If one wants to discuss how people are adding risk by reaching for yield, that's fine - and that's basically the lead sentence in the article. But the writer seems to have an agenda, and has slanted graphs and omitted data to that end.
(Disclaimer: I am a fan of Core Plus bonds - in my view, Core is to Core Plus as S&P 500 is to Total US Equity Market. In each case, the latter provides broader and better exposure to their respective markets - US bond and US equity.)
Everyone "knows" that the US Aggregate Bond Index (tracked by AGG) is much too heavy into government securities. Even Bogle says so, and suggests the index is weighted about 70% in Treasuries and other government bonds.
So when I look at Chart 1 (correlation coefficients), what jumps out at me is not that Core Plus is (slightly) correlated with equities, but rather that a good chunk, if not all, of AGG's (slight) negative correlation with equities could be coming from its heavy slug of government bonds (which the chart shows have a much stronger negative correlation with equities).
What this suggests is that if we were to look at Core Bond funds' correlation with equities (since they rightfully tend to have much lower percentages of Treasury/government holdings than AGG) is that they would have virtually zero, or perhaps even a slight correlation with equities. To me it is telling that the writer provided a core plus bond composite, but not a core bond composite. That likely would have undercut his thesis that there's a lot of difference between core and core plus.
Take the data from that chart, and look at the R-squared values for Core Plus and Aggregate. They're about 10% - close to meaningless.
Look at Table 2. The writer implies, without justification, that because Core Plus bond funds contain some junk bonds, their volatility will be similar to junk bonds. Table 2 shows 14.5 year (curious choice) volatility (std deviation) figures US Agg, junk, and equities. But missing are core bond and core bond plus figures.
This is a suspicious omission, since Chart 1 provides data for core plus, and Chart 3 provides a graph for core bonds (using Wells Fargo Advantage Core Bond as a proxy).
I'll remedy that. Using M*'s figures for 15 years (14.5 is not a standard time range), we have

Std Dev	Sharpe
Core (MBFIX)	3.59	1.12
Core+ (WIPIX)	3.53	0.98
Agg Index	3.50	0.99
S&P 500 Indx	15.38	0.26

The naive idea that adding a modest amount of a volatile asset (junk bonds) to a portfolio will necessarily make it more volatile is wrong. The obvious (albeit contrived) counter example is to add to a portfolio an asset that is volatile and perfectly negatively correlated with the portfolio. Adding a small amount of that asset will reduce the portfolio's volatility.
What one sees here (between Core and Core Plus) is little difference. (I used WIPIX, since the writer selected to use MBFIX, so I simply used the Core Plus representative from the same family.)
I could skewer Chart 3 as misleading also, but you get the point.
If you're really concerned about Core Plus funds that are "too" aggressive, just avoid funds whose portfolios are rated low grade by M*. Lots aren't.

Hi John,
Thanks for posting this Seeking Alpha article. It is well written and the comments on the strategies discussed I found to be of good reading. My thoughts are that there is a good possibility of a 250 point drop in valuation for the S&P 500 Index from its recent high of 2020 but there is no certainity to this happening. This would put it in a downdraft spin by my defination. My thoughts are that I'll buy at every 50 point drop from the 2020 mark with a sum equal to about one percent of the cash held within my portfolio. Should the Index reach my targeted 1770 range then this will leave me with about 10% cash plus whatever my mutual funds hold and leave me at about a 15% cash level in the near term. Under my plan, I will have bought at 1970, 1920, 1870, 1820, and 1770 ranges which when averaged will average to a buy-in at the 1895 range. With the large year end cash distributions that I expect from my mutual funds to make then my cash levels could be restored pretty close to their current 20% level with no action on my part even after considering my most recent buys.
I like to average-in, in a market decline and average-out in a market bull run. Should the market decline to the 1770's as it might then once it has bottomed and turned then I'll start averaging-out, by about one percent of equity valuation, at every 25 point climb from the 1900 level until a full cash position has been obtained. This is what I did once the Index reached the 1600 level a while back.
I am by no means saying the market will perform to my thinking and others should goven by their own thinking and not mine. I am writting this only for information puropses as to how I manage my portfolio with respect to both bullish and bearish stock market movement.
Hopefully, 3rd quarter corporate earnings will be good and a fall stock market rally will be coming in the near term. As the article states the upcoming week will provide some insight as to how the 4th quarter might be looking.
I wish all ... "Good Investing."
Old_Skeet

Cashin has only been on the floor of the NYSE for something like 50+ years.

And no one has helped him off the floor yet!
"Help, I've fallen and can't get up"

This week might tell the story, technically.
http://m.seekingalpha.com/article/2555415-stocks-the-most-important-week-in-6-years?source=feed_all_articles

You're right about seeing the rate of return. And seeing a fund that is number one in performance, etc....these are very strong motivators

4.75% on a supposed bond fund? That hinges on being criminal. I didn't know that.
Sadly you are probably right about unsuspecting people getting put into this fund not knowing the details. They just see the rate of return. The brokers get a nice commission too.

Interestingly, I just went back through this thread and the early discussion regarding the stock portion. Gaffney has increased equities in the portfolio at a time when the markets started to turn south. Of course she couldn't have known this would have happened.
They need to change the name of the fund.

