us. Fidelity will make their money from their 0.35%-1.0% advisory fee. They have made several cold calls, but the timing was premature. I will reach out to them again for details on their level of planning.

I did not understand the initial question as asking individuals to justify why they own any particular asset themselves or what they advise others to do. I regret having responded, as I don’t have time to wrangle with others over whether they should or should not own bond funds. With hundreds of billions invested in all the different bond funds available it is clear many investors find them useful in portfolio construction. It would be absurd to view bond funds as a single asset type anyway. Some mix in equities, some short bonds, some maintain ultra-short durations, etc. It’s doubtful any who’ve been managing investments for 25 or more years suddenly woke up this morning with an entirely new view of bond funds or their desirability as one component of their portfolio.
Did anyone say you shouldn't own cash? I missed that if they did.

He seemed like a good guy, from what I could tell. His survived by his wife and two adult sons. Had a career of just over 30 years with Kornitzer Capital Management. Passed away at the age of 54. The family asks that you consider a donation in his memory to Carl's Cause, a non-profit that works to address the stigma around mental health issues.

But please leave out the widely understood part about past performance being no guarantee of future results. Got that part.

Ok, but that's exactly what you based your whole argument on. Past 3-5 year performance.
I do agree with everyone else though that with CD's at 5%, it's hard to take on more risk to get 6, 7 or 8% as rates plateau or start to come down. But it may be close to that time IMHO. I do believe the next 3-5 years will not look like the past 3-5 years. Extrapolate YTD returns on some of these funds now and it shows returns growing greater than 5% for the year.
...

Anyone who actually spent a few minutes of time on the links I posted would have likely seen that the results are just as bad for the bond fund universe over the past 10 years.
Had you, would you have instead stated "I do believe the next 3-5 (and 10) years will not look like the past 3-5 (and 10) years"?
And would your basis also be that if you extrapolate out the recent ST bounce for those periods, bond fund investors will (I guess, magically) get LT TRs of "6, 7 or 8%" for those periods?
I'll ignore your wild-eyed notion of bond funds returning 7%-8% over any LT period of time because it just doesn't happen.
But I will address the HOPE of 6% LT because, in the past, it was achieved by a few taxable bond funds. To wit, did you see that only 7/1,921 taxable bond funds returned over 6% during the LIFE of their respective funds, um, that was during the greatest, 30+year bond bull market in history?
Bottom Lines: Starting several months ago, investors were given the once in over a decade opportunity to buy (ugh, unsexy) CDs and ASSURE themselves % returns for the next 5 years equal to/greater than the LT % we all strive for in bond funds, which is generally 4%-5%.
Many missed the short-lived peak period. But all still have a chance to get it done. If they can just get over themselves.
I don't understand the widely held bias against CDs paying 5% as a preferred alternative to bond funds for the next 5 years.
I don't understand why investors who are striving for LT bond sleeve TRs of 4%-5% don't get that all their time, energy and HOPE spent trying to achieve that level of returns is effectively wasted as guaranteed returns of those levels are there for the taking.

”The mood among global fund managers soured further in May, with investors flocking to cash amid concerns that a recession and credit crunch are looming, according to Bank of America Corp.’s latest survey. The sentiment among fund managers deteriorated to the most bearish this year, with 65% of survey participants now expecting a weaker economy,”
Yahoo (Reprinted from Bloomberg)

It used to be (until 2015 or so?) that Vanguard would provide Voyager Select and Flagship customers with a free financial plan. After reviewing the basic survey that a customer filled out, a CFP would discuss the customer's situation over the phone for about an hour. There would be shorter followup conversations, before and after the plan was prepared.
The plan was not cookie-cutter, at least in the sense that it provided for keeping a lot of non-Vanguard assets, both individual stocks and funds. The plan offered suggestions on how to deal with specific (overweighted) individual stock holdings. Vanguard said it had tools to help the DIY investor implement the plan on their own, or that Vanguard could manage the portfolio for the investor.
I didn't mention specific financial planning because this particular service was discontinued years ago and I don't know whether a service like this is integrated into Vanguard's current service offering.

this influenced my decisionmaking 8y ago and I have not regretted it
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/01/16/investing-international-funds/21825245/

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1135300/000089418923003709/buffalosticker51523.htm
Buffalo Funds
Supplement dated May 15, 2023
to the
Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information (“SAI”)
dated July 29, 2022, as previously supplemented
The Buffalo Funds regret to inform shareholders that Jamie Cuellar, CFA, a co-portfolio manager of the Small Cap Fund since 2015 and of the Discovery Fund since April 2020, unexpectedly and tragically passed away on May 8, 2023. Jamie spent more than 30 years as part of the investment management industry, including the last 8 with Kornitzer Capital Management, Inc. (“KCM”). The Funds and KCM are grateful for all of Jamie’s contributions. He will be greatly missed.
Please note all references to Mr. Cuellar in the Funds’ Prospectus and SAI are deleted in their entirety.
The Small Cap Fund continues to be managed by Robert Male, CFA, and the Discovery Fund continues to be managed by Dave Carlsen, CFA.
Please retain this supplement with your Prospectus and SAI
Picture:
https://buffalofunds.com/team/jamie-cuellar/

