This is a NY Times article and (David) feel free to move it to the Off-Topic category if you think it's more germane there.
"Nearly a year after the coronavirus outbreak, the full impact of the pandemic on the U.S. economy remains unclear. Some of the most obvious indicators are in conflict: As some companies report enormous profits, nearly 10 million more Americans are now unemployed compared with last February, and over one million filed new state and federal unemployment claims last week.
Are we still in the early stages of a long recession, or will the rollout of vaccines mean we’ll soon see the end of a short-term crisis? How much are people suffering now, and for how long will the effects of the past 10 months persist?
We asked economists and experts with a variety of backgrounds how they would measure the state of the economy now and what indicators they thought were often overlooked. Here are eight measures they suggested."
How the Economy is Actually Doing

"Clearly DODFX is positioned for a rising rate environment."
I'm not so sure about that. Over the past few years, it had been positioned as a short term fund (see M* historical style boxes here), but in 2020 it extended its duration into intermediate term territory.
Also, as I suggested above, rising interest rates could be a result of an improving economy. In that case, one would expect the spread between junk and IG to decline, making junk more attractive. In addition, junk bonds are less sensitive to interest rate changes, tending to a fair degree to track equities. See, e.g. this Balance piece.
Yet as you noted, DODIX is not taking advantage of its ability to hold lower grade bonds. It is one of the few core plus funds with a M* average credit rating of A. (Just 17 hold A rated portfolios vs. 25 with BB portfolios; over half the core plus funds have portfolios rated BBB.)
ISTM the fund is positioned for a slow slog; low and steady rates, where it is betting on rates not going up (and prices dropping), while not willing to bet on avoiding short term problems in the economy (where junk bond prices would fall).
In the equity market, rising interest rates are good for the financial sector, because people expect higher rates to lead to higher spreads and greater profits. I don't know how that connects with financial sector bond prices though. I really have no idea unless one expects lower profits to substantially increase the risk of financial institutions being unable to service their IG debt.

On April 20th, 2020, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil fell to negative $37.63 U.S. dollars per barrel. Admittedly, that was a short term aberration related to imbalances in the futures markets along with the Covid-19 panic. That said, oil’s price has tended to run in the $20-$40 range over much of the past decade, rarely getting above $50.
But oil has been climbing steadily now for several weeks. At this time, Bloomberg is showing Brent at $52 and NYMEX at $48.90. Unfortunately, the rally hasn’t helped refiner rich PRNEX much. The fund is still off 2% YTD and also negative over the past year. Curiously, Lipper places it in the top tier (5/5) in its category for “total return” - reflecting the deeper issues affecting these types of nat resource funds.
Disclosure - I’ve owned PRNEX from time to time. Sold it 1-2 months ago before it’s recent uptick. Should have held on.

DODFX currently holds 27% in financials. That’s very high. In fact it’s significantly higher than the 19% financial stake reported by T.Rowe’s Equity Income Fund (PFRDX). Clearly DODFX is positioned for a rising rate environment. Helps explain its underperformance in recent years as well as its more recent turn-around. One’s opinion on the question, I submit, needs to take into account their presumptions regarding the future of interest rates - as well as inflation and currency valuations.
Yes, per @msf, DODIX may by prospectus invest large amounts in non investment grade paper. But it hasn’t done so, currently holding just slightly above 10% in junk bonds - nearly all of it in the highest rated tier (BB).
- “Using the theory that one should take money from winners and place it on losers, we should take money out of cash and bet it on foreign large cap value funds?”
It’s an intriguing conjecture. But, No, I wouldn’t recommend that. On the other hand, if one is using “play money” (defined as 1-5% of a larger well diversified portfolio) I think it might be a good idea to do just that.