I agree John. Or do something so their clients know. There must be a lot of unsuspecting clients of Eaton Vance, a full service load company, who think they are in a plain vanilla bond fund to reduce stock market risk. They market their funds thru Broker Dealers. There's a lot of selling and marketing going on. Not sure how many people have taken apart the contents of this fund and really know what's in it. People who go to full service Brokers and pay loads are not generally going to do this with their investments. Hopefully the brokers who are collecting the loads are, and educating their clients. Wouldn't bet on it.
John, do you know this thing has a 4.75% load? I can't stand loads. I know we can get it load waived, but the full service clients are paying the load, and probably have no idea it is available without it.

Interesting, yes. Short version: overweight US stocks "as much as you can." He sees blue skies and sunshine, still, for years to come. Given current circumstances, retail, durables and services will do very well. He says interest rates could fall even further, from a mere 2.35% just recently.

These ETMFs sound like a natural progression in the products coming out.

I think so too John. I'm looking forward to them as a welcome advance.
Personally, I'd like to see actively managed ETFs expand in a big way. Right now, if you have an account at brokerage A, it costs too much to purchase a Vanguard mutual fund, or any mutual fund not in the no transaction fee platform. Often $50 just to buy or sell a mutual fund not on the NTF platform. Too much. Active ETFs will put away all that nonsense, and equal the playing field. And I want to continue to see ETFs as a whole expand, advance and improve. Sure, there's a lot of bad products coming out, but also good products. All of these make investing better for the little guy and tend to equal the playing field.

I looked up ACCNX which I own.
AAA. 45.88%
AA. 8.81%
A. 9.65%
BBB. 19.88%
BB. 8.38%
B. 4.10%
CCC. 1.28%
CC. 0.32%
C and below. 1.69%
Per the prospectus; at least 65% in investment grade. Up to 35% in high yield and or emerging market debt. No more than 10% in non-dollar debt.
I'm sure every fund will interpret the Plus differently. Some may be hinging on unconstrained.

@Mike_E, that is good info on the 11.32% convertibles, 6.1% preferred stocks.
So really 25.53% stocks as you mentioned above. How is one supposed to fit this into their asset allocation? Eaton Vance is a load firm. Wonder what advice they are giving all their dealers, about how to use this fund. Where does it fit into a portfolio?

Asset Allocation 7 More Information
AS OF 8/31/2014; MORNINGSTAR CATEGORY: MULTISECTOR BOND
Cash 19.12%
Convertibles 11.32%
Domestic Bond 19.41%
Preferred Stock 6.10%
Foreign Bond 21.02%
Foreign Stock 3.21%
Others 3.61%
Domestic Stock 16.22%
https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/view-all/277905246?type=o-NavBar
Scroll halfway down the page.
Just summing the domestic, foreign, and preferred stocks = 25.53%
Add to that 11.32% in convertibles and you have a fund with a market beta approximately = 0.64 (per portfolio visualizer regression analysis). That's on the high side for me for a multi-sector bond fund.
http://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/factor-analysis
Mike_E

EVBAX is down nearly 3% more than it's (Lipper) category average in the last month (challenging market environment). I realize that one month is a very short period of time and will hold. Any thoughts?

Thanks for pointing this out. Had no idea. A very rough month and 3 months for the fund. Underperforming the total bond market index by 5.85% over 3 months. That's a lot for a bond fund over 3 months. Speaks to how 'unconventional' some of the unconstrained and multi-sector bond funds are, and how these funds may diversify or not diversify the stock portion of a portfolio.

Very eye-opening numbers over the past three months, I must say.

Cashin has only been on the floor of the NYSE for something like 50+ years.
Edited to add: Bio http://www.businessinsider.com/art-cashin-biography-2012-7?op=1

EVBAX is down nearly 3% more than it's (Lipper) category average in the last month (challenging market environment). I realize that one month is a very short period of time and will hold. Any thoughts?

Thanks for pointing this out. Had no idea. A very rough month and 3 months for the fund. Underperforming the total bond market index by 5.85% over 3 months. That's a lot for a bond fund over 3 months. Speaks to how 'unconventional' some of the unconstrained and multi-sector bond funds are, and how these funds may diversify or not diversify the stock portion of a portfolio.

I'm connecting this with my holding in DLFNX (DoubleLine "core") which I've seen referred to here as a core-plus fund. I've owned it for just over 2 years, now. It's a tiny slice of my pie, 2.56% of portfolio. It's taken two years for it to gain 5.7% for me. I'll keep it.

I'm close to 13%. It helps to dampen volatility and is supposed to be "less" correlated to the market.
For an quick and dirty view, on a day when my benchmark is down 1.4%, my portofolio was down 1.1%
BPLEX continues to be the cream of the crop: up 5% YTD

@MFO Board Member: Now it appears that Art Cashin has become relevant, at least in the eyes of John Wayne (Aka. John Chisum). As many of you know, a while back I linked his daily commentaries on a regular bases. I stopped doing so because I got tired of the negative comments directed ar Art. Here is the video of this thoughts on resistance at 1925 on the S&P 500.
Regards,
Ted
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000318836&play=1

1905 is the 200d simple moving average, which is apparently why he mentions 1900-1905 in the piece. But there's no rationale given for anything he's quoted as saying, so it's anyone's guess.
A blowthrough of the 200d (especially one that's sustained for a couple of days) could trigger significant additional selling.

Looks like I linked an old article. Oops. In the article the next stop was 1900-1905. Basically we are there now.
Art is a technical guru and a good one. For the day traders his info might be good. For most of us here it probably doesn't matter anyway.