Here are all bond mutual funds, excluding Specialty Income, that are above water (month ending February), sorted by return, highest on top:
Fairholme Focused Income (FOCIX)
Eaton Vance Short Duration Inflation-Protected Income I (EIRRX)
Northeast Investors Trust (NTHEX)
American Century Short Duration Inflation Protection Bond Inv (APOIX)
Fidelity Series 0-5 Year Inflation-Protected Bond Index (FSTZX)
T Rowe Price Limited Duration Inflation Focused Bond (TRBFX)
SEI Real Return A (RRPAX)
Franklin Templeton Floating Rate Daily Access A (FAFRX)
SEI Real Return F (SRAAX)
Franklin Templeton Global Bond A (TPINX)
Catalyst Stone Beach Income Opportunity I (IOXIX)
BlackRock iShares Short-Term TIPS Bond Index K (BKIPX)
Invesco Sh Dur Infl Prot R5 (ALMIX)
Sit Quality Income (SQIFX)
River Canyon Total Return Bond Inst (RCTIX)
T Rowe Price US Limited Duration TIPS Index I (TLDUX)
Advisors Preferred Quantified Government Income Tactical Inv (QGITX)
Franklin Templeton International Bond Adv (FIBZX)
CrossingBridge Low Duration High Yield Inst (CBLDX)
Catalyst Enhanced Income Strategy I (EIXIX)
Regan Total Return Income Inst (RCIRX)
Invesco Senior Flt Rate Fd A (OOSAX)
Lord Abbett Inflation Focused F (LIFFX)
RiverPark Short Term High Yield Inst (RPHIX)
DFA Short-Duration Real Return Portfolio Inst (DFAIX)
CrossingBridge Ultra-Short Duration Inst (CBUDX)
Weitz Ultra Short Government (SAFEX)
CM Advisors Fixed Income (CMFIX)
Pacific Funds Floating Rate Income I (PLFRX)
Putnam Ultra Short Duration Income Y (PSDYX)
SEI Conservative Income F (COIAX)
AMF AAAMCO Ultrashort Financing Y (REPYX)
Brinker Capital Destinations Low Duration Fixed Income I (DLDFX)
Rational Special Situations Income Inst (RFXIX)
Advisors Preferred Quantified Tactical Fixed Income Inv (QFITX)
CBIS Catholic Responsible Investments Ultra Short Bond (CRHSX)
Ed actually shared with me recently that this could be a good year for FOCIX. Berkowitz's JOE does indeed seem to be paying off, finally.

Junkster said:
Could be a rough road for anything bond related especially if the Fed decides to actually take a stand against inflation.
That's the frustrating part. Powell indicated he only wants to raise in 25 bp increments when it would appear that a stronger tightening response would be appropriate in the current inflationary environment. Eh, but what do I know.

My play on DBC, Invesco DB Commodity Index Tracking Fund, dropped ~-8% today. That ETF has helped smooth the down turn YTD but all good things must come to end I guess. I did have a stop limit order of -5% from high to sell 20%. That struck when the markets opened. Maybe it should have been more(?).
I still think commodities are a good bet through 2022. I started a play on DBA, Invesco DB Agriculture Fund. Seems a safer play on inflation. Energy is just too over-priced right now.

Perhaps if prices rise sufficiently, lease and permit holders in the US might be encouraged to actually drill.
"Historically, the United States has been a net importer of petroleum. During 2020, COVID-19 mitigation efforts caused a drop in oil demand within the United States and internationally. International petroleum prices decreased in response to less consumption, which diminished incentives for key petroleum-exporting countries to increase production. This shift allowed the United States to export more petroleum in 2020 than it had in the past.
Also in 2020, the difference between U.S. crude oil imports and exports fell to its lowest point since at least 1985. Net crude oil imports subsequently rose by 19% in 2021 to an average of 3.2 million barrels per day (b/d) as crude oil consumption increased in response to rising economic activity. We forecast that the United States will continue to import more crude oil than it exports in 2022, reaching an estimated annual average of 3.9 million b/d. However, we expect net imports to fall to 3.4 million b/d in 2023 as domestic crude oil production increases to an all-time high of 12.6 million b/d.
Since 2010, the United States has exported more refined petroleum products, including distillate fuel oil, hydrocarbon gas liquids, and motor gasoline, among others, than it has imported. Net exports of refined petroleum products grew to 3.3 million b/d in 2020 and remained about the same in 2021. We expect petroleum product net exports will reach new highs of 3.6 million b/d in 2022 and 3.8 million b/d in 2023."
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51338

