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I've owned this fund for a few years now. 4 years ago there was some discussion about it. Currently it seems quite. I own about 10% in my 401k. About a year or so from retirement. I have to say it has always bothered me that the expense ratio has been so high for the low return rate. Curious as to members opinions on this fund as well as alternatives. Thanks in advance.
I became disenchanted with DoubleLine's DLFNX. It's not really an apples-to-apples comparison, but my global multi-sector bond fund PRSNX offers monthly dividends that are a tiny bit BELOW what RNDLX is paying YOU.
If you want to stay domestic, I asked about PTIAX here on this discussion-board and received generally favorable replies. Monthly divs are MUCH higher. But coming up, there will be headwinds because interest rates will be rising, gradually.
Yeah - If that shown 1.74% ER at Lipper is accurate, that’s a whale of an ER biting into your returns. Only way it could possibly be justified (perhaps in part) would be if this is some type of exotic fund which utilizes short selling and/or foreign currencies. Those types of income funds would be expected to cost a little more. I don’t know enough about this one to determine that.
As others have suggested, many fine income funds have ERs far below 1.74%. I happen to like DODIX, which had an ER of around .43% last time I checked. If you’re a bit more aggressive, their DODLX has a higher, but still competitive ER. You won’t see the ER reflected on your statement. It’s mostly hidden from view, but still detracts from fund returns. Worse, some managers will take undue risk with a high ER fund in an effort to compensate for the high ER.
Interestingly, Lipper scores your fund favorably, giving it 4 (out of 5) for total return, consistent return and preservation of capital (but knocks it on expense). Possibly, Lipper knows something I don’t. MaxFunds, on the other hand, rates the fund 32% (poor). Max suggests a best case for the fund in the next year to be +9% and worst case -12%. Consider those to be educated guesses, at best. I’m not telling you to sell it, but think you are correct in looking at similar funds having lower ERs and also questioning whether this kind of fund best meets your needs.
For RNDLX, the "direct" expenses are 1.11% and the "total" expenses are 1.74%. The difference is that the total expenses includes the expense ratios of the CEFs that RNDLX holds in the CEF . But they aren't buying CEFs for their returns on the bonds they hold, but rather just trading the CEFs opportunistically as if they were stocks. So 1.11% might be a better representation of the actual ER of the fund.
Comments
If you want to stay domestic, I asked about PTIAX here on this discussion-board and received generally favorable replies. Monthly divs are MUCH higher. But coming up, there will be headwinds because interest rates will be rising, gradually.
As others have suggested, many fine income funds have ERs far below 1.74%. I happen to like DODIX, which had an ER of around .43% last time I checked. If you’re a bit more aggressive, their DODLX has a higher, but still competitive ER. You won’t see the ER reflected on your statement. It’s mostly hidden from view, but still detracts from fund returns. Worse, some managers will take undue risk with a high ER fund in an effort to compensate for the high ER.
Interestingly, Lipper scores your fund favorably, giving it 4 (out of 5) for total return, consistent return and preservation of capital (but knocks it on expense). Possibly, Lipper knows something I don’t. MaxFunds, on the other hand, rates the fund 32% (poor). Max suggests a best case for the fund in the next year to be +9% and worst case -12%. Consider those to be educated guesses, at best. I’m not telling you to sell it, but think you are correct in looking at similar funds having lower ERs and also questioning whether this kind of fund best meets your needs.
For RNDLX, the "direct" expenses are 1.11% and the "total" expenses are 1.74%. The difference is that the total expenses includes the expense ratios of the CEFs that RNDLX holds in the CEF . But they aren't buying CEFs for their returns on the bonds they hold, but rather just trading the CEFs opportunistically as if they were stocks. So 1.11% might be a better representation of the actual ER of the fund.