@WABAC
Depends on the size of the house. I've seen many homes cut up six ways from Sunday. Typically in college towns. But it probably happens elsewhere too.
Interesting interpretation. Though if that's what's meant by the number of units "in single-family buildings with between one and four units", then wouldn't this count exclude buildings that were originally built as small multi-unit dwellings?
Subdividing houses has been going on, if not forever, at least since the 50s. Here's an old (1995) paper on The Subdivision of the Single-Family House in the United States
http://arkitekturforskning.net/na/article/download/687/633

In the 1950's most [maturing original suburban locations] experienced an economic downturn: the new middle classes were moving away from the city, leaving behind an aging population which was slowly being replaced by lower-income owners and even tenants. Houses were subdivided into two or more apartments which could be afforded by the lower economic brackets of the population. Since the 70's [there was gentrification]. In these so-called gentrified areas, subdivided houses have remained so because they respond to a need for smaller units by smaller households ...

To its credit, CNBC notes that "About 12% of landlords surveyed went into this mortgage forbearance program." If you go digging into its source, you find that it's 15% of owners of landlords owning 2-4 units. No other breakdown info.
It looks like these are percentages of all landlords surveyed, not just the ones with mortgages. So one can reasonably infer that the percentage of landlords with mortgages that are able to defer payments is larger than these figures. In any case, this does show that contrary to what Politico wrote, not all landlords with mortgages still have to make payments now.
This fuzziness in the data - what it means, where it comes from, how large the error bars are (except for Census data which is higher quality) - is what makes understanding the numbers, let alone verifying them, so difficult.
Thanks for identifying the "The Hill" piece as opinion. I'm fine with opinion pieces so long as the facts can be verified, and this piece does a fine job in linking to its sources. It's hard to describe as controversial statements like: "All can be protected — at least over the near term — by continued government support". Not when even Mnuchin is supporting some form of government support.
Though I do think the writer is being kind in saying that "the HEROES Act [is] now being debated in Congress." Not when the latest action is dated July 23: "Senate. Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. Hearings held."
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6800/all-actions?overview=closed#tabs

thanks OS current barometer is 135 which indicates overbought market.

@msf

"single-family buildings with between one and four units".
How do you legally get four units into a single-family building?

Depends on the size of the house. I've seen many homes cut up six ways from Sunday. Typically in college towns. But it probably happens elsewhere too.
I suspect that the reporting will get better on this as more outlets take a whack at it. I don't think of Politico when I think about strong financial reporting.
But even at 42-43% of those four units holding a mortgage there is the potential for some serious pain.
Here's CNBC taking a whack.

Nearly a third of renters who live in single-family or small multifamily properties owned by individual landlords were unable to pay their August rent, according to a survey by Avail, a technology and marketing platform for small landlords. That is up from just under 25% in July. Avail received responses from 2,225 landlords and almost 3,000 renters.
[ellipses]
Individual landlords make up the majority of single-family rental owners. Nearly 23 million units in 17 million properties are owned by individual investors, according to the most recent count by the U.S. Census Bureau. Just under a third of these investors are retirees.
Nearly 54% of the income from a typical rental unit normally goes toward fixed costs associated with property ownership, according to an analysis by Zillow. These expenses include mortgage payments, property taxes, maintenance, insurance and capital improvements. Without the rent, landlords still have to cover shortfall.
“Our data show that 42% of renters and 35% of landlords are digging into their emergency funds and savings to cover everyday expenses,” said Ryan Coon, CEO of Avail.

Here is an opinion piece in The Hill taking on mortgages in general, as well as renters. The opiner calls for more relief. And I wonder where that ends, whether it's to the renters, the landlord, or both.