Dollar diversification is one of the reasons for foreign exposure. Dollar has been strong for last several years, but may have peaked in September 2022. Since then, the pattern is of a decline (look at declining 50d-MA and 200-dMA) with wiggles up/down.
As has been noted, strong dollar is a headwind for foreign funds held by the US investors, while weak dollar provides tailwind. The currency-hedged foreign funds become popular in strong dollar eras.
But currency movements/trends are hard to predict.
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$USD&p=D&yr=1&mn=0&dy=0&id=p35088383212

FMIJX is an international equity fund which hedges currency (most foreign funds don't hedge).
The strong U.S. dollar provided a tailwind for FMIJX.
FMI introduced an unhedged version of its International Fund (FMIFX) on 12/31/2019.
The link below shows the portfolio backtest results for both funds.
FMIJX vs. FMIFX

FMIJX has had two unusually bad patches (2020) and (2022) surrounded by some very strong years verses its peers.
fmijx/performance
Not International, but "Global Investing without the indigestion" might be another approach for diversifying away from the US:
investing-without-an-ulcer

There’s a whole other issue of whether the fund is dollar hedged, partially so, or not at all. You can find international funds in each camp depending on whether or not you want to hedge against potential dollar weakness. If you believe the dollar will remain strong, use dollar-hedged funds.
Buffet sold a lot of U.S. stocks first quarter, but increased his holdings in Japan. I suspect part of his thinking involves relative currency valuations (dollar vs yen).
Another question is how much of a premium you’re willing to pay for a more diversified portfolio. ISTM that if all of your investments are rising together there’s a pretty good chance that at some future date they will all decline together.
It’s interesting that some really accomplished heads of corporations look out 5-10 years when making spending decisions about acquisitions, expensive new infrastructure, new streams of income. But a lot of us (self included) react to gains / losses much nearer term. I mention that only because international investing involves calculated longer term risk taking. Past may not be precursor to future.

Very good analysis of massive benefits Middle and upper classes get from the government, while the poor get blamed for being lazy.
Reducing the deficit will certain gore someone's sacred ox
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/04/20/the-high-cost-of-being-poor-matthew-desmond/?printpage=true
According to recent data compiling spending on social insurance, means-tested programs, tax benefits, and financial aid for higher education, the average household in the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution receives roughly $25,733 in government benefits a year, while the average household in the top 20 percent receives about $35,363. Every year, the richest American families receive almost 40 percent more in government subsidies than the poorest American families.
Taken from Desmond's new book Poverty, by America

Fortunately, I registered my wife and daughter at the time I bought the I-Bonds for them, but the process for creating gift accounts is confusing so that didn’t happen. Also you had to wait at least 5 business days after buying the bonds to transfer them, so I couldn’t do it at the time of purchase. I do remember indicating that they were gifts when I purchased them, but apparently did follow the correct procedures to have them show up in gift accounts. I was dreading having to go through a messy process to get them correctly classified as gifts and transferred, but it wasn’t difficult with guidance from the TD rep.

Last year I bought three batches of I-Bonds, one in my name and two intended as gifts for my wife and daughter. Apparently I did something wrong, and no gift accounts were created, although my holdings showed three separate holdings. I tried to figure out how to reclassify these as gifts using the TD website but got nowhere. So I finally broke down and called Treasury Direct this morning.
My experience was very positive. I expected a hold time, and it turned out to be just as long as the recording advised me — 15 minutes. The rep was friendly, helpful and knew exactly what to do. He walked me through each step patiently, and I was able to reclassify two batches of the bonds as gifts and transfer them to my wife and daughter. This all took about 10 minutes.
The I-Bonds for my daughter were a wedding present, so she can do whatever she pleases with them.

Regional bank KRE is in mid-30s again (as in early-May). I think that is good price for it - but after an initial position in early-May, I am not adding to it here. The downside is 2020/pandemic-low in mid-20s. The upside is if there is a comprehensive reform on the FDIC insurance coverage.
This is like catching a falling knife. So, don't just jump on it.
Right now, the FDIC has a few proposals on deposit-reforms, and the Treasury (so, the White House) and the Fed are reviewing those. The FDIC is also proposing temporary fees on banks to recover its costs of covering ALL deposits (that it didn't have to do) in the rescues of 3 failed regional banks (SVB, Signature, First Republic). Of course, this cannot continue on ad-hoc banks as more regional banks fail - PACW seems to be in trouble now.
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=KRE&p=D&yr=1&mn=0&dy=0&id=p27896665771

But please leave out the widely understood part about past performance being no guarantee of future results. Got that part.

Ok, but that's exactly what you based your whole argument on. Past 3-5 year performance.
I do agree with everyone else though that with CD's at 5%, it's hard to take on more risk to get 6, 7 or 8% as rates plateau or start to come down. But it may be close to that time IMHO. I do believe the next 3-5 years will not look like the past 3-5 years. Extrapolate YTD returns on some of these funds now and it shows returns growing greater than 5% for the year.
The only bond fund I've held on to over the past couple years is in my withdrawal bucket, RPHYX. I recently added RGHYX and SAMBX to that bucket in small dosage. A couple TIP funds too, but that bucket still consist of more than 50% in 3-12 month treasuries, CDs and MM. I'll add, because it's not talked about much, also a nice consistent player in this bucket has been SPC, Crossing Bridge Pre-Merger SPAC ETF.