Hi @bee, just wanted to clarify that I did indeed read the SA article authored by Mr Roche that you posted, do appreciate you posting it, I just got caught up in the pump and dump market action yesterday.
My reply to the article would be...
"The New York Fed purchases Treasury securities in order to support the smooth functioning of the Treasury market, as directed by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). These purchases are conducted in the secondary market for Treasury securities."
On March 19th they were purchasing $75B/day of securities and have faded it to $6B/day....(you can easily look this up they put out a schedule) trend is "tightening", I did say trend not net...so I don't see how other than the big tech's who are actually growing revenue, earnings and share how most other publicly traded companies and thus the mutual funds who invest in them can continue to gain value without the fed's backstop so I disagree with Mr. Roche. Also, just because Powell is jawboning the markets higher does NOT mean there is no risk!
Full Disclosure: I'm very conservatively positioned and have been for a long time, ~95% cash / US Treasury money market, CDs, Tbills, I bonds.
Posting for entertainment purposes only.
Stay well, best regards to all, Baseball Fan

follow up articles
https://www.kitco.com/news/2020-05-19/Gold-silver-prices-pause-after-recent-solid-gains.html
News) - Gold and silver prices are trading near steady in early action Tuesday, on some normal chart consolidation and pausing after recent good gains. Less anxiety in the marketplace so far this week is working against the safe-haven metals, but not in a strong fashion. June gold futures were last up $1.30 an ounce at $1,735.80. July Comex silver prices were last up $0.017 at $17.485 an ounce.
gold/commodities have pause after recent uptrends

Y shares and I shares have the same ER, and Y shares have not been closed. So in a sense, this is a non-issue. See, e.g. this Fidelity comparison, showing Y open and I closed, with the same $2500 min (at Fidelity).
OTOH, if you're using a brokerage such as Vanguard that sells only I shares (and more expensive retail shares) then this matters.
For other reasons I happened to have checked with Fidelity yesterday about converting between share classes Y and I for Hartford funds. (I own no Hartford funds.) Fidelity can do this, at least so long as the target share class is open.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1006415/000110465920063503/tm2019943-2_497.htm
may 19, 2020
SUPPLEMENT TO THE FOLLOWING PROSPECTUSES:
THE HARTFORD TOTAL RETURN BOND FUND SUMMARY PROSPECTUS
DATED FEBRUARY 28, 2020, AS RESTATED MAY 7, 2020
AND
HARTFORD FIXED INCOME FUNDS PROSPECTUS
DATED FEBRUARY 28, 2020, AS SUPPLEMENTED THROUGH MAY 7, 2020
This Supplement contains new and additional information regarding The Hartford Total Return Bond Fund and should be read in connection with your Summary Prospectus and Statutory Prospectus.
Effective as of the opening of business on June 5, 2020, Class I shares of The Hartford Total Return Bond Fund will no longer be closed to new investors and will be available for purchase by all eligible investors. Accordingly, the following changes are being made to the above referenced Summary Prospectus and Statutory Prospectus effective June 5, 2020:
(1) The paragraph above the share class and ticker table on the front cover page of the above referenced Summary Prospectus is deleted and replaced with the following:
Class C shares of the Fund are closed to new investors. No purchases of a closed share class are allowed, other than as described in this summary prospectus.
(2) The footnote next to The Hartford Total Return Bond Fund on the front cover page of the above referenced Statutory Prospectus is deleted and replaced with the following:
* Class C shares of the Fund are closed to new investors. No purchases of a closed share class are allowed, other than as described in this Prospectus.
(3) Under the heading “Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares” in the above referenced Summary Prospectus and the heading “The Hartford Total Return Bond Fund Summary Section – Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares” in the above referenced Statutory Prospectus, the first paragraph is deleted and replaced with the following:
Class C shares of the Fund are closed to new investors. No purchases of a closed share class are allowed, other than as follows: (i) purchases by shareholders of record of the Fund as of March 29, 2019 to add to their existing Fund accounts through subsequent purchases, or through exchanges from other Hartford mutual funds; (ii) purchases through reinvestment of dividends or capital gains distributions; (iii) purchases by certain financial institutions or financial intermediary firms that have been approved by Hartford Funds Distributors, LLC to purchase shares of the Fund on behalf of their client; and (iv) purchases, including through reinvestment of dividends or capital gains distributions, by any shareholder who receives shares of the Fund as part of a reorganization. Please see the section entitled “Classes of Shares” in the Fund’s statutory prospectus for more information. Not all share classes are available for all investors. Minimum investment amounts may be waived for certain accounts. Certain financial intermediaries may impose different restrictions than those described below.
(4) Under the heading “Classes of Shares” in the above referenced Statutory Prospectus, the footnote next to Total Return Bond Fund in the share class table is deleted and replaced with the following:
(1) Class C shares of the Fund are closed to new investors. No purchases of a closed share class are allowed, other than as described in the Summary Section. Investors should contact their financial professional to determine whether they are eligible to purchase shares of the Fund. If you believe you are eligible to purchase shares of the Fund, you may be required to provide appropriate proof of eligibility. The Fund reserves the right to: (i) reject any purchase order if it believes that acceptance of such order would interfere with its ability to be effectively managed; (ii) reopen a share class of the Fund to new investors at a future date; (iii) issue shares in connection with a reorganization; and (iv) make additional exceptions, limit the above exceptions, or otherwise modify the foregoing closure policy for any reason. You may obtain additional information by calling Hartford Funds at: 1-888-843-7824.
This Supplement should be retained with your Summary Prospectus and Statutory Prospectus for future reference.
HV-7536
May 2020