The back of the envelope calculations produce a pretty fair approximation of costs, given some simplifying assumptions. It's worth knowing where the oil goes even if that doesn't significantly affect the final figures.
One gets only 19+ gallons of gasoline from a 42 gallon barrel of oil. Most of a barrel of crude is used to produce other refined products. In addition, the total volume of finished product produced from a barrel of crude is currently around 45 gallons. That is, one gallon of crude results in more than one gallon of product. It's a matter of density - dense crude is used to produce less dense final products.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/refining-crude-oil.php

According to the Associated Press/NBS News

Russian oil accounts for only about 8 percent of U.S. oil imports, according to the most recent data from last year. That accounts for about 5 percent of Russia’s crude oil exports.

The US embargo is mostly posturing- it will have a small effect here.

Excerpt from The Financial Times (See link provided)
The London Metal Exchange suspended trading in one of its main contracts after a vicious “short squeeze” sent the price of nickel soaring and left a Chinese metals tycoon facing billions of dollars in potential losses. Nickel prices doubled on Tuesday and briefly rose above a record $100,000 a tonne as banks and brokers rushed to close part of a huge position amassed by Xiang Guangda, the billionaire founder of China’s leading stainless steel producer Tsingshan Holding Group. It later pulled back closer to $80,000.Xiang had bet that the price of nickel would fall, but when the market moved sharply the other way, he would have been required to either post more cash to cover his losses or buy back the position.
See first story on Google Search Page:
Shorting anything is wicked. I’ve been tempted to short the oil market in recent days (such funds exist) but withheld fire.
Music Anyone?

I bought most of my MAPOX shares in 2011, 12 and 15. I sold my 2015 shares in January. They were good about specific Id. I take all distributions as cash. I've felt it has always been a steady Eddy fund with no Maalox moments.
As a balanced mutual fund, I think they are good and I could recommend this fund to everyone.
I'm slowly moving away from balanced funds and moving towards equity ETFs for better tax efficiency. I'll sell more over the next years, but slowly. It is a good fund.

Only 3 Multi-Sector Income mutual funds above water so far this year: RCTIX, EIXIX, DLDFX. Each have a healthy dividend and held-up pretty well in March 2020.
Dennis Baran profiled River Canyon Total Return Bond Fund Institutional Class (RCTIX) for MFO in 2019.
David Sherman of Cohanzick Management is one of the subadvisors on DLDFX.
Nice performance summary table here.

Some of our mutual funds are down significantly YTD. This might not be a bad time to consider executing a Roth conversion if you were planning on doing one.
roth-ira-conversions-in-a-down-market-6-things-to-consider

According to a March 2020 report from Fidelity Investments, in the year after the “trough” of a bear market, the S&P 500 has gained an average of 47%. That is in comparison to the little over 8% per year on average that the S&P 500 has returned over the last 20 years*. To go back to my example of a $50k conversion, let’s assume you did that when the market was at the low on March 23rd of this year. The S&P 500 is up 44.54%* from March 23rd through yesterday, July 28th, so that $50k grew to just over $72k in about 4 months, $22k of tax-free growth.

getting-the-most-bang-for-your-buck-roth-conversion-during-a-market-pullback/

A Roth conversion may not always be in a
taxpayer’s best long-term economic interests if:
• The current tax cost of the conversion is prohibitively high. A Roth conversion, in
its simplest sense, is a trade-off between paying taxes now vs. paying taxes later.
For the strategy to be impactful, the current tax cost of the conversion should not
be so expensive that it outweighs the benefit of any expected future tax-free
investment growth.
• The taxpayer is making regular and material withdrawals from their pre-tax IRA.
• The taxpayer does not have the cash to pay the tax due on conversion.
Tip:
We recommend converting shares of investment positions rather than selling investments in
the IRA and then converting cash proceeds. This ensures that the taxpayer continues to have
market exposure during the conversion process, and also saves on the transaction fees that
may be levied when selling an investment position.

