I have owned MERFX for numerous years with a nominal investment. With the pending acquisition by Virtus, existing shareholders of MERFX will be exempt from the paying load that Virtus is planning to imposed as the investor class will be converted to "A" class shares.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/701804/000110465921088936/tm2121353d1_485apos.htm
Excerpts:
Class A shares. If you purchase Class A shares of a Fund, unless you qualify for a reduction or waiver of the sales charge you will pay a sales charge at the time of purchase equal to 5.50% of the offering price (5.82% of the amount invested). The sales charge may be reduced or waived under certain conditions, including that shareholders of Class A shares (formerly known as Investor Class shares) of a Fund as of [September 1, 2021,] will not be subject to sales charges on future purchases of Class A shares of that same Fund. (See “Initial Sales Charge Alternative—Class A Shares” below.) ...
(from page 81 of the above SEC filing)
Also, the filing states "If you fall within any one of the following categories, you will not have to pay a sales charge on your purchase of Class A shares, provided that such purchase is made upon the written assurance of the purchaser that the purchase is made for investment purposes and that the shares so acquired will not be resold except to the Fund:
(19)          Purchasers of Class A shares of a Fund who were already shareholders of that same Fund as of [September 1, 2021].
I own MERFX and EVDAX ( I was grandfathered from paying a load being an original investor in the Pennsylvania Avenue Event Driven Fund then with Quaker Funds and now Camelot).
Pennsylvania Avenue Event Driven Fund:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001199131/000127351510000065/pa-prosp2010v4.htm

I don't know how much this plays in, but in early July, President Biden announced his assault on monopolies. As such, he mentioned mergers/acquisitions. Since Merger arb funds started underperforming a few weeks before this announcement, assuredly there are additional reasons for the decline?
Following are some details from an article from Politico:
Mergers: The order would urge the FTC and DOJ to update guidance on how they review mergers, potentially pulling back on guidelines the Trump administration approved last year. Those guidelines focused on so-called vertical mergers, which involve companies that are not direct competitors but are in the same supply chain, and which have typically attracted little scrutiny from regulators. The FTC’s two Democrats opposed the Trump-era update, calling it overly deferential to business.
Changes to those guidelines could affect several pending deals, including Amazon’s proposed purchase of MGM Studios and UnitedHealth Group’s deal to buy Change Healthcare.
The order will also recommend that federal banking regulators work with the Justice Department to update guidance on bank deals. The DOJ partners with the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to vet bank mergers, but hasn’t changed how it looks at potential tie-ups since 1995.

Agree about the Roth IRA investment idea. Established Roth IRA in our son's name in 2005 when he was 23. Tax free compounding through the decades is a real perk especially when coupled with the potential for taking tax free withdrawals down the road.

Interesting path these two funds took over the last 34 years (VFINX verses PRWCX):
Compare

I ran these two funds (I changed VOO to VFINX) to allow PV (portfoliovisualizer) to go back to 2002. I included VWINX and PRWCX to further compare a withdrawal strategy over the last 19 years. I used a 6% withdrawal rate (pretty aggressive) for each of the 19 years to compare the income generation each fund would provide and their suitability as a long term investment for capital preservation and income.
Interesting results (click on Comparison between):
Comparison between VFINX, VTI, PRWCX, and VWINX
My observations:
Comparing these four funds from 2002-2021 provides insight into why allocation funds are so beneficial for both income and capital preservation. Both VWINX and PRWCX navigated the Tech Bubble and the Great Recession preserving capital while at the same time providing greater yearly withdrawal amounts than either of the etfs.
It took 14 years for both (VOO) VFINX and VTI to overtake VWINX. From 2002 - 2016 VWINX outperformed VTI and VOO (VFINX) on a rolling return basis. PRWCX accomplished this feat every year (2002-2021) providing both more income per year as well as higher yearly portfolio balances.
Future Consideration:
From the perspective of both income and capital preservation, would an investor be less harmed (opportunity cost risk verses sequence of return risk) owning VWINX verses an Total Equity Market Index?
At the start of retirement or the start of one's investment career, I would consider owning an allocation fund such as VWINX or PRWCX and consider reallocationg into VOO or VTI when markets periodically sell off.