Yes, color me suspicious. Though in general, any press release put out by a company or organization must be regarded as an advocacy piece, aka "spin". Likewise for third party reporting based upon PRs.
The ASA news release on their website (linked to, above), cites approvingly a letter sent by five "Senior members of the House Financial Services Committee". The news release points to it as calling on the SEC to remove personally identifiable info from the CAT database.
Actually, the letter praises the SEC for saying that it would not require SSNs or various other personally identifiable info to go in the CAT database. What these five GOP House members praised ultimately became the exemption order that ASA is petitioning to set aside. So outside of complaining about reporting in general, what is the point of the ASA petition?
The letter from these Congressmen begins:

We write in strong support of your recent comments indicating that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) will significantly limit its collection of retail investors' personally identifiable information (PII) as pait of the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT). We welcome your statement that the Commission will not require retail investors' Social Security numbers to be collected and stored in the CAT. We appreciate the Commission's ongoing work on the CAT and agree that it is important for regulators to be able to oversee the capital markets on a consolidated basis. However, we strongly believe that the CAT can, and should, fulfill its intended purpose without collecting Main Street investors' PII.

https://d1d329da-dbb0-4cc9-b461-d7bd4ad09b4e.usrfiles.com/ugd/d1d329_13b9948593544d9d8d73e17185af1591.pdf

https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2020/05/18/gold-continues-to-outperform-sp-500/#50b3b5882ec2
We have not buy more gld recently. will closely follow gold trends

The SEC exemption order being appealed provides a mechanism for the SEC to separate out personally identifiable information (PII) from its Consolatidated Audit Trail (CAT) database. As near as I can tell (I'm not inclined to dig too deeply into this), the American Securities Association (ASA) is appealing this because it claims that such personal info (e.g. SSN, date of birth) serves no useful purpose whatsover.
Here's ThinkAdvisor's reporting on the American Securities Association (ASA) petition.
https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2020/05/18/group-sues-sec-over-collection-of-investor-data/
It includes a link to a 1,629 page filing. Only the first four pages are new. The rest are attachments: the SEC exemption order (March 17, 2020), an older SEC order (November 15, 2016), and an SEC final rule (July 18, 2012).
The petition is to "modify or set aside in pertinent part" these orders.
While I am a strong privacy advocate, on its face the PR (including a WSJ op ed) seems to be at least in part about spin. It makes noises about lack of security, but that's a distraction. Once one makes the argument that the personal info serves no benefit at all, security is irrelevant.
Security issue as distraction. According to the ThinkAdvisor piece

In the suit, the ASA requests an alternative approach to the CAT’s generation of a customer ID that does not require broker-dealers to report individual clients’ Social Security or taxpayer identification numbers to the CAT.

Yet that's just what the exemption order being appealed does.
https://www.sec.gov/rules/exorders/2020/34-88393.pdf

Participants seek exemptive relief from ... the CAT NMS Plan (1) to allow for an alternative approach to generating a CAT Customer ID (“CCID”) without requiring Industry Members to report individual social security numbers or tax payer identification numbers collectively, “SSNs”) to the consolidated audit trail (“CAT”) (the “CCID Alternative”); and (2) to allow for an alternative approach which would exempt the reporting of dates of birth and account numbers associated with natural person retail Customers to the CAT ...
[T]his Order grants the Participants’ request for exemptions ... subject to certain conditions.

