The US lets creative destruction determine the shape of the economy after it emerges from a crisis more than most developed economies. Will that help the US economy to prosper more in a post-covid19 world? And, will the US safety net perform well enough to be of substantial assistance during the transition? Just concerned and wondering.....

“This recession is unusual in the extent of permanent (job) reallocation that will ultimately result,” Davis said.
He and two co-authors have estimated that up to 40% of layoffs in March through May were permanent. That figure will likely rise, he said, the longer the pandemic squeezes the economy.
“We’re kind of past the stage where we’re quickly recalling workers to their old jobs,” Davis said, “and getting to the stage that people will need to get new jobs at new companies or in new industries.”

https://apnews.com/89992979ca3c3ba72eb2cd31a9ca0e5d

“Is this in reference to Dodge & Cox?“
It would seem so. Franklin Templeton is headquartered in San Mateo, 20 miles from SF, but I believe it to be publicly owned. D&C of course is privately held.
To play Devil’s advocate here ... One reason to diversify among managers is the expectation that some will outperform others over short and intermediate terms. A long leash out to perhaps a dozen years is long enough to take into consideration likely changes in management at the firm as well as changes in investor sentiment which in turn affect the fund’s return.
Yes - I’m a bit chagrined comparing DODBX to PRWCX over past 12 years (roughly the tenure of David Giroux). But there was no way to predict that type of disparity 12 years ago that I know of. Without digging below the surface, let’s just say that the management styles and focus of those two funds are quite disparate (even though M* may place them in the same category). My inclination at this point would be to tilt slightly in favor of DODBX, out of belief in reversion to the mean and also the recognition that it’s hard to outwit low fees. (But it hurts a bit looking at the 10 year charts.)
Note: I have owned both of the above mentioned funds for more than 15 years.
A Tribute to Obsolescence
“Tellson’s Bank by Temple Bar was an old-fashioned place, even in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty. It was very small, very dark, very ugly, very incommodious. It was an old-fashioned place, moreover, in the moral attribute that the partners in the House were proud of its smallness, proud of its darkness, proud of its ugliness, proud of its incommodiousness. They were even boastful of its eminence in those particulars, and were fired by an express conviction that, if it were less objectionable, it would be less respectable. This was no passive belief, but an active weapon which they flashed at more convenient places of business. Tellson’s (they said) wanted no elbow-room, Tellson’s wanted no light, Tellson’s wanted no embellishment. Noakes and Co.’s might, or Snooks Brothers’ might; but Tellson’s, thank Heaven!”
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

@Derf - Great story. We just took delivery of a new larger freezer. But I don’t think it would hold enough hog bellies to make trading profitable.
Thanks @Mark for the explanation. Now you got me wondering is LP (liquified petroleum gas) the same as wet gas? I’ll bet it is ... We got a 500 gallon LP tank near the house (for heat and hot water). Interestingly, those are (or used to be) referred to as “PIGS” - which kinda ties this whole thread together.

Dry gas, natural gas that consists of little more than methane, producing little condensable heavier hydrocarbon compounds such as propane and butane when brought to the surface. In the United States, dry gases are defined as those that contain less than 0.1 gallon of condensables per 1,000 cubic feet of produced gas.
Dry natural gas is at least 85% methane, but often more. Wet natural gas contains some methane, but also contains liquids such as ethane, propane or butane. ... The natural gas used in homes and business for heating, cooling, cooking and electricity generation is dry gas. It can also be compressed and used as a fuel.
Wet vs. Dry Natural Gas. What's the Difference

One can see from the images below, the glide path of these new funds is the same as the glide path of T. Rowe Price's Retirement Fund series of target date funds. That's TRP's more aggressive target date series.
The difference seems to be that these new funds, as might be inferred from the name, use both actively and passively managed funds in their portfolios. This results in a somewhat lower ER for the new funds (around a dozen basis points less).

