@Charles
I agree with your assessments. I also think that non-agency RMBS/CMBC/other will come around in several months(maybe weeks) and where I will start buying again.
The question is do I want to be in funds with mostly securitized (IOFIX,EIXIX,SEMMX,VCFAX,DPFNX) and making more money potentially or take a less risky approach and buy something like PIMIX(more diversified) or both.
If I look at YTD (chart), EIXIX would be my choice to get back into this category but we are not there yet :-)

I think you missed my main point. If you use his services he has 3 portfolios for you to select from, the funds/ETF/CEFs/whatever in each and all the trades he does. So yes, you do know his portfolios in detail.
Going to cash with these portfolios and/or what other managers do? I doubt many do it because most managers don't have this flexibility, after all, you pay them to invest your money. Over the years I looked at many mutual funds and from memory, I remember Romick with FPACX at 30-40% cash and Eric Cinnamond in 2008-9 (can't remember the fund) was over 50% in cash.
I don't know any fund that invests at any given time so much in cash.
But, I can do what I want and it's the first time I ever sold everything. It was a great move I will remember for many years to come and probably saved me about 25-30%.
I did sell in the past 20-40% but never that much.
My situation has changed too, I'm retired now so protecting my capital is very important.
So, maybe you should say good for you. I love when other investors are making money and making great moves.
Since I'm flexible I can own any fund at any given time and since last week I'm mostly in HY munis. Why do you need to see my portfolio at all times? if you know my style (2-3 funds) and I said in January this year and several times after that I owned HY Munis and the 3 funds I like are NHMAX,ORNAX,OPTAX and the rest are in Multi and I mentioned IOFIX as the best one, you don't need to be rocket scientist to know that I probably own 2-3 funds out of these 4 funds.
In the last 1-2 days, I also said that since last week I'm in again mostly in HY munis, which funds do think I have? really?

I think right now Munis would be my highest bond conviction asset and why I'm invested in them in at a very high %. There was a lot of carnage but the Fed is supporting treasuries and Munis.
I don't want to be in treasuries which relate to rates
Don't want HY which correlates to stocks.
Corp bonds are going up too but harder to figure out because they go from junk to high-rated but...are high-rated bonds really high when the company is in trouble.
Munis may be OK no matter what rates or stocks are doing. The Muni ETF and funds are exploding up for several days.
MBS/securitized is untouchable such as VCFAX,SEMMX,IOFIX,even DHEAX lost a lot
Multi can be another option if you don't know what to do.
PIMIX looks OK but PDIIX rebound is better + AUM is smaller + much more diversified

Yay! HYD and HYMB also up strong today and closed discounts to VWLAX prices. Maybe too this will help redemptions stop for IOFIX. Maybe it's fed intervening in market in general, offering MF firms interest free cash for redemptions. I don't know. Maybe a sense from SPY that things will not be as bad as thought ... today in fact we entered a bull market. (Smile.) c

@MikeW,
I am still holding onto my IOFIX position.

Good one MikeM. M* kinda of rubbing investors' noses in it ... "You should have been invested in one of our metal rated funds." And yes, they get to take a bow ... this March I sure wish I had been in PIMIX! But honestly, for the last 3 years, I was happier in IOFIX. Can I add that into the ROI equation? Otherwise, I think the article is pretty informative.
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/974632/market-turmoil-has-bent-bond-mutual-funds-but-most-have-not-broken

From a M* article posted today--
The most vulnerable strategies in the current environment have been flashing red well in advance. For example, AlphaCentric Income Opportunities (IOFIX), a multisector bond fund that has invested the majority of its assets in mezzanine subprime MBS, has experienced heavy redemptions in recent weeks. Given that the portfolio was roughly 95% invested in nonagency residential mortgage credit, it’s highly unlikely the managers were able to raise cash to meet those redemptions without locking in losses in the current environment. The fund has erased more than 40% of its value for its shareholders since the beginning of March, with most of those losses coming in the last several trading days.
But that fund’s highly aggressive approach already made it an outlier relative to competitors in the multisector bond category, which is home to funds with a greater appetite for credit-sensitive sectors. Its portfolio chock-full of subordinated mortgage credit avoided by other fund managers, its indeterminate credit quality profile (most of the fund’s holdings were nonrated), and absence of high-quality holdings to provide liquidity should have raised concerns for any investor. The fund’s chart-topping returns in recent years--its trailing three-year annualized return of 10.4% through February 2020 outpaced its next closest competitors’ by a full 300 basis points--should have also raised questions about the risks its managers were taking to achieve those results.