By Jim Sloan, SA contributor.
Summary
° VOO is based on the S&P 500 and VTI on the Total Stock Market, adding the 22% of stocks not included in the 500; long term they have performed similarly.
° Both are market cap weighted and heavily tilted toward the 10 largest stocks which are 28.5% of VOO and 23.4% of VTI.
° Jack Bogle preferred VTI because it contained "everything." Warren Buffett put the S&P 500 in his will for his wife, perhaps because it is tilted toward large cap growth.
° Longer term charts show similar returns while a one year chart clearly shows the outperformance of smaller caps, thus VTI, starting September 2020 with recognition of economic growth.
° There are several quirks in the way these index ETFs are put together, plus some interesting differences in statistical metrics and industry composition; VOO is more tax efficient.
ARTICLE

A little preliminary food for thought:
The Winners and Losers

As the saying goes, economists have predicted five of the last three recessions:
https://advisorperspectives.com/articles/2021/05/06/david-rosenberg-the-consensus-is-wrong-about-stocks-bonds-and-inflation

The consensus is that U.S. equities will deliver strong performance as the economy recovers, and that higher inflation will drive rising interest rates. All of that is wrong, according to David Rosenberg.
The Toronto-based Rosenberg started his own economic consulting firm in January 2020, Rosenberg Research & Associates, after working a decade as chief economist and strategist at Gluskin Sheff & Associates. He was the opening speaker at this year’s Strategic Investment Conference, hosted by John Mauldin.
Before you place too much weight on Rosenberg’s analysis, recall that he delivered the opening keynote at this conference last year, when he proclaimed that U.S. equity market bulls were in “fantasyland.” He was wrong. The return for the S&P 500 for the last year was 56.25%.
The “fiscal juice” from stimulus checks and the re-opening of the economy are outstripping supply, creating temporary inflation. Supply will catch up when demand subsides as the effect from the stimulus wanes, according to Rosenberg. That will happen before the end of the year.
When the effect of stimulus checks expired last year, GDP declined by 2.5%. We will see a repeat of that this year, according to Rosenberg.

Older Episodes:
July 30, 2021 Episode:

His Marketwatch Columns:
https://marketwatch.com/author/lawrence-a-cunningham

Preview for Oct 3oth Episode:

But automatic investing is available at Fidelity, $5/transaction, and you can stop after one transaction. One could purchase OSTIX at Vanguard ($20) or Merrill Edge ($19.95), transfer it in kind to Fidelity (no transfer fee), and continue investing there.

Don’t forget that selling is free at Fidelity whereas it costs $20 to sell. There are other subtle differences. Institutional shares of Pimco funds require $25K while $1M at other brokerages.

You are right, @Lewis. 7.25% in a BlackRock hedge fund. Sorry to confuse people.

If one is investing from an income stream, dollar cost averaging is about the only way to do it. You can't invest the money before you have it. But if one is sitting on a pile of cash, on average (meaning if one is in this situation multiple times), one comes out better by investing the lump sum up immediately.
https://indexacapital.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/dollar-cost-averaging-just-means-taking-risk-later-vanguard-2012.pdf
However, the variation of outcomes with lump sum investing is larger than if one invests a bit at a time. One either wins or loses, as opposed to having a whole range of possible outcomes in the middle. Because people are risk averse, they're willing to take the lower expected value than run the risk that they might lose bigger by investing it all at the wrong time.
With respect to axioms and aphorisms, how about: Take care of the pence for the pounds will take care of themselves? Or the more familiar American currency version: Watch the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves.
Vanguard used to offer a dollar cost averaging service for transaction fee funds where one could set up periodic investments, min $100, min two investments, for $3/purchase. At that rate each incremental $1000 investment in OSTIX would break even in about a year. That would be assuming the shares were not later sold, or were sold as part of a larger transaction, thus incurring no additional cost to sell.
There is even a January 25, 2021 Vanguard commission and fee schedule claiming that Vanguard still offers this service. But the service is not shown on the HTML version of the fee schedule. And this article on Vanguard automatic investing has a screen shot saying that automatic investments are only allowed on Vanguard funds. (I see the same thing in my own account.) So I believe this Vanguard feature is defunct.
But automatic investing is available at Fidelity, $5/transaction, and you can stop after one transaction. One could purchase OSTIX at Vanguard ($20) or Merrill Edge ($19.95), transfer it in kind to Fidelity (no transfer fee), and continue investing there.
A fair amount of work. But depending on how you value your time, it could still be worth the effort. For as you put it, it saves nickels and dimes. The ability to add cheaply to lower cost (institutional) shares is one of the reasons I use Fidelity.
There are often obscure ways to "watch the pennies" if one looks hard enough.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/01/delta-variant-surge-will-crush-reopening-stocks-david-rosenberg.html
Delta variant surge will crush reopening stocks, longtime market bear David Rosenberg suggests
Investors may want to start August by lightening up on the reopening trades.
Longtime market bear David Rosenberg warns surging Covid-19 delta variant cases paired with the culmination of fiscal stimulus will crush stocks tied to the economic recovery.
Maybe down 15 20%?
How low can you go
How many TUMS can you bellied down??

