@Roy, you have what it takes to hold such a fund… more power to you.
@Sven, PRWCX may fall into “group think”… I owned Pimco Income and then the winds changed… winds change so we adjust your sails.
@hank, thanks for your suggestion and comments… In 2023, with retirement looming, I have structured a portion of my portfolio to provide short term income needs. I am comfortable with a 10% loss over the short term (5 years or less) so positions in cash, ST Bonds and funds such as VWINX will hopefully meet my yearly income needs.
If I am lucky enough to not need all of my portfolio to continually fund my 5 year income needs, I will fund longer term investment in funds like PRWCX. I also feel funds in the healthcare and Tech sector (nod to @Ted) continue to be long term trends that I would also consider.

The following individuals are listed by Giroux at the end of his letter and unless I am mistaken, they are all dedicated staff to PRWCX (Mike Signore, Chen Tian, Nikhil Shah, Vivek Rajeswaran, Brian Solomon, and Jared Duda) in addition to all the TRP analysts, associate analysts and quantitative analysts.
So, while Giroux has final say on the portfolio, he is receiving a lot of assistance.
As many of you know from previous postings, we have most of our investments in this one fund. First moved most of our retirement funds into this fund late in 2006 when Giroux was still new, just dumb luck as the move was based on prior performance of the fund and the desire to simplify and reduce volatility. Once we retire or decide 60% + in equities is more than we are comfortable with, this could very easily change. I'm very glad Giroux is 12 years younger than I as this means he may be PM another 10-15 years, fingers crossed!

@bee, Never owned VWINX. Been tracking it all year and am very impressed. Steady Eddy if there ever was. As of yesterday it was down less than 7% YTD. One compeditor, PRSIX i like to track is off over 10% at this point. I guess there’s a roughly .50% difference in fees, which accounts for part, but not all, of that difference,
Just watching PRWCX almost since inception I would consider it too risky to use as the sole ingredient in a retirement / staged withdrawal plan. But I’ve been taking aim at it for couple decades now and it continues to defy my worst forebodings. Look at virtually any other fund run by T. Rowe and you’ll find periods of overperformance and underperformance. But not this one - yet. Just rambling here. Hats off to Giroux for the job he’s done. One wonders who might replace him some day.

Using Mutual Funds for Retirement Income
I have posed this question to myself... could a fund... or funds serve as a funding source for inflation adjusted retirement income?
Withdrawal Scenario:
If a retiree started taking a 4% safe withdrawal rate from a $100,000 investment in PRWCX, how would this fund and the income withdrawn over time fare (3, 5,10, and 15 year) later? Portfolio Visualizer can't predict future returns, but it does allow a user to look back over stressful and successful market conditions.
To stress test this scenario using PV, I add a market hurdle where by the retiree starts withdrawing from retirement savings at the end 2006. They buy $100,000 worth of PRWCX (or a portfolio of these types of funds) and began taking a 4% yearly withdrawal each year, from 2007 going forward ( 15 year time frame). Over the first two years of retirement, the "annuity portfolio" experienced a 41% loss in value as well as absorbed the required 4% income withdrawals (4% annuity payment). That's stressful.
Questions:
Over those first two years of retirement (2007 - 2009), the $100,000 portfolio (stand alone portfolio of just PRWCX) would have dropped to $63,000. Could a retiree hang in there through these first two years? The retiree's withdrawal rate of 4% may have started at $4,000 (4% of $100K), but as the portfolio dropped in value, their next year's withdrawal dwindle to a little less than $3,000 (4% of $63,00) in 2008. Having a cash/ ST bond component to this portfolio might provide a buffer...especially at the start of retirement.
We have had an investment environment over the last 15 years that has included both monetary stimulus (QE and lowering interest rates) and market shocks (GFC, Covid, Supply disruptions and the rise interest rates). ISTM that a collection of well managed allocation funds could help individual investors balance the risks of the day with the rewards of the day.
PRWCX seems successful at this. VWINX and VWELX are two others that I run retirement withdrawal scenarios with. Do you have a favorite? Maybe a collection of these would be a better approach. It would help reduce manager risk and might diversify manager strategies.
Here's a link to Portfolio Visualizer where you could run some of your own scenarios:
PRWCX as an Annuity

Speaking of pension funds, I just read the other day that the SF retirement fund is 112% funded. Unbelievable! We finally are doing something right.

