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- The SD metric incorporates daily price movements. No need to manually pore over individual price charts imo - Selective cherry picking of dates for unclear reasons. I.e. A 3 year chart of QDSIX is being looked at alongside YTD charts for SPY (no idea why SPY even entered the picture in a discussion for bond funds but anyway..) - My suggestion of QDSIX as a candidate for replacing a standard bond fund (such as BND) was initially explained as per below
To me the label of Bond fund is less relevant than whether it has served the function of a bond fund. I.e. Decent return and low max dd. With that frame, here are some funds that have returned 7% or higher during the last 5Y with a drawdown of 3% or lower.
CEDIX, 15.6, 2.4 VFLEX 10, 2.1 LCTIX 7.4, 2.5
as compared to CBLDX 6.1, 1.4 PFIIX 4.5, 7.3 PAIIX 2.6, 8.9
The last two would be no-go's for me with those performance and max dd numbers.
Subsequently I proposed QDSIX too (in response to a question asked by a forum member) with justification as per below
Key take-aways CAGR of 12.59% vs. -0.43% MaxDD 4.45% vs. 17.54% Sortino 2.85 vs. -0.64
Short story is that QDSIX has blown the lights out of BND across various time periods since inception in 2020 at significantly lower volatility.
And finally, in response to the selective cherry picking of dates by @FD1000 (Note: I never proposed QLEIX to be a substitute for a bond fund, I have no idea just like SPY why QLEIX entered the picture in a bond fund thread but anyway..).
3Y (10/1/22 to 09/30/25) Return & Risk Stats of QLEIX, QDSIX CAGR: 13.41, 32.55 SD: 6.62, 8.39
Is QLEIX CAGR a lot better than QDSIX for above time period for comparable risk? Sure, I think that is a reasonable argument to make
But zoom out to the inception to date performance of QDSIX (July 2020 to Sep 2025) as compared to QLEIX and the numbers are CAGR: 12.59, 24.84 SD: 6.5, 12.05 MaxDD: 4.45, 15.98
In short, I don't see QLEIX is a replacement for QDSIX but YMMV. I certainly see QDSIX as a strong replacement for BND but I ack the comments from others that QDSIX is a young fund that has not been battle tested.
Monthly data is utilized for Portfolio Visualizer analyses while daily data is incorporated in Portfolio Backtester analyses. Consequently, results will vary.
Portfolio Backtester generated the following results for QDSIX, QLEIX, and QMNIX during the same period. CAGR: 11.97%, 25.11%, 18.37% Max. Drawdown: -7.06%, -17.07%, -14.05% Sharpe: 1.16, 1.91, 1.51 Sortino: 1.57, 2.79, 2.20 https://testfol.io/?s=4JX16KUrEm3
¹ Jul. 2020 - Sep. 2025 (constrained by available data for QDSIX).
I very much appreciate low volatility and limited potential for drawdowns. So with 5% to 7% per annum being my target, I've been setting up the following bond alt sleeve:
@JD_co. Big fan of PRPFX here. Have it in both taxable and retirement accounts. My question is on what data are you placing ALLW in taxable accounts? Seems like turnover might be part of the plan. Lots of gains that would be taxable?
Portfolio Visualizer (PV), Morningstar and MFO Premium use MONTHLY returns as their inputs, so the details within the month are hidden/lost.
TestFol and Stock Rover use DAILY returns as inputs, so their MPT stats are different - typically higher/worse due to higher volatility captured.
I did try PV and TestFol for QDSIX, but it didn't resolve the DD issue. Problem was that due to volatility, TestFol restarted DD clock multiple times based on daily data while the DD period in PV didn't change and was longer. So, the result was counterintuitive - TestFol had LOWER DD than PV (typically, it's just the opposite).
As the previous thread was going off the main topic, I didn't want to introduce new factors by posting, but this is a NEW thread.
@JD_co. Big fan of PRPFX here. Have it in both taxable and retirement accounts. My question is on what data are you placing ALLW in taxable accounts? Seems like turnover might be part of the plan. Lots of gains that would be taxable?
We shall see, thanks for pointing this out. ALLW distributes annually with 12-31 ex-date.