I plan on DCA'ing into ATPAX with amounts under 1k. At this point I can't stomach dropping 5 or 6 figures into a fund/etf at one time, unless it's a ultrashort bond etf like VUSB. These funds are excess cash earning 1 basis point currently.

I'm sticking with my rather BORING portfolio. One single stock, which represents an EM play in an electric utility company--- now less than 1% of total. The rest is TRP mutual funds, plus my wife's IRA in BRUFX. I've never been higher. Granted, the Market is crazy, irrational, frothy, driven by lunacy, jerking back and forth and up and down. But the Market ALWAYS overreacts, both to the upside and downside. Friday sucked. But so what? I just will not go chasing stuff. I've got no bird dog, and my vision cannot see around corners. I'm 11% in foreign equities, that's all. 55% in bonds. The fund managers do have some small bets on some "short" plays. I'll let them.

5 Year Treasury Note Future Sept 21 -8.38% 138.0 -$17.0M
% of assets - No. of shares - amount Found this under holding for TMSRX.
What is it !? HUH, Derf

From the PR:
Multi-Sector Income Bond will offer exposure primarily to U.S. investment-grade securities, U.S. high-yield corporate securities, and emerging markets debt of all credit quality ratings.
This mirrors the prospectus text:
the Fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in bonds, which include fixed income securities such as corporate bonds; emerging market bonds; and U.S. Treasury obligations and other U.S. government and agency securities.
Conspicuous by its absence is foreign developed market debt. While many multisector funds have rotated out of developed markets in the past several years, there's still a difference between avoiding developed market debt because of market conditions and doing that as a matter of policy.
In contrast, PIIDX's prospectus reads:
“Fixed Income Instruments” include bonds, debt securities and other similar instruments issued by various U.S. and non-U.S. public- or private-sector entities.
Its portfolio's top three countries are currently the US (62.59%), Germany (3.43%), and the UK (3.42%), per M*.
Admittedly 1/6 of its foreign holdings is not a lot, but that could change. Back in 2015, its top ten countries were the US (52.57%), UK (8.96%), Luxembourg (4.62%), Netherlands (4.45%), France (3.51%), Indonesia (2.99%), Ireland (2.86%), Switzerland (2.80%), Italy (2.62%), and the Cayman Islands (1.65%).
The Vanguard fund doesn't appear to have this degree of global flexibility.

I started a position in ATPAX at Vanguard (ntf, $1,000 minimum) For me the fund seems to have similar risk characteristics to OSTIX with the advantage of being sold ntf.

If you're not expecting to hold for an extended period of time, and you're investing relatively small amounts, that could make sense. Though you'll have to hold for 60 days at Vanguard to avoid a $50 redemption fee.
If one is investing say $10K, and plans to hold for a bit more than a year, then OSTIX winds up being cheaper. It costs $40 (or less) per round trip. But with an ER of 0.88% vs. 1.22% for ATPAX, the 0.34% difference in ER saves about $34/year. One breaks even after about 14 months.
Another alternative if one is planning to hold for a couple of years is to invest in ATPYX instead of ATPAX. It comes with a transaction fee ($40 round trip), but its ER is 1.02% vs 1.22 for ATPAX (including a 0.20% 12b-1 fee). On a $10K investment, the lower ER saves about $20/year, so in about two years one breaks even.