I wonder how this trend might affect the TIAA Real Estate fund, which IIRC had a lot of prime office buildings? Remote work trends in many sectors definitely is having an impact on the need for costly "downtown" office properties, let alone large office properties generally. I don't think things will ever go back 100% to the way they were pre-Covid.
Pension Funds Are Selling Their Office Buildings
https://www.wsj.com/articles/pension-funds-are-selling-their-office-buildings-11661381460
Major U.S. and Canadian pension funds are cutting back investments in office buildings, betting that prices will likely fall as the five-day office workweek becomes a thing of the past.
Retirement funds are still buying property, partly in a bid to reduce the impact of inflation. But those investments are more focused on warehouses, lab space, housing and infrastructure such as airports.
The shift is part of a broader transition away from traditional real estate holdings in offices and shopping centers as the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the rise of e-commerce and remote work.
< - >
North American public pension funds manage more than $6 trillion and allocated an average of 8.7% to real estate as of Aug. 19, according to researcher Preqin Ltd.
Private real-estate funds currently hold 23% of their investments in offices, down from 34% three years ago, according to an index maintained by the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries. These funds’ holdings in retail space have fallen to 10% from 17% over the same period, the council said.
Meanwhile, industrial properties have grown to account for 31% of those private real-estate funds’ investments, according to the council, up from 18% in 2019. Pension officials are increasingly seeking out stakes in airports, highways and utilities. Those so-called infrastructure assets have grown to 4.1% of total pension portfolios from 3% in 2017 for retirement funds that report them separately from other real-estate assets, according to Preqin.
< - paywalled sadly unless you know how to get around them and/or are subscribed - >

op cit

Notably, we find that 1,050 out of 2,870 funds made a change to their prospectus benchmarks
at least once over a 13-year period. Because we collect data on funds’ benchmarks beginning
in 2005, the first year in which we can detect changes is 2006. The average fund in our sample
reports 1.44 benchmarks per year and makes 0.84 benchmark changes during our sample
period.

I'm glad they did the research. But there are a lot of other red flags out there like cost, load, turnover, manager investment, whether the company is publicly owned, etc.

Funds that make at least one benchmark
change make an average of 2.27 changes during this period, suggesting that there is a serial
component to this behavior. Funds making at least one benchmark change also report
significantly more benchmarks each year (1.74) than the group of funds that never makes a
benchmark change (1.23).

Not surprising. I had some choices like that in some retirement plans my employers got us into.

I have ~ 13 - 17 yrs until retirement
401k and trading accts 90% stocks and 2040 TDF /indexes /etf -10% bonds+ fixed incomes + cash
2 yrs before retirement will changed redistribute to 55/45 and open -rolled ecerything to 401k. After take 5 -7% RMD out per yr until I part this Earth to limit tax situations (hopefully w social security 401k and rmd should be enough get by and travel retire)

VTAPX absolutely is a short-term bond fund as far as the models for target date funds are concerned, and that's what I'm talking about and so is the article. In fact, in the Vanguard Target Retirement 2020 Fund for retirees, there are no other short-term bond funds in it but VTAPX: https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/mutual-funds/profile/vtwnx#portfolio-composition
The fund has a larger allocation to regular intermediate term bond funds like Vanguard Total Bond Market II Index, which has not faired as well. But if you looked at any target-date fund, I would wager that the short-term bond funds in it have faired better than the intermediate and long-term ones, even if it was more focused on corporate debt than TIPS. That is a natural effect from duration and interest rate risk in a rising rate environment. Investors want that duration to be as short as possible so long as rates are rising. You want to go long once the rate increases are over. But the discussion I'm having is about target date funds specifically.