According to the most recent Federal Reserve data, the top 1 percent of U.S. households by wealth own 39 percent of equities and mutual fund shares, and the top 10 percent own 83 percent . Also, the top 1 percent of U.S. households by income own 41 percent of equities and mutual fund shares, and the top 20 percent own 87 percent.
https://federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#quarter:122;series:Corporate%20equities%20and%20mutual%20fund%20shares;demographic:networth;population:1,3,5,7;units:shares;range:1989.3,2020.1
This data suggests the need to sell shares to fund retirement needs is likely to have a fairly small impact on stock market behavior. (I just noticed @Mark posted some of this data on another post earlier this morning.)
The quote already pasted to this thread about valuation and TINA speaks to the PE ratio question. That's a daily marketplace decision. But, that decision takes into account the knowledge that central banks are active participants and that fiscal policy is also playing an active role in supporting the economy. The quote suggests it will be difficult for valuation concerns to gain traction in this environment. I suspect if the upward creep in the P/E ratio is gradual the marketplace will continue to accept it assuming the economy can return to a pattern of growth (but I am certainly not betting the farm that is the case). But, what happens if (when?) inflation takes hold? That will presumably force central banks to modify their behavior. The limits of MMT tie in with this too. But, it appears the marketplace views those issues as distant concerns for another day.

Just noticed RCTIX yield is actually increasing a bit. About 4.6%. Dennis championed this fund.
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2019/05/river-canyon-total-return-bond-fund-institutional-class-rctix/

While I'm not unsympathetic to the plight of mom-and-pop landlords, the thesis of the article is not well supported by the facts presented. The thesis being that it is the ban on evictions that is "threatening the livelihood of millions of landlords".

One in three tenants failed to make their September rent payment on time, according to the latest Apartment List survey. And a little over 25 percent said they had slight or no confidence in their ability to pay their rent this month, according to Census data published Wednesday, with another 22 percent expressing only moderate confidence.

With a large swath of renters being unable to make timely payments, would landlords be better off evicting tenants who may be paying some money in the hope of finding new renters able to pay more during a pandemic? Is it really the eviction ban creating this threat to landlords?
From another, slightly earlier (and somewhat less conclusory) Politico piece:

A ban without assistance, [ National Low Income Housing Coalition CEO and President] Yentel said, is a “half-measure that extends a financial cliff for renters to fall off of when the moratorium expires and back rent is owed.” ...
“Without direct rental assistance, rents cannot be paid, and owners face a financial crisis of their own by not being able to maintain properties and pay their mortgages or property taxes, ”NAA President & CEO Bob Pinnegar said. ...
Mnuchin also supports rental assistance, he told lawmakers: "Our first choice is to have bipartisan legislation that allocates specific rental assistance to people hardest hit."

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/01/trump-administration-block-evictions-backlash-407060
BTW, I linked to the "Census data published Wednesday" in my post here.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/131148/#Comment_131148
The original article also includes some statements and figures that seem at best a bit flaky:
"single-family buildings with between one and four units".
How do you legally get four units into a single-family building?
"In a four-unit building, if one person can’t pay rent you’ve just lost 25 percent of your income."
That may have seemed obvious to the person quoted, but it's not necessarily correct (the situation can be much worse):

About 40 percent of seniors who live in and own two-to-four-unit buildings have a mortgage. If these older landlords with a mortgage do not receive rental payments, not only are they likely to lose their single source of income, but some may lose their homes.

https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/owners-and-renters-62-million-units-small-buildings-are-particularly-vulnerable-during-pandemic
Small landlords often live in multi-unit buildings they own. So in a four-unit building, if one person doesn't pay rent, they've lost 33% of their rental income. Aside from losing a larger percentage of their rental income than the article says, these owners are themselves at risk of eviction (post-foreclosure).
"And most of those buildings have a mortgage — meaning the property owners themselves still need to make their own monthly payments."
According to the Urban Institute's presentation of RHFS data, 42% of 1-4 unit buildings have a mortgage, not most. The RHFS data itself (click the "apply" button on the linked page for this table) says about 43%. Just 3/7, not "most of these buildings".
As far as "property owners themselves still need[ing] to make their own monthly payments", many will need to, some won't. "[T]though Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have established multifamily forbearance plans, small-building landlords are less likely to hold federally backed mortgages". Urban Institute, ibid.
"Fannie Mae today [June 29, 2020] announced updated renter protections and forbearance extensions for borrowers."
https://www.fanniemae.com/newsroom/fannie-mae-news/fannie-mae-announces-updated-protections-renters-impacted-covid-19

Yes, capitalism is the only game in town. Yes, presumably, we are all investors here, or people wanting to learn how to be smart about it.
But Bernie is not an extremist. He wants universal health care.