By market cap, what percentage of the S&P 500 are growth stocks, and what percentage value? I am rather persuaded by the idea that one should be agnostic towards future returns of any particular factor, but my guess is that if one were to invest in VOO today, he would have more money invested in growth than value. Of course as we all know, over the long term, value has beaten growth, and as we all also know, that does not mean that value will beat growth in the future.
Would not a portfolio of half VIGAX and half VIVAX be a more "agnostic" portfolio than VOO or VTSAX?
Of course, with any of these market weighted indexes it could be said that there is an implicit bet on large stocks vs. small stocks, but maybe that is a different question. And maybe RSP could be part of the answer.
I guess the overall question is, for domestic equities, how would one achieve the most perfectly agnostic index?

@stillers +1 (though I might recalculate the three year std dev after adjusting for the March 2020 outlier)
"I agree with stillers that beyond the 3-year threashhold DODFX has outperformed DODIX. Yet, according to Lipper, at the 10-year point their annualized returns are nearly identical: DODIX: +4.67% / DODFX: +4.85%"
However, since the timeframe you are interested in is 3 years, we can compare performance data over the past three years. M* reports that the foreign large cap value category lost an annualized average of 0.70%, through Nov 30th. See its trailing total returns here (click on Monthly tab). DODFX did bit better, losing just 0.10% annually. Fidelity reports that the average prime MMF made 1.31% annually through Nov 30th (see its graph here).
Using the theory that one should take money from winners and place it on losers, we should take money out of cash and bet it on foreign large cap value funds? Surely that doesn't sound right; MMFs are safer investments, even now, than DODFX. One can stretch rules of thumb too far, especially over short time frames.
I do agree with Giroux that IG bonds do not look attractive. However, if one accepts the Fed statement that it will keep short term rates near zero for the next three years, then one might eek out a bit better return with IG bonds than with a "high" yield savings account. That's at least until the economy heats up, which could push longer term rates higher. IMHO this small potential improvement in return isn't worth the risk but it's a thought.
But DODIX isn't a vanilla IG bond fund. It can invest a significant amount in junk - it is a "core plus" fund. While IG bonds and the stock market have essentially no correlation (BND and VTSMX have a correlation coefficient of -0.04), DODIX and VTSMX have a correlation coefficient of 0.58 over the past three years.
Edit: Over the past decade, DODFX has outperformed its category by just north of 1% annually. Not great, but enough for M* to characterize its 10 year performance as "above average" (vs. its 3 year "average" performance). It earns a lower star rating than its performance suggests because its risk is rated "high" over all time frames, and star ratings are risk adjusted.

TMSRX has distributed its holiday fare to shareholders this week. It threw off a big dollop of short term capital gains and a generous slice of income. The secret sauce ain’t cheap if held in a taxable account. Nevertheless, there is much for which to be grateful.

I felt that TMSRX's $0.29 distribution on 12-15-2020 (approx 2.7% in total) would be ok for a taxable acct.

hank: I agree with @stillers that beyond the 3-year threshold DODFX has outperformed DODIX.

Hank, FWIW, I did NOT say that. I only presented SD data for the 3-yr period, not performance data.
On cash substitutes, good that you can take the volatility of DODIX as a cash sub. That said, there is a wasteland of 2020 M* forums participants who previously thought that several multi-sector bond funds with high concentrations of securitized holdings were good cash subs. They learned some very hard lessons in Feb-Mar this year.
It doesn't surprise me that DODFX and DODIX had similar TRs over 10 years. No offense, but DODFX is not a very good FLV fund, while DODIX is a worthy domestic IC+ bond fund.
Bottom Line: Don't overthink this. You're asking if a mediocre international stock fund is riskier than a domestic IC+ fund. Risk, in its simplest form, is uncertainty concerning loss. SD, while not exactly a measure of that, is a still a worthy measure of it and DODFX's SD is about 5x-6x greater than DODIX's for all prior time frames.
Granted, the macro outlook sure is pointing to outperformance of international stocks in the coming year(s). Now if I only had a nickel for the multiple times that's been the macro thinking over my 40 years of investing, I'd, well, probably have enough money for something.

