RPHYX/RPHIX still managed to return below 3% for the year, as compared to a few banks/CUs that pay above 4%This is an apples to oranges comparison, comparing past one year return for RPHYX with the current APY on MMAs. A retrospective comparison would be between a bank's one year return and RPHYX's one year return.
Some of the 4% accounts didn't even exist at the beginning of 2022. For example, Republic Bank of Chicago's Digital Money Market Account (4.25% APY) only
started last August. Starting new account types (often requiring new money) is a common tactic among banks.
Or look at All America Bank's Mega Money Market Account, also with a 4.25% APY. That started the year with a 0.30% APY, not rising above 1% until nearly the end of June. Even by the end of October, it was only up to 2.5% APY.
Banks do look better prospectively. For bond funds, prospective means looking at SEC yield. RPHIX's last reported SEC yield is 3.27%. At first blush, that looks inferior to several higher yielding banks, including those that don't play fast and loose with new accounts and rates.
But compare carefully. That 3.27% is the SEC yield as of November 30th. American Bank's Mega MMA's rate was 2.5% APY until the last week of November when it jumped to 4.0% APY. For the moment, a few banks seem competitive, though not necessarily superior.
despite such a good distributionThis suggests a common confusion between YTM and current yield. What counts in the end is total return. Each time RPHYX / RPHIX makes a distribution, whether large or small, the NAV drops by about the size of the distribution. The size of the distribution has little bearing on total return.
Suppose a fund holds a single, deep discount bond. (HY funds typically buy bonds at substantial discounts.) The fund's NAV gradually increases as the bond ages. This "appreciation" is actually interest - that's part of the YTM.
When a bond finally matures (or is sold), that "appreciation" (interest) is recognized all at once, even though it really accrued over time. If the fund gathers up all this recognized "appreciation" (interest) and distributes it in December, that could explain the unusually large December div.
It might be more meaningful to take the excess distribution (above what one expected for the Dec div) and mentally allocate it evenly across all the months. This large div may be nothing more than an accounting artifact, much as annual cap
gains distributions don't mean that a fund realized all its
gains in December.