2020_was_the_Perfect_Year_for_a_Roth_Conversion

A little more from @Devo’s linked WSJ article:
“He argued that the low inflation since the 1990s wasn’t so much the result of astute central-bank policies, but rather the addition of hundreds of millions of inexpensive Chinese and Eastern European workers to the globalized economy, a demographic dividend that pushed down wages and the prices of products they exported to rich countries. Together with new female workers and the large baby-boomer generation, the labor force supplying advanced economies more than doubled between 1991 and 2018. Now, he said, the working-age population has started shrinking across advanced economies for the first time since World War II, and birthrates have declined as well. China’s working-age population is expected to shrink by almost one-fifth over the next 30 years.”
Hard to argue with the above.
I lived through the sharp inflation of the 70s and beyond ... I recall the steep increases in gold prices & commodities that were an early prelude to the actual cost distress later felt by everyday consumers. Remember paying 15% for a fixed-rate mortgage. And recall hearing the initial announcement of Nixon’s institution of wage / price controls under the Economic Stabilization Act over the car radio in 1970 en route to my first good paying job somewhere in the southern part of Michigan.
One early lesson involved running out “with the crowd” in the late 70s and buying a few gold K-grands at $875 per ounce … and than watching their value slowly fall by more than 50% over the next 5-10 years. :) Inflation continued upward of course, but some of the “hot” assets that rose at first actually lost value towards the end of the hysteria. “To the early bird goes the worm.”
I really think the best approach is a well rounded diversified portfolio. Sure, I’ve tilted slightly in the direction of metals and away from fixed income. Might provide a slight edge if the predictions of worsening inflation come to fruition. But, be careful. Most likely by the time you and I decide something is a “good inflation hedge” a lot of the money has already been made by those “in the know” and having the power to move markets.
PS - In my humble opinion, it’s not too late to own gold, although it’s correcting today. But, it was a better buy two months ago.

Pretty much any equity fund is a hold right now. I just bought into MAPOX in January.
You may want to see the discussion on the recent proxy mailed to shareholders.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/59232/mairs-power-proxy-vote-on-murkiness
From that post were the following items:
https://www.mairsandpower.com/about-us/company-news/item/132-proxy-vote-proposed-reorganization-mairs-power-mutual-funds
https://www.mairsandpower.com/images/resources/Mairs__Power_Funds_Reorganization_FAQs.pdf

Yahoo Finance and Stockcharts use ADJUSTED-PRICES that are ratio-adjusted for distributions (not subtraction-adjusted; that would be wrong, but see some links below). If the pre-distribution price is Pi that drops by distribution Di per share to Pf = Pi-Di on the ex-dividend date, then all older prices are multiplied by (Pf/Pi) = (Pi-Di)/Pi. The cumulative total return (TR) can be deduced from the ratio of adjusted prices at two specific times, and that can be annualized. This provides good enough approximations up to 10 years. Beyond 10 yrs, the approximation errors become noticeable, but still OK for most purposes.
Many sites use GROWTH-OF-10K where the number of shares are adjusted for distributions. If before the distribution, the price is Pi and the number of shares is Ni, then the balance is Bi = Ni*Pi. If dividend Di is distributed on the ex-dividend date, then price drops to Pf = Pi-Di, and additional shares for reinvestment are Ni*Di/(Pi-Di). The new number of shares is Nf = Ni + Ni*Di/(Pi-Di) = Ni *(Pi/(Pi-Di)), and the post-distribution balance is Bf = Ni*(Pi/(Pi-Di))*(Pi-Di) = Ni*Pi = Bi. So, the balance is unchanged after reinvestment of distributions (i.e., Bf = Bi); the decrease in price is offset by the increase in the number of shares.
Note a certain SYMMETRY: In Growth-of-10K, the number of shares is adjusted by the multiplier Mi = Pi/(Pi-Di), while in adjusted-prices, all old prices are adjusted by the multiplier (1/Mi) = (Pi-Di)/Pi. Thus, the cumulative TR between two specific times T1 and Tn by both approaches must be the SAME ( = M1*M2*...*Mn - 1). The graphs of Growth-of-10K and adjusted-prices should also be similar except for a scale factor. But differences arise from Yahoo Finance practice of rounding share prices to 2 decimal places only (at each distribution step), and this rounding error builds up over time. Moreover, some distributions are missed in Yahoo Finance and are not corrected and that introduces additional errors. It is unclear what Stockcharts does internally (whether rounding prices to 2 decimal places or doing calculations with higher precision) as these data details are not visible.
Yahoo Finance charts are for actual prices only. Stockcharts have the option of adjusted prices (for TICKER; default) and actual-prices (for _TICKER) and both can be seen in the same chart.
LINK

