" In theory, negative yields could translate into returns if inflation climbs persistently in coming years."
Those negative real yields are still going to be negative. If inflation runs at 2% so you get 2% added to the value of your TIPS annually, you have a security that's grown an extra 2%/year in nominal terms, but 0% extra in real terms. Your real return is unchanged. Same at 5% or any inflation rate.
TIPS "win" with higher inflation primarily in the sense that they protect you against loss of value due to inflation, while "regular" (nominal rate) Treasuries lose value faster and faster as inflation climbs.
If inflation runs exactly as priced into the market, TIPS should slightly underperform "regular" Treasuries, since you're paying a little for that inflation insurance. If inflation runs higher than is priced into the market, you win, but only relative to the "regular" Treasuries.

A concern arises, however, when the [regular Treasury bond] investment earns 4% and inflation is running at 3%. This means that the real rate of return – the stated return minus inflation – is only 1%. A bond investor locks in the money for a period of time and commits to a specific income stream, but if he underestimates inflation, future proceeds from his investment may have less purchasing power.
Unlike nominal bonds, TIPS are designed to offer a real rate of return and, hence, provide investors a certain amount of protection against inflation. By investing in TIPS, investors give up the certainty of a predictable income stream for the assurance that their investment will maintain its purchasing power in case of rising inflation. For that assurance, TIPS pay slightly lower interest rates than comparable maturity Treasury securities.

https://www.raymondjames.com/wealth-management/advice-products-and-services/investment-solutions/fixed-income/taxable-bonds/tips-treasury-inflation-protected-securities
Again, the negative real rate comes from buying a bond for $105 that has a current face value of $100 and after a decade and inflation still has a real purchasing power of $100. The inflation adjustment protects against declining purchasing power of the $100; it doesn't protect against the $5 loss of value from buying at a premium.

@msf - You belong in the fixed income department at TRP or some other big player. :) Suspect your knowledge exceeds that of some who deal with these issues daily. Thanks. I’ll confess to a little “click-baiting” with my question about having negative interest subtracted from one’s TIPS fund. As you suggest, I think, it’s a possibility - though unlikely. More likely, I suspect, the “negative interest” might simply translate into a lower NAV. I wonder too whether some of the bigger players might “cover” negatively accrued interest should it be necessary in the same way they’ve propped up teetering money market funds in the past?
The tax repercussions are fascinating. As I’m only using TIPS in a sheltered account, that’s not an issue for me. Like millions of others, I was drawn in the direction of TIPS earlier this year for the same reasons mentioned in the Barron’s excerpt below. Unlike some, I realized that not all TIPS are the same and that with longer dated TIPS there was a strong likelihood one could loose money as Treasury rates surged. Price’s longer duration TIPS fund, PRIPX, is off 0.61% YTD. Fortunately, the limited-term TIPS index fund I went with is slightly positive - but “nothing to write home about.” While on the subject, TLDTX carries a 0.22% ER, making it a decent choice for idle funds you don’t want to commit to equities or other riskier holdings.
As the post has generated some interest among board members, I’m taking the liberty of quoting a longer (but abbreviated / edited) passage from the April 19 issue of Barrons :
“Investors in search of ways to protect their income against inflation may need to look further than they think: The market created for that purpose may not be a great choice, for either income or returns ... Treasury inflation-protected securities, or TIPS, have attracted investor cash this year as investors bet that a mix of economic reopening and U.S. government stimulus will drive prices higher in the U.S. Funds investing in TIPS have seen 25 consecutive weeks of inflows from investors since October of last year ...
“Their current yields should be a reason for caution among income investors in particular. At the moment, all TIPS maturities other than the 30-year offer negative yields. The 10-year TIPS note yields nearly minus 0.8%, the five-year note yields about minus 1.7%, and the two-year note yields minus 2.6% ... In theory, negative yields could translate into returns if inflation climbs persistently in coming years. But the trade isn’t a simple one. For it to pay off, there needs to be more inflation than the levels that are already priced into the market today.”
https://www.barrons.com/articles/tips-for-investors-look-elsewhere-for-inflation-protection-51618572606
Link may not work. Sometimes doing a search for the exact words in the excerpt will.