It goes on to say that use of the CAT Customer ID (CCID) "allow[s] the elimination of SSNs from the CAT."
Argument that personal info is of no use. ASA's website says that:

The collection of retail investor PII in no way bolsters the ability of the SEC to oversee equity markets more effectively as the Commission has brought over 400 insider trading cases between FY2011-2019 (averaging over 44 per year). These numbers clearly illustrate that (1) the SEC has no issue in bringing insider trading cases against individuals who violate its rules, and (2) collecting retail investor will needlessly subject millions of American investors to identity theft by cyberhackers for no regulatory benefit.

https://www.americansecurities.org/post/lawsuit-filed-against-sec-to-protect-american-investor-privacy
I've highlighted some of the more breathless phrases.
400 cases in a decade is presented with no context. Is this a large number? We're supposed to think so. Like saying that some number of people have been tested for COVID-19 without saying how many could have been tested with better procedures.
I really don't know what the cost/benefits are. What I do see, though, is just one side being presented through press releases.

Oil popped around 10% today. PRNEX (Nat. Resources / Energy heavy) was up 6%. But you’d still be deep underwater if you’d bought it start of year. Weird - but I read they were giving oil away for nothing only a couple weeks ago. It’s north of $30 now. Suspect that’s what they call a climatic market bottom. Another one that popped today was DODGX - up 5.32%. At first I thought maybe they’d consumed the vaccine, but than I remembered they’ve been overweight energy for the past year. Really - you never can tell. The recent action in oil suggests we should always remain fluid.

Perhaps it's the nature of my individual stock holdings, but they all went up significantly (except for BMY), but the volume was only about 75% of their 3 month average. A lack of conviction?

A read and a listen:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4342416-what-hell-is-stock-market
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reasons-behind-rally-coming-inflation-cullen-roche

Interview with Harvard’s Reinhart and Rogoff.
Some excerpts:

The biggest positive productivity shock we’ve had over the last 40 years has been globalization together with technology. And I think if you take away the globalization, you probably take away some of the technology.
...you probably need a debt moratorium that’s fairly widespread for emerging markets and developing economies. As an analogy, the IMF or Chapter 11 bankruptcy is very good at dealing with a couple of countries or a couple of firms at a time. But just as the hospitals can’t handle all the Covid-19 patients showing up in the same week, neither can our bankruptcy system and neither can the international financial institutions
I indeed hope it is the G-20 and not just the G-19. China needs to be on board with debt relief. That’s a big issue. The largest official creditor by far is China. If China is not fully on board on granting debt relief, then the initiative is going to offer little or no relief. If the savings are just going to be used to repay debts to China, well, that would be a tragedy.
Do you see an inflationary surge at some point?
KR: We don’t know where we will come out. So the probability is, for the foreseeable future, we’ll have deflation. But at the end of this, I think we’re going to have experienced an extremely negative productivity shock with deglobalization. In terms of growth and productivity, they will be lasting negative shocks, and demand may come back. And then you have the many forces that have led to very low inflation maybe going into reverse, either because of deglobalization or because workers will strengthen their rights. The market sees essentially zero chance of ever having inflation again. And I think that’s very wrong.
BM: And what scars are left on economies once the pandemic passes?
CR: Some of the scars are on supply chains. I don’t think we’ll return to their precrisis normal. We’re going to see a lot of risk aversion. We’ll be more inward-looking, self-sufficient in medical supplies, self-sufficient in food.

Harvard’s Reinhart and Rogoff Say This Time Really Is Different:
harvard-s-financial-crisis-experts-this-time-really-is-different

@WABAC. In addition to the 48 periods that MultiSearch provides metrics and ratings across, it now provides return metrics and ratings by calendar year, which I find helpful from a consistency assessment basis, as discussed in Back To Basics.

@WABAC. It may be possible to pretty quickly implement a specific period for metrics only (lots of sites do that Yahoo, M*). The tricky part is the ratings for specific periods. That requires computing metrics for all funds in a desired category, plus accounting for outliers, before assigning ratings. Hopefully, just having more cycle periods will help provide screens across interesting market periods. And maybe instead of vanilla names like Full Cycle 5, we should call them GFC, CV-19, Tech Bubble, Black Monday, etc. Could also define more periods or cycles driven by asset classes other than SP500, like USBond (30 year bull ... and that might not be over!) or gold. Any periods come to mind? In any case, thanks for suggestion ... will noddle more on it.