Nice @LewisBraham. I’m very worried about many workers dependent on 401-K savings for what could be 20, 30 or even 40 years of retirement. I’m fortunate to have a DB pension. But those are now few and far between. And, when it comes to managing / investing a 401-K, those who post on this forum possess better than average investment acumen. But in general few wage earners would appear equipped to manage a small fortune successfully and time the withdrawals so as to last a lifetime.
Preventing workers from “borrowing” against their 401-K during their working years might be a start. Some retire with little if any left invested for growth. Perhaps limiting withdrawals to a set percentage or an amount that rises incrementally during retirement would help. As far as target-date funds go … the jury is still out on whether they’re the best approach as the default option. I know a few persons in their mid-60s who have already exhausted 100% of the money they contributed during 25-30 year careers. Suddenly they see their rent, fuel and food costs rising sharply. It’s really sad to witness. Maybe our politicians could stop throwing brickbats at one another long enough to address problems like this one.

A sign someone is making stuff up to bolster their case: They use familiar cliche stats like “nine times out of ten.” Really, she interviewed sex workers and hit men and they said it was their fathers who got them into the business via nepotism nine times out of ten? That must be an interesting fatherly chat about future careers when they’re children. While I agree nepotism is a problem, it tends to be more of one at the top than the bottom. Why not instead of glib statements, do some real analysis? How prevalent is it actually, in what jobs and what industries?
It’s also amusing to me she’s fine with the government stepping in to address the “big risks” like a “crazy” stock market crash but seems to take issue with addressing millions of workers problems with retirement savings. Socialism for the rich in the form of a stock market bailout is OK in 2020, but everything else for workers is too much nanny state. Most Americans either have little stock exposure or none at all because they have little left over after they pay their bills. So why should the government bail the stock market out? In general, Main Street not Wall Street needs the bailouts. The two are interconnected to a degree, but not nearly as much in 2022 as they were in 1929.
While I agree defaulting to short term bonds as target funds do when someone retires is overly simplistic, I imagine many workers are thankful they owned the short rather than long-term bonds right now. Also, short term bonds adjust to inflation and interest rate increases more quickly than long.

I thought this was a pretty good read from Allison Schrager. Some interesting points regarding Fed policy and action that has impacted the economy and the market.

Getting rid of risk is the biggest risk. It seems like every time something bad happens in the economy we decide we need policies to keep it from ever happening again. And sometimes that is wise, say if a bad recession or stock market crash reveals some crazy distortion or externality that needs to be eliminated. But often, we tend to try to eliminate any bad thing.

On the Housing Market:

Now, the market is weird—sales down, prices up, and frozen in some places. And I think it will be screwy for a while because no one who got a cheap mortgage can afford to move. And the MBS market will be weird because no one will refinance either, so the duration of these securities is totally unpredictable.
and,
the Fed buying the entire MBS market in the middle of a housing boom?! That’s crazy, and it did not eliminate risk—it only created more.

On "nudging" the workforce into Target Date Funds:

nudging did have a big impact on investing. Before nudging, people kept their portfolio allocations pretty constant as they aged or kept their money in cash. But automatically enrolling people in target date funds (TDFs) means more people now own stock and move into bonds as they age.
Great. But the problem with TDFs is they don’t help people spend in retirement, and that is the whole point. And while I agree people should move into bonds as they age—because of lifecycle finance, not because a shorter time in markets is riskier—TDFs move people into the wrong kind of bonds. They are mostly in short-duration bonds (less than five years), while the duration of your future spending at retirement is more like 12 years. This leaves people exposed to interest rate, market, and inflation risks.
Nudging is not enough; you need good defaults too. And in a changing-rate, high-inflation environment, we’ll start to see the costs of TDFs’ shortcomings.

On Nepotism:

I meet a lot of people who do some unusual jobs: Sex workers, bounty hunters, mob hitmen, horse inseminators, pensions actuaries—you name it. And the first thing I always ask them is how they got into this line of work. And nine times out of 10, I hear, “My father.”

Article Link:
allisonschrager-helicopter-fed

As of the date of this prospectus, only the following investors may make purchases in the Virtus KAR Small-Cap Core Fund and the Virtus KAR Small-Cap Growth Fund:
• Current shareholders of the funds, whether they hold their shares directly or through a financial intermediary, may continue to add to their accounts through the purchase of additional shares and through the reinvestment of dividends and capital gains. Financial intermediaries may continue to purchase shares on behalf of existing shareholders only.
• Exchanges into the funds may only be made by shareholders with an existing account in the funds.
• An investor who has previously entered into a letter of intent with the Distributor prior to the closing date may fulfill the obligation.
• Trustees of the funds, trustees/directors of affiliated open- and closed-end funds, and directors, officers and employees of Virtus, its affiliates, and their family members, may continue to open new accounts.
• New and additional investments may be made through firm or home office discretionary platform models within mutual fund advisory (WRAP) programs and other fee-based programs established with the Distributor prior to July 31, 2018 for Virtus KAR Small-Cap Core Fund and September 28, 2018 for Virtus KAR Small-Cap Growth
Fund.
• The funds will also remain open to Defined Contribution and Defined Benefit retirement plans and will continue to accept payroll contributions and other types of purchase transactions from both existing and new participants in such plans.