The biggest challenge for any investor involves aligning their tolerance for risk with the cyclical nature of the markets. Too many investors fail to balance their actual perception of risk with the way that the business cycle evolves as relative asset class risks change. A Counter-cyclical Indexing strategy can help us be er align the way investors perceive risk with the way we actually manage portfolios.

Interesting approach to managing risk assets as their relative risk changes with the business cycle:
Countercyclical-Indexing.pdf

"Anybody ever had their negative interest rate subtracted from a TIPS fund at the end of a month, quarter, year?"
There's likely more wrapped up in that question than many realize. First a few basic attributes of TIPS:

• They accumulate interest rather than pay it out (like a CD that only pays interest at maturity);
  
• They accumulate interest at a rate fixed at issue (not less than 0.125%) plus an inflation (or deflation) adjustment;
  
• At maturity they are guaranteed to pay at least the initial principal (even if accumulated deflation has reduced their value)

Even though TIPS are guaranteed to accumulate interest at a real rate of at least 1/8% (1/8% plus inflation adjustment), one can still buy TIPS yielding negative real rates. That's because TIPS can be sold above face value. For example, one might buy a 10 year TIPS at auction for $105. In 10 years, aside from inflation adjustments, it would pay 1.25% (10 x 0.125%) ignoring compounding but decline 5% in value - for a net negative real return.
The key here is that the negative rates are YTM, not just interest. If a fund owned only the single TIPS described, its share price would decline over a decade from $105 to $101.25, ignoring tax quirks (more below). No magic, no interest subtracted.
So far, I've been describing real rates and real returns. That's why I could simply disregard the inflation adjustment. It's that adjustment that "eliminates" the effect of inflation and leaves one with real rates. When we add in those adjustments, we usually get nominal rates that are positive.
February's 12 month CPI increase was 1.7%, the March figure is 2.6%. Based on these figures, all TIPS currently have nominal positive yields. With that, most concerns about the mechanics of negative rates go away.
Taxation of TIPS funds is where things get tricky. Even though TIPS don't pay out interest, they just accumulate it, the nominal interest is imputed. That means that somehow, a TIPS fund has to show that interest on your 1099-DIV. It does this by declaring dividends equal to the imputed interest. Remember, we're talking nominal interest, so this is generally a positive amount, even though the real return is negative.
For investors who reinvest dividends, this is largely an exercise on paper. Like dividends of any fund, the share price of the fund drops when it goes ex-div, investors are credited with extra shares at the lower price, the IRS is happy, and no real money changes hands.
For investors who take their dividends, the fund has to come up with real cash. That cash may come from dividends and interest of other securities, or in the case of a pure TIPS fund, the fund may have to sell off some securities to raise cash. Again, this is not really different from what any other fund does when it declares divs.
The more interesting question, for which I still don't have an answer, is the one I think hank had in mind - what happens when the nominal, imputed interest is negative. That happens when the fixed rate (positive) plus a deflation adjustment comes out negative.
For individual TIPS, you actually get to subtract that negative imputed interest from your income - but only to the extent that you'd previously imputed positive interest. (You get to carry over the remainder to use against future imputed interest.) See p. 3 of this paper on TIPS:
https://www.wintrustwealth.com/sites/default/files/Wintrust Wealth Management/Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities_2018_0.pdf
I have no idea what a fund is expected to report for negative imputed interest on your 1099, let alone what magic it could perform to create negative dividends.
Correction TIPS do pay out their fixed rate amount, it is only the inflation adjustment that is accrued. The amount of fixed interest gradually increases, since is is based on a growing (in nominal terms) principal amount.