Per their website: "Despite investing in commodity-linked derivatives, the fund does not issue a Schedule K-1 as the fund holds the commodity-linked derivatives through a wholly-owned Cayman Islands subsidiary to minimize non-qualifying income."
For decades now, I don't look at one sleeve of my portfolio but the whole portfolio. This allows me to use all categories. I came to the conclusion to only hold leading categories/funds and look for the portfolio's total risk-adjusted performance and limited number of funds. In retirement it's a lot more important for me to have much lower volatility. I pay less attention to performance because I have enough.
Simple example: Instead of holding stocks + bond fund I may use QLEIX instead in the last 5 years. Suppose I want just 30% in stocks. Instead of 30/70 VOO/BND, I select VOO/RCTIX. See 10 years (https://testfol.io/?s=18uGeuEjL0F)
I don't believe in portfolio sleeves or core bond funds at all. I am oversimplifying it but I think in terms of high volatility and low volatility.
Loosely, below is how I screen and pick - Funds with volatility below 5% and returns above 10%. If I don't get matches, I loosen the selection criteria. - Review the investment strategy, track record, managers, current macro, projected macro, etc.. and pick or discard. - Same as above for high vol where vol is below 20% and returns a few points higher than a selected benchmark (the benchmark will vary, examples include SPY, VT, etc..). The main idea is that an active fund should be worth picking over a passive fund - I generally stay away from sector, buffered, single intl country, crypto, EM debt. - Overall my goal is to have a balanced mix of high octane funds (AVALX for example) and hedges (QDSIX, QMNIX, QLEIX, EGRIX for example) - MFOP hands down is the best screener out there (and I have used a few dozen) but intra month I rely on barchart.com (limited screening functionality but performance is updated daily) - At this moment my favored hedge is EGRIX and I am looking at scaling into AVALX, AVDV, FPADX, QNZIX.
@FD1000. Big agreement with you here. The entire portfolio is THE THING. I call it paying attention to a “single metric “. I record the portfolio balance on 12/31/. Everything else is noise. I admit I listen to the noise at too high a volume and too often. But I try to pay attention to my single metric. And I use a benchmark that corresponds with my general asset allocation.
@FD1000. Big agreement with you here. The entire portfolio is THE THING. I call it paying attention to a “single metric “. I record the portfolio balance on 12/31/. Everything else is noise. I admit I listen to the noise at too high a volume and too often. But I try to pay attention to my single metric. And I use a benchmark that corresponds with my general asset allocation.
I do that, too: record my year-end total, so I can watch and compare the next year's growth (or not, if I've been stoopid.) KISS it. I'm down to 9 positions, and in terms of size, 1 of them is like an afterthought. That 9 positions includes Cash. 5 funds and 3 single stocks.
Don't wanna end up like Moonlight Graham, who got called up to The Show, but never got to bat. I'd rather make my own mistakes, particularly since I know some stuff by now, unlike when I first began investing. Like Annie Savoy told Crash Davis: "young men are uncomplicated." That's the way I like the portfolio. Uncomplicated.
P.S. I just discovered that a couple of the prospects I'd been watching (ADRs) are traded OTC and would come with a commission, if I bought. I'm not buying.
@stayCalm - first off I need to say that the possibility of investing in an alternative fund to bonds with such a low correlation to equity was very appealing and I was all set to invest. But as I looked more closely, I realized I had no idea what this fund of funds was actually about. Even in the video, Cliff Asness didn’t clearly understand why the quant funds were doing so well, or at least I didn’t hear an explanation I could understand.
So, given that my excitement about the possibility of finding some unicorn fund, which was making money from 2021 to the present, I kept thinking if something looks too good to be true, well perhaps…
So I bailed on the buy.
That really doesn’t answer your question directly, but given that it became a no go for me (at the moment - one never knows), I have no real answer, cause I just don’t know.
MGOIX is classified as an intermediate core bond fund by M*. However, it's 93% taxable munis, which is not a mix you see all the time.
I ended up buying a slice just to take a little risk on longer duration. The IRA is still under two years overall.
According to MFO P, the correlation of MGOIX to VOO is .25 over the life of the youngest fund. MFO P defaults to MGAVX, which is the oldest share class.
Needless to add that this is not a recommendation. It's only about 6% of my IRA.
