https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-to-build-the-best-bond-portfolio-for-crazy-times-51601679774

Pretty good rare article.

Ditto. If you ever wondered what the barbell approach looks like ..... :)

Plausible outlook. And, the last sentence lines up with what the Fed chair recently said....

“Given historically low yields and high equity valuations, it makes sense for portfolio managers and asset allocators alike to lower their return expectations rather than stretch too far and extend too far down the quality spectrum in hope of maintaining historical levels of returns,” PIMCO said.
“While central banks including the Fed have the means to provide a backstop for asset markets in times of crisis, credibly achieving their inflation targets requires a tool they cannot control: fiscal policy.”/blockquote>
https://reuters.com/article/us-pimco-outlook/pimco-sees-low-return-environment-likely-for-next-3-5-years-idUSKBN26S2C4

https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-to-build-the-best-bond-portfolio-for-crazy-times-51601679774

Pretty good rare article.

Things to chew on from Brian Gilmartin at SA:
Summary
° There seem to be too many different types of risks developing around the Presidential election.
FD: the usual --> do nothing
° Personally, I still think Financials in general and bank stocks in particular are more "value" than "value trap" but more patience will be required.
° It's another dry week for S&P 500 earnings releases, but the fireworks really start once again in the week of October 12th, 2020 when the big banks and many financial companies kick off 3rd quarter earnings.
FD: I don't see why anybody would look at Financials or invest in one category when most just need /want SPY/QQQ. Financials don't move markets anymore because the category is much smaller than before without much growth.
Article Here

@msf - I’m essentially working with the “print” edition (delivered by Amazon Kindle). I’m thinking now I might have juxtaposed (ie “confused“) a couple related articles on bonds in the Oct. 2 edition in my original post. The one I’ve linked below quotes Fuss and others.
I think Barrons is a bargain at the $12.50 monthly I’m paying. (Some can get it for less, depending on format desired.) I figure if I can’t pocket an extra $150 a year with a couple smart moves from being better informed, what good am I? Would rather folks pay for what they read. Puts food on the plates of top quality journalists.
All that said, when I need to copy / paste something to the board (hard to do from a Kindle read), I can usually locate the article with the DuckGo browser. This might work better (top article). https://duckduckgo.com/?q=There's very little middleground these days and thats reflected in the bond market Barrons&ia=images

Well @hank, about a week ago I believe @Sven or @davfor posted an interview with Mr Giroux wherein he mentioned Utilities as a sector of interest. I bought FUTY after reading that and am up 5%+ since that time. Might be an area to explore.

Any thoughts on his GE bet?

He is really negative on Treasuries:

When it is hard to envision a scenario in which an investment generates a mid-single-digit return—and when it is easy to envision a scenario in which an investment generates a double-digit loss—one should stay away from those investments. Unfortunately, that is the circumstance that investors in Treasury bonds find themselves in today.

Ditto - Just finished reading the awesome report. That was my main take-away as well. The phrase begins with something like “Other than short duration high yield bonds ...” (which he still likes).
Well - That’s a fine one. What’s an older conservative investor supposed to buy for diversification in lieu of investment grade bonds? TMSRX? Perhaps - but 2 years does not constitute a serious test. On the surface that might well suggest putting more into equities. However, every so often there come along those nasty 30% market dips. If you’re in the distribution phase, those can seriously upset your cart. BTW - Hasn’t this “can’t win with bonds” prediction been echoing through the chambers of investment gurudom for something like the past 12-15 years now?
-
RE GE - They’re big in jet engines and suffering along with aviation in general. One chief competitor, Rolls Royce, has been plagued with serious quality issues in recent years. Most commercial aircraft can be adapted to accommodate engines from different manufacturers depending on what the airline prefers.

If it was your name alone on the check, you had the cash in hand. Though you elected to give that cash to Vanguard, it was you endorsing the check - no different from my sending you a check for money I owed you and you endorsing it over to some third party.
The old custodian should have generated a 1099-R for the distribution. Vanguard should have processed the check as a contribution. You could have declared the distribution/contribution as a 60 day rollover on your tax return, recognizing that you were limited to one rollover per year.
Curiously, I've had an opposite problem. Year ago when I has a WellsTrade IRA, I tried to move cash in from an outside IRA. I walked in a check, payable to WellsTrade FBO my account, to a brokerage desk in a Wells Fargo bank. Wells Fargo Advisors refused to take my check - I was only a lowly discount brokerage customer, not a full service account holder. They advised to deposit it to my personal Wells Fargo checking account, then transfer it to my IRA.
That would have constituted a 60 day rollover, as I described. However, Wells Fargo Bank should not have allowed me to deposit the check; it wasn't payable to me. That's the whole point of FBO. So I didn't try to deposit it, not wishing to make a bad situation worse. I mailed the check to Wells Fargo (Wellstrade), and was out of the market a few more days.
My point about being out of the market is that while one wins some and loses some, it's not a coin flip (50/50). Even if the fund were equally likely to fall as to rise in a fortnight, one has to believe that the expectation value of fund performance over a couple of weeks would be positive since on average funds appreciate.