In its 30+ year history, dating back to 1989, I can find only 5 years when DODIX failed to generate a positive return. In only 1 of those years did its loss exceed 1% (it lost 2.9% in 1994). As a substitute for a money market fund (vs a clone or replica) I can under most circumstances accept that amount of volatility. Others may make their own decisions. Yahoo Performance data: DODIX
I agree with @stillers that beyond the 3-year threshold DODFX has outperformed DODIX. Yet, according to Lipper, at the 10-year point their annualized returns are nearly identical: DODIX: +4.67% / DODFX: +4.85%
And I agree that an international stock fund is inherently riskier than a predominately investment grade domestic bond fund. That’s a mathematically provable thesis as well as conventional wisdom. But an individual investor might view risk differently, asking “Which of these choices is more likely to generate gain and less likely to produce a loss over a relatively short near-term period (1-3 years) based on the macro outlook?” I’m suggesting that on the second note the “playing field” is much less uneven now than it has conventionally been. Others are concerned about fixed income as well. David Giroux in his last semi annual report called the investment grade bond market “extremely unattractive and in fact the most unattractive it has been in my whole career.” Capital Appreciation Semi-Annual Report 2020
Not seeking to answer my own question, but rather to explain why I felt it deserved to be asked. If the question didn’t have at least two sides to it, it wouldn’t be worth asking. And thanks @sillers for your input.

@wxman123 - thanks for your thoughts. I’ve been invested in PIMIX for the past 3-years during it’s asset bloated period and investment faux pas (see Argentina). Analysis and opinions from online folks has challenged me to reconsider this position on multiple occasions, even while it manages to surge during the 4th quarter each year. Still, I’ve scaled it back by 50% of my original investment.
I’ve appreciated DIAL’s rule-based investment theme of maintaining positions in 6 categories:
- HY Corporates = 30%
- Emerging Market debt = 20%
- US MBS = 15%
- US IG Corporates = 15%
- US Treas = 10%
- Global Treas = 10%
Best to all!
Brian aka Level5

DODFX is an international (LCV) stock fund which is inherently riskier than DODIX, a largely US IC+ bond fund.
While I don't gauge risk primarily by SD, many do. So here's two little data points that should answer your question (if the first statement didn't);
Prior 3-yr SD:
DODFX: 23.55
DODIX: 3.71
BTW, DODIX is NOT a cash substitute despite the fact/notion that some D&C investors might use it as such.

Your work above on CTFAX showed its possible for a F of F's to have 100% TO ratio.
BAMPX had numerous portfolio changes 3/31/2020 to 9/30/2020 (per annual and semi annual) as did CTFAX. Although the bond/equity allocation of BAMPX remained constant (+/- 5%), many of the the funds within the allocation totally changed. Comparing the two periods....43% of the allocations in the fund were sold and no longer have overlap. iShares Core S&P Total Mkt 16 to 10%, US Total Bond Index Master 13 to 0%, Blackrock Strategic Inc Opp 12 to 18% and 4 other funds went from 3-5% allocations to 0% each. Five new funds were purchased. The changes made were done so within just 6 months. TO ratios are annualized so we may have more changes within the remaining 6 months to get to the 98%. Therefore, I guess its possible for F of F's to reach 100% TO as these two examples indicate.
Just to clarify... my comment on Money markets was, as I indicated, intended to be separate not related to this matter. I do not want to infer anyone is profiting by trading. In fact, their strategy may be a good thing not a bad thing in my book. Their fund performance will tell the tale over time :) BAMPX looks like a good candidate for my watch list. Thank the author for the heads up.

@lynnbolin2021

@MJPete, I have different views set up. Do you have a particular fund family that you are restricted to?

Hello again, and thank you. I apologize for rambling I'm new to the sight looking to increase my knowledge and technique. I run a loose bucket strategy that I just need to tune up knowing I don't have a lot of down market protection.
Not as much a fund that I'm restricted to but whatever Pershing has set up, which is inconsistent and has wide variations of fund classes. Blackrock, Fidelity, Vanguard, Franklin incur fees which are manageable with large enough transactions.
I just spent about two hours scrubbing for class shares of alternates to your list and T.Rowe Price Global Stock is available, though I wish Capital Appreciation was, (but has been closed for some time now. I'm hoping the new management house they just announced will open it (and a few others up in the future)
The others I am interested in are share classes with $1m-5m min. exchanges, or just as ETF, so not available. I appreciate your offer run a different view.