Bill Miller - Founder, Miller Value Funds
“Some of the great investors of our time, Stanley Druckenmiller, Paul Tudor Jones, are gold bulls. Many people, if they're not gold bulls, they at least believe that it's possible inflation comes back with the Fed gunning the money supply here, and with more fiscal stimulus. I think it's reasonable to own gold.
With respect to bitcoin...it's been a great month for bitcoin, but it's also been a great year, year to date, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, and then inception, bitcoin's inception was 12 years ago, and it's been the single best performing asset category in every one of those periods. Not that it hasn't had a bad time, it went from nearly $20,000 down to the $3000-$4000 range, so it's been very volatile. But I think right now it's staying power gets better every day. I think the risks of bitcoin going to zero are much much lower than they've ever been before. And you're getting greater adoption. I mean, you know, MicroStrategy put half their cash, $400mm into bitcoin. Paypal announced that people can buy bitcoin. Square had blow out numbers yesterday due to their sales and demand for bitcoin. And the bitcoin story is very easy, which is that its supply demand it's it's economics, not 101, point 01, which is that bitcoin's supply is growing at about 2.5% per year, and the demand is growing faster than that. And there's gonna be a fixed number of them. So I think every major bank, every major investment bank, every major high net worth firm is gonna eventually have some exposure to bitcoin or what's like it.”
6 Nov 2020

Thx..what are your thoughts anout TMV
https://www.proshares.com/geared/treasury_bond_etfs.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjw1PSDBhDbARIsAPeTqrc-fGz12qkdaBG13YpByPgzQV6llj3AwL8lyqi-Blen5vaPNxT4Q3kaAj14EALw_wcB
Thx for any suggestions

https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=realyield
Good article in this weeks Barrons. Key take-away is that even with the inflation adjustment, most investors today are likely to lose money owning TIPS. Linked chart begins at 5 years. But apparently even shorter TIPS obligations (1-3 years) carry negative yields.
Anybody ever had their negative interest rate subtracted from a TIPS fund at the end of a month, quarter, year? Seems like that could happen ... I don’t pretend to understand them very well. Am dabbling a bit in TLDTX as a cash proxy and it’s slightly ahead YTD.
*From linked page
“Treasury Real Yield Curve Rates. These rates are commonly referred to as "Real Constant Maturity Treasury" rates, or R-CMTs. Real yields on Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) at "constant maturity" are interpolated by the U.S. Treasury from Treasury's daily real yield curve. These real market yields are calculated from composites of secondary market quotations obtained by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York ...”

@hank,
thanks for asking, appreciate the question as it makes me think...
I've always had the philosophy that one can hold opposing views concurrently. There is no law stating that you cannot, who says you have to pick a lane. I am inherently conservative, my parents were in Europe during WWII, saw first hand how your life can change on a dime and my Mom never liked the stock market, only CDs and MM's. My Dad was into Growth stocks, so I saw the balance of opposite views in my yute. I believe that most folks manage their monies similar to their parents as well as their eating habits etc.
I myself was an extremely aggressive investor in my early 20's going into my mid 30s then saw the baloney that starting taking place in 03, 04' etc with the housing market and the "this is contained within the real estate market"..I knew with that quote to head for the hills. Had a very minimal drawdown in my portfolio then. Haven't really trusted the markets since and really don't trust it now.
So the point of those stories is that I know I've been way too conservative but on the other hand so far I've generally kept my drawdowns to minimus and have slept fairly well at night. There are no gurantee's in life and anything can happen at any time. My whole philosophy is to limit drawdowns to a what is my own personal level which is mid single digits.
There is a part of me who thinks the markets are an absolute joke and you would be a fool to have a majority of your life savings in them and then the other side who thinks well if the CBs (central banks) are building up their BS'(balance sheets) you'd be a fool not to play along with the subsequent asset inflation.
I do hold a combo of mutual funds as well as a few individual stocks (HD, AWK, MSFT, ACN, TFX...) that I believe strongly in. Again, that is likely a things I picked up from my Dad who did that, he bought WMT stock years ago, yes, it has done well in the past 35 years and my Mom still owns it but had most of his monies in Fid Magellan, Selected American Shares, Growth mutual funds.
On the same hand I do own mutual funds, more $ than monies in indvid stonks.
PMEFX, ARTTX are some of them and lately been getting into FEVAX, no load, First Eagle US Value, likely going to get out of FPFIX, recent posting here made me recognize that I don't want to hold some of the underlying holdings of that fund.
Like most others here state, it kinda works for me, I don't recommend this to anyone else and I am just posting for entertainment value.
Good Luck and Good health to you Hank and all,
Baseball Fan

” I am ~ 75% cash/CD/IBonds. Market just seems to me artificial...too much BS ...”