EGRIX imo is a better bond alt than QDISX. But certainly still a lot riskier than a straight bond fund. One has to have very high faith in manager capabilities.
@Rbrt, FADMX is a middle-of-the-road multisector bond fund. It may not be as exciting as PONAX / PIMIX, PYLD, LSBRX / LSBDX, BINC. Even Vanguard has VMSAX / VMSIX.
EGRIX imo is a better bond alt than QDISX. But certainly still a lot riskier than a straight bond fund. One has to have very high faith in manager capabilities.
Where is the risk? In the last 1-3-5 years EGRIX did better than "safe" funds such as DODIX,BND. See chart
FD, how something 'did' is not an accurate indication of its level of risk. Similarly, recent results are reflected in every one of those 1-3-5 year results. Rolling returns would be a better metric, imo. It's a data point, certainly, but I continue to think that you have a tendency to equate 'risk' with short-term results, and I don't think the two are reliably linked.
EGRIX imo is much riskier than a plain vanilla bond fund due to it's strategy -- long/short, lotsa macro calls, frontier market holdings, FX risk, etc..
It has performed really well with an amazingly low SD with the falling dollar as a tailwind. But that outperformance go forward isn’t pre-ordained. I am a happy holder with a single digit position.
Comments
- The SD metric incorporates daily price movements. No need to manually pore over individual price charts imo
- Selective cherry picking of dates for unclear reasons. I.e. A 3 year chart of QDSIX is being looked at alongside YTD charts for SPY (no idea why SPY even entered the picture in a discussion for bond funds but anyway..)
- My suggestion of QDSIX as a candidate for replacing a standard bond fund (such as BND) was initially explained as per below Subsequently I proposed QDSIX too (in response to a question asked by a forum member) with justification as per below And finally, in response to the selective cherry picking of dates by @FD1000 (Note: I never proposed QLEIX to be a substitute for a bond fund, I have no idea just like SPY why QLEIX entered the picture in a bond fund thread but anyway..).
3Y (10/1/22 to 09/30/25) Return & Risk Stats of QLEIX, QDSIX
CAGR: 13.41, 32.55
SD: 6.62, 8.39
Is QLEIX CAGR a lot better than QDSIX for above time period for comparable risk? Sure, I think that is a reasonable argument to make
But zoom out to the inception to date performance of QDSIX (July 2020 to Sep 2025) as compared to QLEIX and the numbers are
CAGR: 12.59, 24.84
SD: 6.5, 12.05
MaxDD: 4.45, 15.98
In short, I don't see QLEIX is a replacement for QDSIX but YMMV. I certainly see QDSIX as a strong replacement for BND but I ack the comments from others that QDSIX is a young fund that has not been battle tested.
while daily data is incorporated in Portfolio Backtester analyses.
Consequently, results will vary.
Portfolio Visualizer generated the following results for QDSIX, QLEIX, and QMNIX respectively¹.
CAGR: 12.59%, 24.84%, 18.14%
Max. Drawdown: -4.45%, -15.98%, -10.52%
Sharpe: 1.42, 1.68, 1.28
Sortino: 2.85, 3.63, 2.66
https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio?s=y&sl=4yoNaAO46AdhkOrEsxJKG2
Portfolio Backtester generated the following results for QDSIX, QLEIX, and QMNIX during the same period.
CAGR: 11.97%, 25.11%, 18.37%
Max. Drawdown: -7.06%, -17.07%, -14.05%
Sharpe: 1.16, 1.91, 1.51
Sortino: 1.57, 2.79, 2.20
https://testfol.io/?s=4JX16KUrEm3
¹ Jul. 2020 - Sep. 2025 (constrained by available data for QDSIX).
IRA:
PAPIX - Option trading
ARBIX/ARBOX - Hedged Equity
HMEZX - Merger Arb
BUYW - Option income
Taxable acct:
BALT - Wealth Defender - Defined outcome ETF (capped)
ALLW - SPDR Bridgewater All-Weather ETF (Ray Dalio)
PSFF - Buffered FOF
PRPFX
It will be interesting to see if it gets me there. Expecting a market test at some point to see how it floats.