to @LewisBraham's suggestion: I own RYSEX and have been pleased with it. I believe Dreifus is eyeing retirement, and there's no guarantee the new manager will have Charlie's talent for deep forensic analysis. Royce being Royce, they also put Charlie on another Special Equity product for a while, to bring in AUM. But RYSEX is def a keeper for me for now.

"Speedometer." Ya... Early in the year, the talking heads advised against bonds. I took from bonds to add to stocks at the highs for the year in TRAMX and PRNEX and PRISX. I'm still underwater, though TRAMX is nearly back to the zero-line by now.
My sole bond fund is TRP Junk: TUHYX. Still down YTD by -10+%. I've added a bit to my TUHYX pile, buying de-valued, unloved shares. (Cost basis!)
I'm in retirement, but can afford to invest for the heirs, so the move to overweight stocks doesn't make me itch so very much. Method? Steer clear of bonds, as instructed. But I did not go to ZERO in bonds. Don't put all your eggs in one basket, eh? I'm at 21% in bonds today. Another ingredient in my "method" is to stay overweight in PRWCX. It was down by -12%, now down by -5%. I added to it a couple of times in the past few months. If I'm fortunate, it might turn positive by year's end. We'll see. The expected Recession is technically here, after 2 Quarters of negative growth. But in practical terms, this does not feel like a Recession, yet. I still think things will get worse before we climb out of the present circumstances. Method? Cut losses before they get to be utterly unpalatable, re: my single stock positions. I can't make the Market love the stuff I own. I can sell, and then re-deploy. ...And all of this does not violate my sense of risk-tolerance.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1331971/000113322822005289/jhfiiarcf-html5301_497.htm
497 1 jhfiiarcf-html5301_497.htm JHF II ABSOLUTE RETURN CURRENCY FUND_497
Prospectus Supplement
John Hancock Funds II
John Hancock Absolute Return Currency Fund (the Fund)
Supplement dated August 8, 2022 to all current Prospectuses, the Summary Prospectus and the Statement of Additional Information (SAI), as may be supplemented
The following information supplements and supersedes any information to the contrary relating to all classes of shares offered by the Fund contained in the Prospectuses, Summary Prospectus and SAI.
First Quadrant, LLC (First Quadrant), the subadvisor to the Fund, announced on June 16, 2022 that it has entered into an agreement with Systematica Investments Limited (Systematica), under which Systematica would acquire First Quadrant. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2022. Announcement of the transaction and the impending change in ownership at First Quadrant triggered an extensive due diligence review process by John Hancock Investment Management LLC, the Fund’s investment adviser, to understand the potential impact of the transaction on the Fund and the Fund’s ability to meet its investment objective. In connection with this process, effective after the close of business on September 6, 2022, shares of all classes of the Fund may no longer be purchased by new investors, except as noted below.
1. Existing shareholders of the Fund as of the close of business on September 6, 2022 may continue to purchase additional shares of the Fund in their existing Fund accounts, and may continue to reinvest dividends or capital gains distributions received from the Fund.
2. New accounts established with existing shares of the Fund by transfer, such as transfers because of a change in broker, transfer-in-kind, divorce, or death, will be permitted.
3. Participants in group employer retirement plans, including 401(k), 403(b) and 457 plans, non-qualified deferred compensation, and health savings account programs (and their successor plans) (a “plan”) may establish an account in the Fund if the Fund has been approved by September 6, 2022 as an investment option under the plan (or under another plan sponsored by the same employer).
4. Group retirement models or broker-dealer discretionary programs that include the Fund as an investment option, or have approved the Fund as an investment option as of September 6, 2022, may continue to make Fund shares available to new and existing accounts.
If a shareholder redeems all Fund shares in his or her account, the shareholder will not be able to buy additional Fund shares or reopen his or her account.
The Fund reserves the right to change or make exceptions to these policies at any time and may permit new accounts in the Fund to be opened by certain investors, including investors not identified above.
You should read this Supplement in conjunction with the Fund’s Prospectuses, Summary Prospectus and SAI and retain it for your future reference.
Manulife, Manulife Investment Management, Stylized M Design, and Manulife Investment Management & Stylized M Design are trademarks of The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company and are used by its affiliates under license.