Retirement funds' glide path:

Re: “ BRCAX as a ton in cash ! Prnex looks to have some upside.”
@Derf - That’s a byproduct of their methodology. I can’t speak for all commodity funds, but a good many hold high levels of cash and bonds. Sometimes you’ll even see a figure like 150% in bonds.
Relates to their buying futures contracts instead of the actual commodity. You don’t suppose Invesco wants to start stockpiling corn or hogs? That also explains how oil (on paper anyway) could fall below 0 for a day. I’m guessing they’re required to keep an amount of cash on hand to cover those assets (or a large portion of them) which they’re holding only in “paper” form.
Here’s how it works from Invesco’s site:
“The fund seeks to achieve its investment objective by investing in derivatives and other commodity-linked instruments that provide exposure to the following four sectors of the commodities markets: agriculture, energy, industrial metals and precious metals.”
Notice the words: “derivatives”, “commodity-linked instruments“
I mentioned this type of fund because if you can stomach it (not everybody can) it provides much truer diversification away from equities than you get in a natural resource fund. A fund like PRNEX, for example, is rocked quite a bit by the equity markets because it’s investing in companies that buy and sell natural resources A fund like BRCAX, on the other hand, is trying to track the actual price action in the commodity itself - so it’s a purer play on commodities. It’s like the difference between owning a lumber company and owning the timber itself.
Note: Much of the “upside” Derf notes in PRNEX is a byproduct of generally favorable equity markets. In a slumping stock market, that upside may turn to “downside” even though commodities in general hold their own or appreciate.

I do rather worry about the RobinHood crowd and the prospect that they're pushing things higher, in part by triggering the algos. The observation that the S&P 495 is underwater by 5% year-to-date while the S&P 5 is up dramatically, does feel worrisome.
David

Be well, David.
Speaking of the RobinHood crowd, I saw TSLA is doing a 5:1 split. Since TSLA is a totally unhinged herd-mentality momentum stock, I have to wonder, would this attract RobinHooders and other bet-it-all-on-red folks? Heck, do RobinHooders play with stocks that cost more than $30/share?

Yes, I'm a "Robinhooder" at own stocks anywhere from $10/share to north of $200/share.
The Robinhood crowd, simply does not have enough capital to really sway the markets. They're de minimis relative to all of the institutional capital out there.

@John. Could you explain the difference between wet gas and dry gas? Which is better?
Natural gas has been DOA for a number of years. Trading just over $2 today. I’ve gleaned lately that one reason gas and oil often run in opposite directions is that gas is a byproduct of fracking. So rising oil prices imply more fracking and thus result in oversupply of gas. Nice rally in crude lately after going negative a few months back. Brent‘s over $45 / NYMEX above $42.
A Covid vaccine should be good for oil as they are a long way from making large passenger transports fly on battery or solar (although planes have become a lot more fuel efficient). I’ve always committed 10-12% to the natural resources & commodity-type funds (currently 11%). This is the first time in a long while that I’ve had something to smile about with that corner of the portfolio.
BTW - gold’s bouncing $25 today. Still has farther to fall IMHO.

There's a whole spectrum of risk/reward in the "cash-ish" arena. If one is looking for something one can draw from daily, that's called a checking account. One can fudge that by using a savings account (generally limited to 6 withdrawals per month), but that's about all.
Moving up from there, one might be willing to tolerate a small loss and/or hold the investment a little longer to ride out the blips. If you're willing to tolerate only small losses, you'd likely prefer a fund with a small max drawdown. That might be more to your liking if you anticipated drawing on this asset every few months. OTOH, if your horizon is a bit longer you might be more forgiving of the blips but more insistent on a generally smooth ride.
This fund seems to fall into that latter camp. It had nearly a 5% drop between March 14 and March 23. See M* graph. So it can lose a year's worth of returns in a week. Still, over the longer term it does seem to plod along, just as @MikeM describes.
A more traditional fund that I've been looking at, FJRLX - on the risky end of limited term bond funds - has similar volatility, a somewhat worse dip (6.5% between March 8 and March 23), and a poorer five year/three year performance.
Which makes MNWAX an interesting, if unusual, candidate for holding longer term cash.

So far, TRP seems to be putting old wine into new bottles. It has historically positioned itself as a money manager that does more intensive research, thus adding value. This has enabled it to charge the higher fees that go with active management. But it had not offered competitive index funds, despite their growing popularity. It is rectifying that in part by converting to index funds.
It's hard to see active management adding much value to long term Treasuries. They are essentially commodities with no credit risk. So for this fund at least, it makes sense to give up the active management ghost.
With its active ETFs, it looks like TRP is trying to preserve (actually increase) its management fees, while adding a distribution channel and benefiting from offering "cheaper" ETFs. Cheaper for the investor (lower total ER), but more profitable for the management company.
Unlike OEFs, ETFs have very little in the way of "other expenses" (administration, distribution, etc.) 100% of the ERs of TRP's ETFs go to management. Here are their prospectuses:
https://www.troweprice.com/personal-investing/funds/etfs/prospectuses-reports.html
Total expense ratios:
TCHP, 0.57% vs. TRBCX, 0.69%
TDGV, 0.50% vs. PRDGX, 0.62%
TEQI, 0.54% vs. PRFDX, 0.64%
TGRW, 0.52% vs. PRGFX, 0.65%

Did a little rebalancing among funds this week. Reduced stock allocation from 57% to 55% (the balance point for stocks set at the start of the year). Reestablished position in JABAX. A little concerned about stocks going into late summer/early fall, especially with pandemic.