Hmm .. @Baseball_Fan - A few days ago you sounded downright bullish. From your April 12 post (Thread: “Bond Duration Question”) - “On a side note...just increased my holdings in Home Depot to low six figures..”
Just curious whether you own any mutual funds? Or are you 75% cash/CD/bonds and the remainder directly in stocks?
Not nit-picking. Just trying to get a read on your methods so we all can learn from you.

@dtconroe,
Question for you...how do you know and how do you decide or put another way, when have you decided a black swan was coming and what did you do when you went totally to cash? What are your signals, technical? Wisdom/experience/gut feel?
FWIW and I am not making recommendations to anyone but I am ~ 75% cash/CD/IBonds.
Market just seems to me artificial...too much BS (balance sheet or bull sheet, use the term as you wish) of Central Banks.
Also, what is very worrisome is just talked to my sister this morning who lives in Munich, they are having terrible time with Covid, quasi-lockdown everywhere, virus mutant very bad in England, but here in the large midwest city, restaurants are packed, many not wearing masks, parties going on, "older" folks who have gotten vaccine feel invincible, folks all talking about where they are going to fly to on vacation in a few months...very concerning...but on the other hand, lot of vaccination going on too...who knows?
I just hope that we did not open up too early after Orange Man bad left office and now it is going to all be kumbaya.
Let's hope for all our sakes it all works out for the best.
Good Luck and good health to you and to all,
Baseball Fan

My wife and I maintain a HY Checking account, maintaining a balance in the $10k to $15K range. We also maintain about 10% of our taxable brokerage account in bond oefs, that have a solid history of making more interest/total return than a standard banking account, with a strong downmarket performance history. We can sell those brokerage assets quickly, and transfer them to our HY Checking Account in 2 to 3 days. We usually stay fully invested, except for those Black Swan periods, where we may go totally to cash and wait for good re-entry opportunities.

It's just another lazy piece by someone with column inches to fill.
Do a M* screen for taxable bond funds, AUM >= $100 (million), and 15 year returns >= 7.17% and you get a similar top 20 list. The results aren't identical because the screen is being run a week later, but the results are similar. All 20 funds I find have 15 year performances well above 7%; the ones in the column in the aggregate merely average above 7%.
Most of the funds are indeed HY funds. That's to be expected. A diversified portfolio of HY bonds should have better raw performance than IG portfolios over the long term since risk is theoretically rewarded in the marketplace.
There's another class of funds that one would expect to have performed well anytime in the past 40 years as interest rates declined: long term and/or zero coupon funds. Not only is this not helpful, these funds are likely to be some of the worst performing funds going forward as interest rates rise.
In the article's list are two IG funds with extended durations:WHOSX (hard to get higher grade than Treasuries) and VWETX. Also in the list is American Century's last remaining target date zero coupon bond fund, BTTRX. For most of its life it had a very long duration, due in part to its target date and in part due to holding all zeros.
Other long term IG funds that my top 20 screen turned up include: DEEIX (at 8.55%/year, the best 15 year performance), VBLLX (an index fund despite the article saying all top performing funds were actively managed), and CLDAX.
There's even an EM fund, GMCDX / GMDFX , that outperformed some of the article's funds over the past 15 years.
When all is said and done, the article and my addendums are just mindless and relatively useless screens.