Contrary to common misconceptions, universal health coverage (UHC), socialized medicine and single-payer systems are not interchangeable terms. ... UHC is an umbrella term that socialized medicine and single-payer fall under; socialized medicine and single-payer systems may be implemented in an effort to achieve UHC

https://healthforce.ucsf.edu/blog-article/healthcare-policy/health-care-systems-101-how-does-us-compare-other-countries
This is an excellent, relatively short read on the different health care models: Beveridge (socialized, UK), Bismark (private insurance; Germany, France), hybrid (Canada). See also:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/18/upshot/best-health-care-system-country-bracket.html
Bernie's model of UHC is generally regarded as closest to Canada's. His "Medicare for All plan would leave intact the current infrastructure of doctors, hospitals and other health care providers, but nationalize the health insurance industry."
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/03/politics/medicare-for-all-annotated/
Capitalism is not the only game in town. In most respects, Bernie is no socialist, regardless of how much he may say otherwise. But here at least, he is advocating nationalizing an industry. Though he is not suggesting that the health delivery industry be nationalized, and thus falls short of the existing US model where the government runs the VHA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veterans_Health_Administration#VHA_Nationalized_Healthcare_System
Such considerations bear directly on funds like FSHCX (top 3: 25% United Healthcare, 9% Cigna, 8% Humana) and IHF (top 3: 23% United Healthcare, 12% CVS Health (owns Aetna), 7% Cigna).

"Wealthy investors and the Fed have been propping up large companies. It can’t last."
"If the stock market doesn’t reflect the health of our economy, what does it measure? Most directly, it indicates the financial health of the richest among us. Overall, about 55 percent of Americans own stocks, according to Gallup, but ownership is heavily skewed toward the wealthy. According to Federal Reserve data, the top 1 percent of U.S. households own 39 percent of equities and mutual fund shares, and the top 10 percent own 83 percent — which leaves workers in the bottom 90 percent owning just 17 percent."
Article Here

per Politico:
I read that the stock market isn't the economy, but after a while . . .

More than 22 million rental units, a little over half the rental housing in the country, are in single-family buildings with between one and four units, according to data compiled by the Urban Institute. And most of those buildings have a mortgage — meaning the property owners themselves still need to make their own monthly payments.
“In a four-unit building, if one person can’t pay rent you’ve just lost 25 percent of your income,” Pinnegar said.
Most of the units are owned by mom-and-pop landlords, many of whom invested in property to save for retirement. Now they’re dealing with a dramatic drop in income, facing the prospect of either trying to sell their property or going into debt to meet financial obligations including mortgage and insurance payments, property taxes, utilities and maintenance costs. If enough landlords can no longer make those payments, it would threaten everything from the school budgets funded by property taxes to the stability of the $11 trillion U.S. mortgage market itself.
Six months into the crisis, millions of tenants can no longer meet their rent — and the situation is only getting worse. Tenants already owe some $25 billion in back rent and will owe nearly $70 billion by the end of the year, according to an estimate last month by Moody’s Analytics.

Dick Weiss. Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time. In the 90s (and somewhat beyond), he managed Strong Opportunity, a good midcap value fund. It became Wells Opportunity when Wells Fargo acquired Strong Funds.
Here's a 1999 M* Fund Spy column with a few paragraphs in the middle about Weiss and the management of Strong Opportunity.
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/1402/morningstar-fund-spy
The industry pulls so many sleights of hand that one has to wonder about reorganizations that include some oddities. All the Litman Gregory Masters funds changed names just seven weeks ago to PartnerSelect. This reorganization is supposedly due in part to small size ($18.9M) but is a merger into an even smaller fund PFSVX ($9.9M).
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1020425/000168386320012117/f6483d1.htm
That latter fund was formed just after the name change, and unlike the "Masters" funds, has only one submanagement company. It looks like it could be a shell fund designed for various purposes, including the stated purpose of carrying over losses from MSSFX and an unstated purpose of burying that fund's performance history.
Perhaps Litman Gregory is moving away from the multi-manager concept (and poor records) and this is just the first step. MSEFX is a large cap fund with just $230M, a high ER (1.21%), and a miserable bottom 10% record over all time spans (from 1 month up to 15 years). Further, Dick Weiss, who is retiring, is this fund's only remaining original manager.