Still own IOFIX. Found a recent article similar to Davfor concerning IOFIX sell-off:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-alphacentric/fund-manager-alphacentric-looks-to-raise-cash-as-coronavirus-bites-idUSKBN21A1PG
(similar excerpt about IOFIX in today's WSJ)

wow, IOFIX only -1.3% today
But, SEMMX (more conservative with SD around 1-1.2) was down another -2.95%

@Graust, not sure what you were looking at. As of yesterday's close, IOFIX was down over -34% for 1Y, and even through Friday's close it was about -25%.
@BenWP, I get the joke, but maybe you could use another analogy given SA's horrendous record of racehorse deaths? I'd hate to think that our investments could go down for the count at any time.
@franktrdr, I read that article on SA, and others describing the mayhem in the FI markets. I believe the author may have been mistaken about CEF NAVs. AFAIK, they are still only published weekly. M* shows a daily as of date, but in the cases of the CEFs I hold, the manager's website only updates weekly and the value on M* only changes weekly. I'm not certain as to whether or not there are any other sources which are updated more frequently.
In all my days, and I'm talking pre-1987 crash by more than a decade, I've never seen anything like this environment, and, I can also say that I've never seen a fund with a perfect '100' scorecard across all linked time-periods on M*, as is the situation for this fund. 'Never say never'.
To try and figure out whether this fund is ever worth going back into, much less now when things are so crazy that, e.g. Vanguard's Muni MM has a 7-day yield of 3%!!!!, Charles is absolutely right, things need to settle down, and then I'd look for funds that maybe weren't so great on the way up, but didn't kill you on the way down.
One final comment on the TLT price breaks vs. NAV. USTs are the Gold Standard for collateral, repos, derivatives, etc., so when things start to unwind, and counter-parties can't make payments, they can lose the bonds and the new holders may be very eager to liquidate because they don't want the interest rate risk (in addition to whatever else is on their balance sheets). Hence, fire sales abound. There was also a story last week about a CME clearing firm (Ronin Capital) that went belly up (dealer-to-dealer) and whose assets had to be auctioned off.
Be careful out there!

@catch22 Actually I would challenge the notion. It is not secret I am bond challenged. I've also mentioned 007 doesn't know jack s*** - stirred tastes better than shaken.
When I buy bond funds I HAVE to trust the manager. This the reason I seldom buy bond funds outright. Imagine buying IOFIX "knowing what's under the hood". I'm just glad I didn't buy it.
Back to RPHYX and RSIVX. I expected these to be low risk funds. Now "low risk" is in the eye of the beholder. However when I look at FPNIX, at least I have some confidence. With RPHYX...mea. With RSIVX I'm not happy.
I bought RPHYX and FPNIX risking funds I would otherwise have put in money market.
I bought RSIVX because I thought PTTRX is risky. WTF? Please tell me ONE person who thought PTTRX is a better risk/reward bets in the "sky is falling on bonds" world where every Tom, Dick and Harry is saying buy funds with short durations. They've been wrong on this for at least 10 years.
But tell you what. Let me but PTTRX. It will promptly tank 20%.

ANGLX joined the party of "LOW SD SECURITIZED" category when it lost -3.6% today.   From the high(or pretty close to it) on March 4th, SEMMX lost 16+%...ANGLX 14+%...VCFAX close to 14%....IOFIX over 42%...DPFNX 19%...DHEAX 8.5...PMZIX 17%...BDKAX over 60%

The SAGA of securitized isn't over yet

Crazy that IOFIX still has a double digit 1 year return.
Could this possibly be a way to play normalizing bond markets....whenever that actually occurs? Will it’s portfolio dramatically “reprice” and “gain” NAV rapidly? Just asking hypothetically (I completely lucked out and sold from all accounts I have/help with at the beginning of March (when it was only losing a percent or two, every day, not 10-20%)).