Good read with lots of charts but I could not find predictions about the markets, especially near term.
I think the SP500+QQQ are consolidating after a huge run and the next leg is up. The price is bouncing around the 50 days moving average but the trend is still up.
Prediction based on PE + value/growth can be off by years

Question . Would the IRS vigorously pursue a tax lose of $3500 wash when the Trumpster wrote off $70,000 for hair cuts ? Or was I dreaming this !?
Stay Safe, Derf

Venture Capitalists may mot be where most of us go to invest, but their investments bets often proceed the broad market. Knowing their sense of trends is helpful for the small investor.

For the most part, this is a solid, sensible piece, worth the read. However, one part, quoted below, gives me pause. The recommendation is solid, the representation of the tax laws, less so.

For example, while selling VOO (Vanguard S&P 500 ETF) to buy SPY (SPDR S&P 500 ETF) would definitely generate a wash sale, selling VWO (Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF) to buy IEMG (iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF) wouldn’t.

How do I know? Because Betterment, one of the domain experts on tax loss harvesting, lists IEMG as the security alternate for VWO in their taxable accounts.

While no sane tax advisor would suggest swapping VOO for SPY when harvesting a loss, Betterment like many professionals does not say that this is definitely a wash sale. Rather, Betterment writes:

Less clear is the treatment of two index funds from different issuers (e.g., Vanguard and Schwab) that track the same index. While the IRS has not issued any guidance to suggest that such two funds are “substantially identical,” a more conservative approach when dealing with an index fund portfolio would be to repurchase a fund whose performance correlates closely with that of the harvested fund, but tracks a different index.

https://www.betterment.com/resources/tax-loss-harvesting-methodology/#wash-sales
Fairmark (Kaye Thomas) writes:

Because there is no direct authority dealing with this question, reasonable minds may disagree. It’s always possible to identify differences between funds managed by different companies, such as expense ratios and tax load. Some people conclude on this basis that funds maintained by two different companies are never substantially identical.
My feeling is that those differences aren’t enough to prevent the two funds from being substantially identical. The point of the wash sale rule is to determine whether you’ve changed your position relative to the market. If you can lay the price graph for your new investment on top of the price graph for the old one and never see a significant disparity (as would be the case for two high quality S&P 500 funds), the investments should be considered substantially identical for purposes of the wash sale rule.

https://fairmark.com/investment-taxation/capital-gain/wash/substantially-identical-securities/
What's interesting is the choice of S&P funds. Forget about their ERs and tax efficiency. They have different structures; SPY cannot reinvest stock dividends as they are received. So while your exposure to equities remains relatively steady (near 100%) over time in VOO, it follows a sawtooth pattern in SPY. Equity exposure as a percentage of portfolio declines over the quarter as unreinvested dividends accumulate. Then they are distributed, and the fund is once again nearly 100% invested in equities. Is this enough to make a substantial difference? I wouldn't bet on it, but it is a clear distinction.

This report focuses mostly on CEFs but it does discuss some OEFs including IOFIX.

We noted how AlphaCentric Income Opportunities saw a "run on the fund" where shareholders all liquidated en masse causing a downward spiral in prices.

(Writing about CEFs)....most NAVs are still well below where they were in February even when including the distribution paid since. As we've noted, these securities take the elevator down and stairs back up. We still expect prices to return to around an average price of 90 cents on the dollar but that it would take at least 6 months and more like 18-24 months to do so.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4377703-update-on-non-agency-mbs-sector

As Lewis and others have pointed out, story headlines can be, well, flaky. The print version of this story has the title "The Right Bond Funds for an Uncertain Future".
That print version may be available for free online via your local (or not so local) public library.
There are still virtues in reading print editions, even if you don't hold them in your hands. In this instance, one sees that the piece is just a sidebar to (or perhaps a "highlights" recap of) the writer's main article, "Building a Stronger Bond Portfolio". Or as it is entitled in the online edition, "How to Build the Best Bond Portfolio for Crazy Times".
https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-to-build-the-best-bond-portfolio-for-crazy-times-51601679774

David Giroux is under 50's and there is no slowing down. In addition, T. Rowe Price tends to have deep bench behind each management team so to maintain performance when the manager moves on elsewhere.
The New Horizon fund, PRNHX, ran by Henry Ellenborgen and he left in 2019. Joshua Spencer assume the helm and the fund is just doing fine - YTD is 36.5%.