@WABAC. The closest thing in MultiSearch right now that provides ratings to end dates other that current month are the full, up, and down cycle Display periods. There are 6 such cycles going back to 1960 (though honestly it looks like we called the current one prematurely ... using month ending SP500 levels). When we first did the cycles analysis, it was based on day ending returns. I may end up revising the cycle dates (and numbers) based on the original methodology.
Reference: Ten Market Cycles versus Mediocrity and Frustration, which simplified to 5 cycles, and A Presumptive Bear Ends an 11-Year Bull Run, which introduced the 6th.

I am a terrible stock picker. That's why I let mutual fund managers make those decisions for me. I am a disciplined saver. I put money in the hands of fund managers who have a track record of success and then I watch them very closely as stewards of my savings.
As an investor in their fund, my questioning their decisions is more about me attempting to understand their decision making (and their strategy). This helps me stay the course, especially during the downside of a market cycle.
Index funds have a different criteria for decision making than managed funds. A stock such as GE may seem, to a fund manager like Giroux, a great candidate for inclusion in his fund. The index (and the rules that govern the S&P 500 Index) may decide to exclude it based on it's inclusion / exclusion rules. This lead to two very different outcomes for the fund manager's fund. The managed fund either out performs the Index (if they were right) and under performs the index (if they were wrong).
I stopped trusting Berkowitz's decision making and sold out of FAIRX, but I first thoughtfully tried to question his decision making. I attempt to do this with all the managed funds I own because they all come with fund manager risk.
By the way, Bruce Berkowitz still has a few small pieces of real estate for sale:
/manhattan-townhouse-near-central-park-hits-market-at-23-million

Good morning, have place orders for buys: VDE, VONG, UNH, ITOT, SPY. New monies from 5/15 dividends and got paid last Fri.
Will sell 50% of BRK.B [Stocks perform same as Buffet's recent energy levels - maybe more idle past few years].
We are hopeful for summer recovery since covid-viral mortality/morbidity data has been limited [?bulls market favorable] the past few days [maybe curve flattening indeed is happening]. Maybe we will have slow/moderate economic recovery soon. We will see for sure in few weeks/months.
Bought for FBND, PCI PDI for Mama's retired portfolio.
Regards

It’s likely that the rich don’t even worry about RMDs because their wealth is not tied up in tax-deferred accounts
Well, some of the well to do. Then there are others ...

Romney’s personal financial summary, disclosed last August under federal election rules, shows that his IRA holds his most lucrative investments, which are stakes in partnerships run by Bain Capital. ...
Romney’s IRA produced income of $1.5 million to $8.5 million over 2010 and through August 12, 2011, according to his financial summary.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-campaign-romney-ira/how-did-romneys-ira-grow-so-big-idUSTRE80N04E20120124

@JohnN recently started this thread that seems worth including here:
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/56127/low-risk-vanguard-retirement-portfolio#latest

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4348188-low-risk-vanguard-retirement-portfolio
Low Risk Vanguard Retirement Portfolio
May 16, 2020 12:35 AM ETVBMFX, VEXPX, VFICX.
Investment portfolios with low volatility, low drawdowns and high returns can be constructed with Vanguard mutual funds.
From January 2003, a dual momentum strategy applied to a five-fund Vanguard portfolio would have produced a safe 5% annual withdrawal rate while achieving a 6.76% annual balance increase.
The strategy described in this article is suitable for conservative investors. It requires quarterly reallocation of funds and is robust with respect to its two parameter selections.

Sorta. Won’t need as much as normally pull out due to not being able to travel anywhere this summer (and who knows for how long?) - plus being gifted a $1200 check from Uncle Donald. Will pull partial RMD however to meet budget needs. And it’s always nice to leave the Roth untouched in any given year. I always move the anticipated budget needs into TRBUX (ultra short) far in advance and leave it under the tax-sheltered umbrella until actually needed. Made deferring some of the anticipated RMD super easy in this case. Good suggestion from @BenWP for those who might need to reclaim their RMD.

“... Let the money grow through the entire year.”

Catch did qualify that comment with “If one doesn't have a need for a RMD for current needs”. Otherwise I’d caution against leaving $$ you expect to need any time soon in the markets. They don’t always “grow”.
A thought: Fortunate are those “average” retirees who can subside beyond age 70.5 without having to tap even a small portion of their tax-sheltered investments. Having substantial non-deferred savings would be one reason not to need to rely on tax-deferred accounts. I searched for the % of Americans in retirement who subside w/o tapping tax-deferred assets, but couldn’t find an answer. Putting aside the substantial number who have no tax-shelter at all, I’d guess the number to be perhaps 10-15% who have one but don’t rely on it to fund living expenses - at least to some degree.