For example, G52, you recently responded about Strzok on RMS,
\\\ I missed it. Did he tell the truth about the fake dossier?
which is sheer trolling. (Also, bullshit, also a lie, also misleading, also lots of other rightwingnut things.) Go away unless you got better than such automatic laziness.
This latest post from you above has the guise of seriosity and earnestness. Give it a try. No cheap shit. Go watch the Strzok episode. Or not, I don't care. That guy is a worthier and more patriotic career lawman with more integrity than any of us know.

Interesting that off-topic is still being discussed in a non off-topic forum.
davidmoran:"important to remember Old_Skeet's and then FD1000's goal was to silence political discussions by trolling the site with ones from dubious rightwing sources. So effectively they've won".
So as long as the direction of the topic meets your approval it is OK? There have never been dubious left-wing sources? So I think you have won by keeping the right-wing comments quieted. I do far more reading here than posting. But FD1000 and Old-Skeet added worthwhile content. Calling them trolls is only because you didn't want to hear what they had to say.

You are quoting Braham, though I altogether concur in his take.
There are lots of sketchy leftwing sources, sure, of course, but you know that, and seem to be just trolling again. You do know, this is not leftwing vs rightwing --- try and stay on content and on target and on substance. FD1k had some content, a little, occasionally, and OS too, when he was not throwing up ZH stuff to see what stuck to the wall. The definition of trolling others have made is accurate here. If you have something substantive to say, with solid sources, go for it. I love to read other takes. Probably even yours. But it better be good. You know, not trivially easy to refute.

@Gary1952 This is a quote from Old_Skeet

This is an Investment Board ... So, shutdown "Off Topic" and Ban Political Post.
I am, Old_Skeet

His express goal for barraging the site with rightwing posts was because he wanted to shut down political conversation altogether. He said so himself, that until political discussion was silenced he would continue what he saw as tit for tat posts. So trolling was a tactic for him to silence everyone else, not to have any real discussion of these political issues which he hates. He has now succeeded in that goal.

I csll someone who intentionally throws up a bunch of clearly inflammatory partisan posts with the stated purpose of disrupting the MFO community a troll, yes. And I say that while meaning no disrespect to the real trolls that live under bridges or in various nooks and crannies in the icy barren northern parts of our globe.

Interesting that off-topic is still being discussed in a non off-topic forum.
davidmoran:"important to remember Old_Skeet's and then FD1000's goal was to silence political discussions by trolling the site with ones from dubious rightwing sources. So effectively they've won".
So as long as the direction of the topic meets your approval it is OK? There have never been dubious left-wing sources? So I think you have won by keeping the right-wing comments quieted. I do far more reading here than posting. But FD1000 and Old-Skeet added worthwhile content. Calling them trolls is only because you didn't want to hear what they had to say.

The original OP mentioned tax efficiency. That’s where I stepped off ship as my investing is 95+% in tax sheltered vehicles. But I’d be remiss not to mention that the Lipper analytics which can be accessed through Reuter’s and some other venues does rate funds on “tax efficiency.”

Morningstar calculates a numeric tax cost ratio. On the "new" M* pages, you'll find the three year figure on a fund's "Price" tab. It's also informative to look at the tax cost ratio over different time frames. Unlike ERs, tax costs can fluctuate quite a bit from year to year.
You can find the 1,3,5, 10, and 15 year tax cost ratios on M*'s "legacy" pages. For example, here's the legacy tax cost page for TMSRX. (Replace the ticker with the fund of your choice for that fund's legacy tax cost page).
http://performance.morningstar.com/fund/tax-analysis.action?t=TMSRX
TMSRX has a one year tax cost ratio of 1.11%. Its one year return was 9.40%. After tax, its one year return was 8.18%. If you started with $10K, after a year you had $10,940 pretax, and $18,818 post tax. That is, after taxes, you were left with $10,818/$10,940 (98.89%) of your investment. Taxes took 1.11% of your end of year value.
Not bad, but not great. For example, two peer multialternative funds (M*'s classification) are DRRAX and DVRAX. Their one year tax cost ratios are 0.80% and 0.37%. On the other hand, another peer, BAMBX, has a 1 year tax cost ratio of 1.28% (and a three year ratio of 1.98%).
While I pay some attention to tax efficiency, I consider it of secondary importance. Certainly I don't want a fund that's spinning off a lot of interest (except for a taxable bond fund), nonqualified divs, or short term gains. So I find it good to check for extremes. But beyond that, it's better to have a fund that's making money and losing some of it to taxes than to have a fund that's losing money in the market while losing nothing to taxes.