CTFAX makes sizeable changes in general, not only relative to the S&P 500. Between its annual report p. 68 (period ending Dec 31, 2019) and its semiannual report p. 43 (period ending June 30, 2020), it decreased its allocation of fixed income funds from 71.1% to 44.2%. It sold off all of its inflation protected securities fund (7.9% of the portfolio), all of its Total Return Bond Fund (about 5% of the portfolio), and decreased its other bond funds by around 5-10% (eyeballing). At the same time it inceased its equity fund holdings from 19.7% to 44.7%, and increased its equity ETF holdings from 5.0% to 7.9%.
That wasn't just around the S&P 500. It increased its Dividend Income Fund allocation from 2.0% to 4.9%, its Acorn Int'l Fund from 2% to 4.9%, its Acorn Fund from 2% to 5%. You detect a pattern here - outside of large cap funds, it raised its equity fund allocations by 2.5x. But it raised its large cap funds, those closest to the S&P 500, by "only" 2.1x, from 11.8% to 24.9%. And it changed Mid cap fund altogether, swapping out its 2.0% of Acorn Fund for 5.0% of Select Midcap Value.
That was just in six months. It's not hard to see how this fund could have a 100% turnover just counting the churn of underlying funds.
The funds mentioned, CTFAX, Blackrock X%/Y% funds invest strictly in house funds (Columbia and Blackrock/iShares respectively), so it's hard to see how the fund companies profit from trading. Certainly one could see them profiting by keeping a higher allocation to cash, just as Schwab makes its money in its managed portfolios by keeping a high cash allocation. But at least for CTFAX, its MMF allocation is under 1%.

Yes, M* has it categorized as a high yield bond fund, but it is not a high yield bond fund.
http://quotes.morningstar.com/chart/fund/chart?t=rphyx&region=usa&culture=en_US
Here is a 2017 analysis by David concerning the fund:
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2017/05/riverpark-short-term-high-yield-fund-rphyxrphix/
Read the paragraph above "Bottom Line" from the link above.
In addition, you may want to check this link from Mr. Cohanzick's website concerning the funds he oversees. You'll note that Mr. Cohanzick does not classify Riverpark Short Term High Yield Fund as a high yield bond fund.
https://www.cohanzick.com/strategies
M* also provides a summary about the fund:
A unique high-yield offering:
RiverPark Short Term High Yield stands out from competitors by narrowing its investment menu to corporate credit issues with shortened maturities resulting from a structural change to the underlying businesses.
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/rphix/quote
http://www.riverparkfunds.com/Data/Sites/17/media/docs/rpsthyf/RiverPark_Short_Term_High_Yield_Fund_Fact_Sheet.pdf
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201013005751/en/RiverPark-Short-Term-High-Yield-Fund-Celebrates-10th-Anniversary---Highest-Sharpe-Ratio

CTFAX Statement of Additional Information p.102 says under normal conditions the portfolio turnover rate is expected to be below 150%. The past 4 year CTFAX avg has been in the 100% range like BAMPX 98%. CTFAX makes portfolio changes relative to changes in the S&P500. I do not know if small daily adjustments to portfolio allocations within a F of F's would amount to 98% annualized TO rate... but maybe so. I do not know the answer to BAMPX. All of the Blackrock Target Funds 80/20, 60/40, 40/60 and 20/80 have similar TO ratio numbers around 100% in 2020. Separately... I also remember reading somewhere that in some conditions money market instruments purchases may include a profit to the dealer resulting in a TO ratio skew.