I do rather worry about the RobinHood crowd and the prospect that they're pushing things higher, in part by triggering the algos. The observation that the S&P 495 is underwater by 5% year-to-date while the S&P 5 is up dramatically, does feel worrisome.
David

Be well, David.
Speaking of the RobinHood crowd, I saw TSLA is doing a 5:1 split. Since TSLA is a totally unhinged herd-mentality momentum stock, I have to wonder, would this attract RobinHooders and other bet-it-all-on-red folks? Heck, do RobinHooders play with stocks that cost more than $30/share?

@Derf, Interesting pick in SPEDX. Thinking I'll cut some from SPECX into SPEDX through a nav transfer. This should put me somewhere around 50% in SPECX, 25% in SPEDX and 25% in AOFAX within the Alger family of funds. I've got to be careful moving out of SPECX as I've built up sizeable unrealized capital gains in SPECX. In doing a nav transfer I avoid commissions but tax wise this counts as a sale and the tax man will want his cut.
Again, a good pick in SPEDX as I am really thinking hard about moving some money into it especially since, from my perspective, equities are overbought and it can short. I'd most likely hold SPEDX in my niche fund sleeve found in the growth area of my portfolio.
As for my cash I have it split among four money market funds. They are AMAXX, TTOXX, TBIXX & PCOXX. Currently, their year to date returns are 0.27%, 0.34%, 0.47% & 0.52% respectively. When I reduced my cash allocation from 20% to 15% in my portfolio, a while back, I rolled this money into a couple bond funds (MIAQX, LBNDX & FLAAX) since cash yields are paying next to nothing and these bond funds have current yields of about 4.2%, 4.0% and tax free 3.2% respectively. This move became my chosen option to counter low cash yields and raised my income area allocation from 40% to 45%.
Over time, I'll let my portfolio's income generation restore my cash position back to the neutral position of 20%. I'm thinking by year end I'll be back close to the 20% cash allocation as I take all income distributions including year end mutual fund capital gain ditributions in cash. At year end I'll decide how to proceed with respect to the rebalancing my portfolio.
I'm sure there is more than one way to deal with low cash yields. As investors, we have to decide which way is best for each of us to proceed knowing there is no one right (or wrong) way to move as there are no doubt many options that will find success.
Thanks again Derf for bringing SPEDX to the board's attention as I am no longer a student of new fund study although I do follow the markets and for the most part run with what I have establised through my many years of investing.

“The fund’s management fee currently consists of a group fee component that declines at certain asset levels and is calculated daily based on the combined net assets of all T. Rowe Price Funds (except the funds-of-funds, TRP Reserve Funds, Multi-Sector Account Portfolios, and any index or private label mutual funds) and an individual fund fee component. However, the individual fund fee is 0.00% so the fund’s management fee equals the group fee rate. On May 31, 2020, the annual group fee rate was 0.29%. In addition, through at least September 30, 2020, T. Rowe Price has contractually agreed to waive a portion of the management fee it is entitled to receive from the fund in order to limit the fund’s overall management fee rate to 0.15% of the fund’s average daily net assets. Effective October 1, 2020, the arrangement limiting the overall management fee to 0.15% will be terminated and the group fee component of the management fee will be eliminated, and the fund will begin paying T. Rowe Price an annual investment management fee of 0.06% based on the fund’s average daily net assets.”
That’s four of the most confusing sentences I’ve ever read. - “Who’s on first?“

@Old_Skeet: bought my place five years ago and thought long and hard about a generator, in particular one that tamped into the natural gas line. And then I kept thinking, "I lived around the Quad Cities for 32 years and have had one outage that lasted more than an hour or two. What are the odds that this will be a good investment for me?"
"Rising," apparently.
(sigh)
I do rather worry about the RobinHood crowd and the prospect that they're pushing things higher, in part by triggering the algos. The observation that the S&P 495 is underwater by 5% year-to-date while the S&P 5 is up dramatically, does feel worrisome.
David