New filing for IOFIX concerning liquidity risk:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1355064/000158064220001282/alphacentric497s.htm

For what it is worth I think the issue with IOFIX is they were forced to sell thinly traded bonds at any price to meet redemptions after they exhausted their line of credit ( I seem to remember $200 million??)
Since these bonds probably sell "by appointment" and I think by phone anybody they called knew they were in trouble and offered low ball prices seeing if they would bite. They had not choice
Once they sold at those low ball levels, there is a price and more of the portfolio gets "marked to market" and the NAV is automatically that much lower, even if the bonds in the fund are really worth much more.
With corporate bonds that mature, like in ZEOIX, the mangers will tell you just to hang on and bonds that mature will mature at par in a few months or so, raising the NAV by that much. I don't know the duration of IOFIX, but if the mortgages mature in 10 to 15 years it will be a long time before they hit "par". Many homeowners may also have enough equity to refinance but that would be a redemption at par and would just reduce the interest payment. but "raise" the NAV.

Got it. So in this environment we must all be watching prices daily? I know that is a strategy and certainly works well for Junkster. I understand one reason ETFs started was in response to Black Monday 1987. Maybe some assets (and some types of funds ... IOFIX?) need to be traded daily. Junkster is a day trader. It is one approach to investing, which I suspect is not suitable for most of us. Our MFO screening tools only use monthly data. Of no use here. March's month ending data will (most likely) mark the end of the last bull market (the 5th since 1960) and the beginning of a new business cycle.

Yep, in a real meltdown like 2008 and 2020, correlation goes much higher. CEFs actually lost a lot more. Funds with extra risk such as NHMAX+IOFIX lost more than similar funds.
In the above situation, treasuries do best. Remember Bogle 2 simple indexes SP500 + US Total bond index(which is not all treasuries but a good LT index)?

I posted this information also in the IOFIX thread but thought it might merit a thread of it's own. For those who are interested:
If you would just like to see the PIMCO blog report: PIMCO's blog Insight Report
For further discussion on mortgage backed securities you might want to give this M* community discussion a look.
PIMCO says mortgage-backed securities are cheap
Also a good discussion of what has been happening in mortgage bond land lately by Lou Barnes at Premier Mortgage Group:
Mortgage Credit News March 20, 2020

I had several hundred thousand in IOFIX but I sold most of it on Feb 28 and all on March 9. That was based on the fact that stocks are crashing + bonds don't behave rationally to rate drop + even treasuries didn't act on rates properly every day + thousands global coronavirus + VIX > 50. Let's call it what it is..a black swan.
The market will turn and I will first look at the 2 funds I owned several weeks ago. NHMAX = HY Muni (includes leverage > 20%) + IOFIX. What comes down further usually goes up faster.
Several months ago I talked to the manager of EIXIX and he explicitly mentioned that his holdings have a much lower risk than IOFIX and one day IOFIX will explode.
The Pimco guys always say that MBS is the best place to be ;-)
AGC has great articles about CEFs but you get a lot of info on fixed income...see this (article)
"So what do you do at this point?
Sitting still and doing nothing can be the hardest thing in the world but is likely the best course of action. Resist selling and even buying much of anything at this point. We need to see some stabilization before really buying anything further: 1) we need volatility (VIX) to peak and start to subside. 2) Oil prices need to stabilize. 3) We need to see new cases of COVID19 trend similar to China or South Korea with the second derivative trail off.
Once these things happen, we believe that the market will bottom and start their recovery."
As usual, I follow my chart/trends and they come directly from the price which is the end result of the opinions of all traders.

If I read the letter correctly, they essentially say that some part of the equities market is substantially damaged, whereas the homes still stay and their owners are reliably paying mortgages, so their assets are fundamentally intact. Does it sound as a reasonable argument? Or maybe people were paying their mortgages while they had regular income, part of it is less guaranteed now?
Since many of us learned about IOFIX reading discussions at MFO, maybe some members of MFO would like to schedule a call with one of the portfolio managers, as they suggested, and then share with us their impressions.
Charles, you had a first hand experience with them, so maybe you better than many of us may understand what changed since the time you visited them, and what can be expected? Of course, they themselves may not have a full picture, and the situation will surely remain volatile for quite a while, but if you or someone else would be willing to make this call, I am sure that it would be really appreciated by many of us.