Zacks Premium Research for RPHYX
Zacks MF Rank More Info Strong Sell 5
MF Research Report

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1137360/000113736020000525/vvtkol2020liquidations.htm
(KOL)
497 1 vvtkol2020liquidations.htm 497E SUPPLEMENT TO PROSPECTUS AND SAI
SUPPLEMENT DATED DECEMBER 3, 2020 TO
THE SUMMARY PROSPECTUS AND PROSPECTUS DATED MAY 1, 2020 AND THE CURRENT STATEMENT OF ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
OF VANECK VECTORS ETF TRUST DATED NOVEMBER 24, 2020
This Supplement updates certain information contained in the above-dated Summary Prospectus and Prospectus and the current Statement of Additional Information for VanEck Vectors® ETF Trust (the “Trust”) regarding VanEck Vectors Coal ETF (the “Fund”), a series of the Trust. You may obtain copies of the Fund’s Summary Prospectus, Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information free of charge, upon request, by calling toll-free1.800.826.2333 or by visiting the VanEck website at www.vaneck.com.
At a meeting held on December 3, 2020, the Board of Trustees of the Trust unanimously approved the liquidation, winding down and termination of the Fund, which is expected to happen on or about Tuesday, December 22, 2020.
After the close of business on Monday, December 14, 2020, the Fund will no longer accept creation orders. This is also expected to be the last day of trading of shares of the Fund on NYSE Arca, Inc. (“NYSE Arca”). Shareholders should be aware that when the Fund commences liquidation, it will no longer pursue its stated investment objective or engage in any business activities except for the purposes of selling and converting into cash all of the assets of the Fund, paying its liabilities, and distributing its remaining proceeds or assets to shareholders (the “Liquidating Distribution”). During this period, the Fund is likely to incur higher tracking error than is typical for the Fund. Furthermore, during the time between market close on Monday, December 14, 2020 and Tuesday, December 22, 2020, shareholders will be unable to dispose of their shares on NYSE Arca.
Shareholders may sell their holdings of the Fund, incurring typical transaction fees from their broker-dealer, on NYSE Arca until market close on Monday, December 14, 2020, at which point the Fund’s shares will no longer trade on NYSE Arca and the shares will be subsequently delisted. Shareholders who continue to hold shares of the Fund on the Fund’s liquidation date will receive a Liquidating Distribution (if any) with a value equal to their proportionate ownership interest in the Fund on that date. Such Liquidating Distribution received by a shareholder, if any, may be in an amount that is greater or less than the amount a shareholder might receive if they dispose of their shares on NYSE Arca prior to market close on Monday, December 14, 2020. The Fund’s liquidation and payment of the Liquidating Distribution may occur prior to or later than the dates listed above.
Shareholders who receive a Liquidating Distribution generally will recognize a capital gain or loss equal to the amount received for their shares over their adjusted basis in such shares. Please consult your personal tax advisor about the potential tax consequences.
Shareholders should call the Fund’s distributor, Van Eck Securities Corporation, at 1.800.826.2333 for additional information.
Please retain this supplement for future reference.

Ended my 18-month PCI experiment with a break-even result. Having been newly retired, I was wowed by the large monthly distribution and exotic feel of CEFs. They still *call* to me but they require more work than I’m willing to do. Hey, I’m retired. Best to all.
- Brian aka Level5

Much of the turnover in BAMPX appears to be coming from Strategic Income Opps fund (1805%) and to a lesser extent Master Total Return (556%). Total guess....perhaps short term paper purchases?

A fund of fund's turnover, like a "regular" fund, is calculated based on what it holds directly. I can't find an authoritative definition at the moment that confirms that, but I can provide solid evidence.
Look at FGDFX, the subject of another thread. This is another fund of funds. Its turnover is stated to be 0%. If turnover were computed using the securities in the underlying holdings, then its turnover would have to be greater than zero. The underlying funds, and their turnover ratios are:
FBTNX - 6%
FONNX - 0%
FNTNX - 0%
FRXNX - 0%
FTKNX - 0%
It's small (because all these funds are new), but there is non-zero turnover in the individual securities.