Are you really trying to transfer your IRA from T. Rowe Price brokerage? That has a $50 closeout/transfer fee. Or are you trying to transfer an IRA mutual fund account? That has no transfer fee, but also is not a brokerage account.
In theory, brokerages can pull assets via the ACAT system from a mutual fund account. Often though in-kind transfers from mutual fund accounts go outside of the ACAT system. Here's a page from Merrill Lynch that shows how different types of assets transfer between different types of institutions. It shows transfers from a mutual fund family as going outside of ACAT.
https://olui2.fs.ml.com/Publish/Content/application/pdf/GWMOL/Asset_Transfers_Factsheet_ARF4C5EB.pdf
Interactive Brokers does not seem to be set up to do accept non-cash, non-ACATS transfers. According to their IRA non-ACATS transfer form, "In-kind transfers into an IRA are only accepted via ACATS."
https://moam.info/instructions-for-ira-transfer-in-request-form_5987773e1723ddd069fb0180.html
If they cannot handle in-kind, non-ACATS transfers, and if you are transferring from a T. Rowe Price mutual fund account, it seems you have two choices:
1. Transfer the assets to a brokerage account at a third party; ideally one that does not charge for outgoing transfers of assets; then have Interactive Brokers pull from that account; or
2. Bite the bullet, liquidate the assets, and transfer as cash (apparently paper check or wire from T. Rowe Price).

Any thoughts on his GE bet?

As a long term turnaround play possibility, I think it's a 50-50 shot. But if anyone was to take the risk who I'd trust in being careful in speculating, it'd be him. I've also toyed with picking up some uber-long-term LEAPs options as a speculative play but I've not done so yet.

As Derf notes, Matthews Emerging Markets (MEGMX) is just six months old. It has seen consistent inflows and is sort of clubbing the competition: up 32% since inception versus 20% for its peers in the same period.
Matthews Emerging Asia (MEASX), on the other hand, has had a harder time with three lean years and a couple years of outflows, though the management team has remained unchanged.
I had a chance to chat with some of the Matthews reps. They're a bit concerned that headlines ("Exodus!") will override the substance of the stories: a couple really good managers (and their seconds) moved took plum positions elsewhere, a less excellent manager might have been replaced, and cancelled business initiative in China might have displaced another, all of which is pretty normal in the industry. They admitted to not knowing much about the administrative departure, but promised to try to find out.
For what that's worth,
David

David, thanks for the comments. All true, however, I do not find it common for a CIO to stay only 7 months since being brought on to presumably turn around the performance, which has really taken a nose dive in the last 3 years. Pacific Tiger and Asia Dividend, two of the largest funds, are both less than 50th percentile compared to peers 3-year trailing return. I presume the CIO was brought on to fix that performance, which seemingly never happened as the returns as of August were still poor versus competitors.
In addition, losing someone like Tiffany, who is a great fit for a firm like Matthews, is quite shocking. How did they not retain her? And why did they all leave at the same time? 5 PM departures in the span of 5 months, and all of them were up-and-coming PMs. Dare I say next generation leaders.
Lastly, executives departing < 15 months is weird. I have long been investing in boutiques, and can tell you this is not normal at all. I get retreating from China, but surely a COO does more than just china expansion, no? If not, why did they hire them?
That against the backdrop of huge outflows...something smells funny. Either these departures are just shockingly coincidental, or something seems broken internally. And yes, MEGMX seems to be off to a roaring start, however, Mr. Zhang was a co-lead on that and he just left. So, how does one think of that performance without him there? Worst case scenario: he was the driver of much of the returns! Regardless, I try and not get too excited with such a short track record. There are alot of good emerging markets managers, Baillie Gifford and Ashmore are two from Europe that have been building good track records over here.

Things to chew on from Brian Gilmartin at SA:
Summary
° There seem to be too many different types of risks developing around the Presidential election.
° Personally, I still think Financials in general and bank stocks in particular are more "value" than "value trap" but more patience will be required.
° It's another dry week for S&P 500 earnings releases, but the fireworks really start once again in the week of October 12th, 2020 when the big banks and many financial companies kick off 3rd quarter earnings.
Article Here

“The drastic changes in the fixed-income market in recent months—largely driven by the Federal Reserve’s signaling that interest rates will stay near zero until 2023, plus the central bank’s aggressive bond-buying—necessitates a reassessment of bond portfolios.”
Good read. The problem with bonds isn’t anything most of us don’t already know. Several money managers are cited, including Dan Fuss. I found it curious that Price’s Spectrum Income (RPSIX) made the top 10. Sure hasn’t impressed me lately (but still own a little). Dan Fuss’s income fund is allowed to hold up to 20% equities, and he seems to favor equities over bonds right now. Also discusses the the barbell approach to portfolio construction.
No guarantee you can get through the paywall. But here’s the link. https://www.barrons.com/articles/the-best-bond-funds-for-uncertain-times-51601679748