Based on MFO Premium analysis:
1. RPGAX rated higher than DODBX on lower risk over 1, 3, and 5 years period.
2. RPGAX has lower maximum drawdown in March 2020, -15.7% versus -21.0%, than that of DODBX. The recovery period is 7 months versus 11 months in favor of RPGAX.
3. The ulcer index and Martin ratio are higher in RPGAX than those of DODBX.
If you already own a growth-oriented allocation fund such as PRWCX, pairing it with the DODBX would allow you to capture the recent shift to value stocks.
Even DODBX's $15B asset is not small, the firm should able to manage it well. BTW, D&C only managed 6 funds.
If I don't have any balance fund, RPGAX would be a solid choice.

I recently added to RPGAX and don’t own or contemplate buying DODBX, so I am not a neutral observer. I agree with @hank that the “global” label does not make an allocation fund much different from a “domestic” one, although another allocation fund I own, JBALX, owns no international stocks. Not sure about it’s 555 bonds, however.

@crash,
It is the Russian government OFZ bonds that you have to look for. US banks and brokerages will be forbid to buy these bonds, effectively cutting off foreign cash flow. Russian government bonds pay higher yield, over 7%, since they are not investment grade. They also carry considerably sovereign risk: default on debt payment and wars.
Based on the annual reports of several EM local currency bond funds and they have some Russian bonds:
1. Pimco Emerging market local currency bond, PELAX, 7.8%
2. TRP Emerging market local currency bond, PRELX, 8.5%
3. Vanguard Emerging market bond, VEMBX, 2.4%
The non local currency emerging market bond fund, PREMX have 4.38% Russian Foreign Bond - Eurobond.
Eurobond is a bond issued outside the home country of the issuer through an international syndicate and sold to investors residing in various countries. You should be okay for now.

I own both. Good funds. This is purely hypothetical.
If you were going to sell part or all of one to raise portfolio cash, which is the better one to retain going forward (1-3 years)?
- In favor of keeping RPGAX: Has 10% in a Blackstone hedge fund that should protect somewhat in a bear market, has solid conservative management at TRP, probably has had a more level performance record since inception (but didn’t exist in 2008).
- In favor of keeping DODBX: Much lower ER (.53% vs .95%), Is more in-tune with the recent shift towards value, bond portion is managed by the same folks that run their excellent DODIX
MaxFunds is of little help. Forecasts a “worst case” (1 year) loss of 60% for RPGAX and a slightly worse 65% loss for DODBX. On the one-year upside potential, they’re rated identically. However, MaxFunds rates RPGAX much more highly overall. This appears largely based on their assessment that DODBX is bloated.
*Note - I don’t think the “global” vs “domestic” issue is worth fretting over here. DODBX typically holds some foreign stocks - more than one might think.

Unfortunately, the long list of bond funds that johnN posted are apparently all high yield funds. Using the best 15-year returns is not exactly very helpful if you want to have some diversity in the bond funds you select for your portfolio.
Fred

https://investornews.vanguard/5-investing-principles-that-are-built-to-last/
investing principles that are built to last
**Markets are unpredictable and investment fads come and go. Already in 2021, we’ve seen speculative behavior around AMC and Gamestop and overheated trading based on emotions rather than fundamentals. At Vanguard, we believe you can stay on the path to long-term financial success by avoiding trends and focusing on balance, discipline, and diversification.**
Is Jack Brennan Bogle*s long lost brother?

The old deck lumber we removed aged considerably and they hold little value. The climate here is tough on lumber products - hot in summer and wet in winter. The combined swelling and drying out processes require annual coating. Even at best effort the walking surfaces would last the most 5 years. Plastic lumber survives better and there are newer PVC-coated aluminum panels out now.

We resurfaced our deck several years ago with plastic lumber. Given the wet climate in Pacific Northwest wood products do not last. Last time I checked wood decking lumber was more than 40-50% higher than that of a year ago.

Built a new side deck with lumber last summer. I’m thinking if it keeps going up in value I may be able to tear it out and sell the lumber this summer for 50% more than I paid back than. :)
Certainly some “inflation psychology” evident with building products - despite the Fed’s admonition that it’s only “transitory”. What are they smokin?