Where To Stash Your Cash
Oct. 11, 2017 8:59 AMGM, VFSUX, VMFXX
Summary
Investors have been bullish on equities with a couple of corrections along the way since March 2009.
Equities are starting to look a bit frothy.
In the past, investors might have started moving money out of equities and into bonds at this point.
The driver for the 8.5 year bull market in equities has also driven up the price of bonds resulting in near historically low yields.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/seekingalpha.com/amp/article/4112870-where-to-stash-your-cash
Couple good ideas revisited
Short bond funds/ultrashort bond funds/mm/ cd yields/
Vanguard Short Term Investment Grade Fund (NYSE: VFSUX)
Vanguard Short Term Tax Exempt Fund (NYSE: VWSUX)
Vanguard Ultra Short Term Bond Fund (NYSE: VUSFX)
Vanguard Federal Money Market Fund (NYSE: VMFXX)
We do use preferred etf PFF and preferred BAC vehicles
Regards

Sold gld and slv....added more brk.b and Vanguard-2045 and vht today
Seems everyone backing up a bit from gld slv and bonds, maybe over priced...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/seekingalpha.com/amp/article/4367158-natural-gas-prices-surged-over-20-last-week-natural-gas-equities-surged-even
Summary
Dry natural gas prices broke out to the upside last week.
Natural gas equities outperformed, as they have been doing for a majority of 2020.
Bigger picture, natural gas equities are leading dry natural gas prices, which are leading commodity prices, which will lead to inflation.
This idea was discussed in more depth with members of my private investing community, The Contrarian. Get started today »
Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism, and die on euphoria.
-- Sir John Templeton
Introduction
I have been bullish on dry natural gas prices and natural gas equities for a long time. Two recent published examples of this bullish include the recent published article, "Antero Resources Is A Generational Buy: Working Through The Near-Term Debt Maturities", and "EQT Corp Surges As The Bearish Natural Gas Thesis Is Dead", which was published on March 17 in the heart of the declines in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA).
Natural gas equities featured in these articles, including Antero Resources (AR), Antero Midstream (AM), and EQT Corp (EQT), have performed admirably year-to-date in 2020, with AR shares rising 37.9% year-to-date through August 7, AM shares rising 9.3% YTD, outperforming all of their pipeline peers, and EQT shares rising 58.4% YTD./
Just an observation -
Maybe huge demands for commodities on the horizon....so many cars on road now new where we live...things slowly returning to normalcy unless another hugh covid19 outbreaks...

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/853437/000174177320002231/c497.htm
97 1 c497.htm
T. Rowe Price U.S. Treasury Long-Term Fund
Supplement to Prospectus Dated March 1, 2020
The fund’s Board of Directors has approved changes to the fund’s name, investment objective, fee structure, and overall investment program, which includes changing to an index strategy that tracks the returns of its current benchmark index. These changes are expected to become effective on October 1, 2020, subject approval by the fund’s shareholders of change to the investment objective.
Effective October 1, 2020, the fund will change its name from the T. Rowe Price U.S. Treasury Long-Term Fund to the T. Rowe Price U.S. Treasury Long-Term Index Fund. In connection with the name change and to align with the shift to an index strategy, the fund’s investment objective is proposed to be changed to seek to provide high income consistent with maximum credit protection.
The fund’s management fee currently consists of a group fee component that declines at certain asset levels and is calculated daily based on the combined net assets of all T. Rowe Price Funds (except the funds-of-funds, TRP Reserve Funds, Multi-Sector Account Portfolios, and any index or private label mutual funds) and an individual fund fee component. However, the individual fund fee is 0.00% so the fund’s management fee equals the group fee rate. On May 31, 2020, the annual group fee rate was 0.29%. In addition, through at least September 30, 2020, T. Rowe Price has contractually agreed to waive a portion of the management fee it is entitled to receive from the fund in order to limit the fund’s overall management fee rate to 0.15% of the fund’s average daily net assets. Effective October 1, 2020, the arrangement limiting the overall management fee to 0.15% will be terminated and the group fee component of the management fee will be eliminated, and the fund will begin paying T. Rowe Price an annual investment management fee of 0.06% based on the fund’s average daily net assets.
Effective October 1, 2020, subject to approval by the fund’s shareholders of the change to the fund’s investment objective, the following changes will be made to the prospectus:
The investment objective on page 1 will be revised as follows:
The fund seeks to provide high income consistent with maximum credit protection.
The fee table and expense example on pages 1—2 will be revised as follows...