Adding BND to your analysis results in following stats for the same dates
CAGR: -0.37%
DD: 18.58%
So at least for this 5 year stretch, QDSIX would have been a fantastic proxy for BND.
TestFol and Stock Rover use DAILY returns as inputs, so their MPT stats are different - typically higher/worse due to higher volatility captured.
I did try PV and TestFol for QDSIX, but it didn't resolve the DD issue. Problem was that due to volatility, TestFol restarted DD clock multiple times based on daily data while the DD period in PV didn't change and was longer. So, the result was counterintuitive - TestFol had LOWER DD than PV (typically, it's just the opposite).
As the previous thread was going off the main topic, I didn't want to introduce new factors by posting, but this is a NEW thread.
Per their website:
"Despite investing in commodity-linked derivatives, the fund does not issue a Schedule
K-1 as the fund holds the commodity-linked derivatives through a wholly-owned Cayman
Islands subsidiary to minimize non-qualifying income."
This allows me to use all categories.
I came to the conclusion to only hold leading categories/funds and look for the portfolio's total risk-adjusted performance and limited number of funds.
In retirement it's a lot more important for me to have much lower volatility. I pay less attention to performance because I have enough.
Simple example:
Instead of holding stocks + bond fund I may use QLEIX instead in the last 5 years.
Suppose I want just 30% in stocks. Instead of 30/70 VOO/BND, I select VOO/RCTIX. See 10 years (https://testfol.io/?s=18uGeuEjL0F)
Loosely, below is how I screen and pick
- Funds with volatility below 5% and returns above 10%. If I don't get matches, I loosen the selection criteria.
- Review the investment strategy, track record, managers, current macro, projected macro, etc.. and pick or discard.
- Same as above for high vol where vol is below 20% and returns a few points higher than a selected benchmark (the benchmark will vary, examples include SPY, VT, etc..). The main idea is that an active fund should be worth picking over a passive fund
- I generally stay away from sector, buffered, single intl country, crypto, EM debt.
- Overall my goal is to have a balanced mix of high octane funds (AVALX for example) and hedges (QDSIX, QMNIX, QLEIX, EGRIX for example)
- MFOP hands down is the best screener out there (and I have used a few dozen) but intra month I rely on barchart.com (limited screening functionality but performance is updated daily)
- At this moment my favored hedge is EGRIX and I am looking at scaling into AVALX, AVDV, FPADX, QNZIX.
Don't wanna end up like Moonlight Graham, who got called up to The Show, but never got to bat. I'd rather make my own mistakes, particularly since I know some stuff by now, unlike when I first began investing. Like Annie Savoy told Crash Davis: "young men are uncomplicated." That's the way I like the portfolio. Uncomplicated.
P.S. I just discovered that a couple of the prospects I'd been watching (ADRs) are traded OTC and would come with a commission, if I bought. I'm not buying.
Any ideas (other than the usual munis and Treasuries) for taxable accounts for an investor in a higher tax bracket?
https://funds.aqr.com/News/2025/AQR-Launches-the-AQR-Fusion-Mutual-Fund-Series
Edit: oh wait, there’s QDSNX.
Why this particular AQR fund vs. others such as Risk Premia, Style Premia, Long-Short, Market Neutral, Trend, etc..
So, given that my excitement about the possibility of finding some unicorn fund, which was making money from 2021 to the present, I kept thinking if something looks too good to be true, well perhaps…
So I bailed on the buy.
That really doesn’t answer your question directly, but given that it became a no go for me (at the moment - one never knows), I have no real answer, cause I just don’t know.
I ended up buying a slice just to take a little risk on longer duration. The IRA is still under two years overall.
According to MFO P, the correlation of MGOIX to VOO is .25 over the life of the youngest fund. MFO P defaults to MGAVX, which is the oldest share class.
Needless to add that this is not a recommendation. It's only about 6% of my IRA.
QDSIX is indeed a complex black box. I suspect Asness in the clip was referring to QNZIX
In the last 1-3-5 years EGRIX did better than "safe" funds such as DODIX,BND.
See chart
https://schrts.co/zdsBuVQk
It has performed really well with an amazingly low SD with the falling dollar as a tailwind. But that outperformance go forward isn’t pre-ordained. I am a happy holder with a single digit position.