Given the fact that money managers have long invested in and celebrated companies that increased their profit margins by replacing human workers with machines, should we feel sorry for the same managers who are now being replaced? Or should we see it as poetic justice? I have long called the index fund a profit extraction machine.
Also, it is not simply the machines’ doing that is causing the problems here. I would say I learned about 20 years ago that the typical non-hedge fund manager charged institutional retirement plans about 0.40% to run private institutional accounts. The institutions had negotiating leverage regarding fees, yet managers could still be profitable at 0.40%. Yet they still charge routinely double that today for retail investors. Much as these same managers often complain about unionized labor having wages that are too high and say that’s why jobs are being outsourced overseas, retail investors are sick of paying 0.80% or more for what should really cost 0.40%. So they’re outsourcing the overpaid managers’ jobs to machines. Again, poetic justice.
If managers want to beat the machines in a highly competitive somewhat efficient market, they either need to charge less so the hurdle to win is lower or take large risks and charge the same exorbitant fees they always have and hope for the best. Either way, it’s still other people’s money they’re putting at risk.

@MikeM’s been a practitioner of the robo approach for near a decade by my count. And he has consistently reported great results. I’d trust his word and judgment. One thing he might have added was that the robo approach he uses and likes excels over other approaches on a “risk adjusted” basis. Those seeking out lower risk due to age, need, circumstances wouldn’t be expected to turn out the same returns. I’d agree too that alternative funds can’t keep pace with a plain vanilla approach over long periods due mainly to the higher fees. Still, for risk averse investors a modest allocation to alts may tamp down volatility. Different strokes …
Mike said, “The average 12%, most accounts, invested in cash has been a drawback in returns,”
I don’t think I’d be violating any rule to note that James Stack currently has his investors 30%+ in cash (short term treasuries). I believe that was recently reported in Barron’s. It’s not what I choose to do. Just saying … :)
@MikeM said, “Similiar or possibly better returns than retirement or target date funds“
I have no difficulty at all believing that. I probably track 25+ funds daily that I don’t own. The two formerly successful conservative allocation retirement funds from TRP I follow have really fallen out of bed over the past year. If one cannot easily beat their recent track record on their own, they’ve got a serious problem. TRRIX (-9.51% YTD) and PRSIX (-10.21% YTD). Glad I own neither.
(In fairness, I’ll note that VWINX has held up much better than have the two TRP conservative allocation funds.)

@Crash, @Mark, @rforno, @PRESSmUP
What percentage of your portfolio do you allocate to these companies? Also, is it beneficial to hold them in retirement accounts, IRAs, if they have special tax consequences if held in a normal account?
Thank you

They're large positions (10%+), but I have several large positions. I don't worry much about percentage allocations of individual holdings per se since I prefer concentrated holdings in quality names which can lead to 'overweight' or 'majorly overweight' sector allocations ... which drives financial analysts/brokers/algos crazy when they run the numbers and go "OMG you have XX% in [stock/sector$] that's horrible!"

Also, is it beneficial to hold them in retirement accounts, IRAs, if they have special tax consequences if held in a normal account?
Thank you.
In particular, I know that ET generates a K-1 IRS form, which many people find burdensome to deal with. (Limited Partnership.) Not me. I'll just pay my tax guy, like every year, to do our 1040. But the K-1 form typically arrives very late! (Harumph.)
With regard to the K-1, I'm told that dividends amount to "Return Of Capital." Technically, they're giving you back your own money, non-taxable----- until they give you back so much that your own total cost basis is covered; then it becomes taxable. There are others here at MFO who know more than I do about it. Maybe they can contribute here, and tell us if I'm all wet and full of shit. ;)