https://www.wsj.com/articles/inflation-high-forecast-economist-goodhart-cpi-11646837755?mod=hp_lead_pos5
I found this article very interesting on future inflation and Mr. Goodhart. Makes me come back to the TIPS article from February. Series I bonds > Short Dated TIPS > Long Dated TIPS.
Somewhere in there Real Estate has to prove its worth but need to see price action support that.
Tricky, tricky, tricky.

Shale oil production was cut back drastically in 2020. Now the US shale oil producers are not rushing in to produce when they see huge backwardation in the oil futures market (it takes several months for new shale oil to bring to the market), with WTI for April $117.21, May $113.13,..., December $91.57,..., June 2023 $84.88.
I think that a temporary solution for the US to replace Russian heavy/dirty crude is with Canadian (friendly) or Venezuelan (unfriendly) crude. The US WTI is sweet/light, and the old US refineries have to mix it with some heavy/dirty crude for processing.
https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/energy/crude-oil/light-sweet-crude.quotes.html

The US gasoline distribution system is fairly efficient in spite of people complaining about federal highway tax and local taxes. (Compared to the retail gasoline prices in Europe and Asia)
The CME crude oil futures, with WTI and Brent averaged, are about $122/barrel, or $2.90/gallon. For oil, 1 barrel = 42 gallons.
RBOB (wholesale, unblended) gasoline futures are $3.61/gallon. So, There is only $0.71/gallon for global shipping/refining costs. Generally, RBOB/unblended gasoline is distributed regionally to avoid damage to pipelines, storage tanks and tankers (railroads, trucks).
Then there are local blending (much of it per tanker truck), distribution and retail pump costs, plus local taxes. Retail gasoline costs are $4.00-4.75/gallon in the Midwest & East, $5.00-6.00 in the West. This is still very efficient pricing considering that $2.90/gallon is just from crude oil prices.
Keep this mind as crude oil prices jump around a lot, and some are saying that soon, crude oil prices may be $150 or $200 or even $300. It is fair to assume that incremental costs beyond crude prices won't jump around as much.
https://www.cmegroup.com/
https://www.gasbuddy.com/gaspricemap?lat=38.822395&lng=-96.591588&z=4

Here's another version of the story that I just came across from NPR. (Same general info.)

VMVFX grabbed my attention in 2019.
The fund generated category-beating 5 Yr trailing returns with considerably less volatility.
The relative performance for VMVFX deteriorated from 2019-2021.
Like most factor funds, minimum volatility funds will periodically underperform relevant indexes.
I prefer funds which include dividend growth stocks or wide-moat stocks to somewhat dampen volatility.

here are the top holdings of PRWCX as of 2/28/22. I believe that BD is the only new company in the top 10. So if he's making changes in the portfolio its outside the top 10. Alphabet's % of the overall portfolio has decreased.
Top 10 Holdings (02/28/2022)
Data as of:
02/28/2022
Holding Name
% of Fund
Microsoft--6.55%
Amazon.com--5.76%
GE -- 4.67%
Alphabet --3.97%
Yum! Brands-- 3.16%
Thermo Fisher Scientific-- 2.99%
Humana-- 2.54%
PerkinElmer-- 2.46%
Becton, Dickinson & Company-- 2.34%
PNC Financial Services Group-- 2.32%

@lynnbolin2021 posted an article about alternatives and recession. You may find it helpful.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/2020/09/alternative-and-global-funds-during-a-global-recession/#more-14509