One of my best “sleep well” funds is PRPFX - not normally thought of as defensive. They spread the money around in some very diverse assets (gold and silver, growth stocks, nat. resources, treas. bonds, the Swiss fanc, real estate). So, without expensive short selling or extensive use of derivatives they provide a reasonably stable return stream over multi-decades. The biggest problem is that it holds precious metals which are extremely volatile assets shorter term. Hence, many investors flock into this fund when gold is soaring and than leave in droves when gold slumps. So, fund performance soars and slumps with the tide.
But it’s the last fund I would sell regardless of short term performance. A “set it and forget it” fund if there is one. Critics abound. I’ve heard: the manager can’t pick stocks, the ER is much higher than you’d pay to buy and hold the various assets, the manager’s other funds (including a short-term treasury fund) are losers. All probably true. But I still like it. About the same % of my holdings as TMSRX - both north of 10%. Tax efficiency? Lipper rates PRPFX 3/5.

You can also make your own assessment by review the year-end distribution from year to year. What you should be looking at is the amount of taxable distribution, i.e. dividend and short term cap gain (taxed at your income bracket) and long term cap gain (lesser concern since it is taxed at 15%).
Based on 2019, the TMSDX dividend and short term cap gain are reasonable small and is probably okay to be held in taxable accounts.
Learned long ago NOT to hold equity funds with turnover well over 100% - be ready to pay those large cap gain by year end. Index funds are tax efficient on this aspect. Dividend will be taxable and it is okay.

The original OP mentioned tax efficiency. That’s where I stepped off ship as my investing is 95+% in tax sheltered vehicles. But I’d be remiss not to mention that the Lipper analytics which can be accessed through Reuter’s and some other venues does rate funds on “tax efficiency.”
There are many other concerns of course, but if seeking information on tax efficiency you could do worse than to consult Lipper. I’ve run several of the funds mentioned in this thread through the Lipper screen. The large majority score quite poorly. I suspect that the hedging tactics that make these defensive to some extent also generate a lot of taxable income or short term cap gains.
Here’s a couple that I checked:
MERFX scores reasonably well garnering 4 out of 5 for tax efficiency according to Lipper.
http://www.funds.reuters.wallst.com/US/funds/overview.asp?symbol=MERFX.O
BAMBX, on the other hand, scores poorly, receiving the lowest (1 out of 5) rating for tax efficiency.
http://www.funds.reuters.wallst.com/US/funds/overview.asp?symbol=BAMBX.O
I own TMSRX but didn’t check. I assume it’s too new for Lipper to have rated. To be succinct, there are no easy answers to playing defense in today’s environment. A healthy slug of cash equivalents and / or short-medium duration AAA bonds, rebalanced periodically and faithfully is one part of the answer. Yes - I too like TMSRX and David has done a good job profiling it. If anybody here is willing to write a complete analysis explaining each of TMSRX’s five subsets, how each subset is managed and what its current positions are, and how different economic fundamentals might impact each of those 5 subsets as presently positioned, I’d enjoy the read. The “under the hood” workings of this highly complex approach remain largely a mystery to me. TMSRX’s 1.22% ER, while reasonable for a hedge-type fund, is still a bite out of your long term returns and substantially more than for a plain vanilla AAA rated short-medium term bond fund.

This is from someone who as been playing defense for last 15-20 years. Been a while since I visited the site and for good reason.
My answer to the question - Sell deep OTM options. Pay taxes. No one went broke paying taxes. The last 5 months have been the best of my investing life. Based on your risk tolerance level invest in index funds, then take half of your cash and try to earn income on it. Enough defense you will need IMO.
I've been generating $500 consistently with $20000 in my Vanguard account without ANY trouble every month. That's a 2.5% return per month. That's 30% a year. Pay taxes.