@yogibearbull
The alleged die-off of alternative funds in the '10s could be evidence of healthy 'wheat from chaff' separation typical of any newly emerging category. Chart in the article ends at 2020, which leaves me wondering whether the improved quality of the offerings and better understanding of the market has led to more encouraging statistics over the most recent 5-year timeframe.
Here is some evidence.
The Globe and Mail: Alternative funds see big jump in flows in first half of 2025 (08-06-25) [paywall]
"Ian Tam, director of investment research for Canada at Morningstar Inc., says almost $9-billion flowed into liquid alternative mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the first half of 2025. A whopping $6.1-billion was invested in the first quarter of the year alone – more than double the inflows of any previous quarter since liquid alts came to market in 2019.
"Alternative funds accounted for 26 per cent of mutual fund sales in the first half of the year, Mr. Bragg says, while liquid alt ETFs made up about 4 per cent of total ETF sales in the first half.
"Performance has been relatively steady across the range of liquid alternative asset funds, which includes alternative credit and equity, market neutral, multi-strategy, and private debt and equity. The average one-year return is 7.4 per cent, the three-year average is 8.1 per cent, and the five-year average is 6.7 per cent, according to data from Morningstar.
"Alternative investments have changed with the times, Mr. Johnston says. They used to mean investing your money for years with no liquidity options, no interim cash flow, and no secondary market, which doesn’t work for the average retail investor, he says.
Now, funds have lower investment minimums, shorter holding periods, liquidity options and a secondary market."

not much new here, but i find it very re-assuring when he takes a confident stand such as anti-tsla, which trp most certainly holds in some funds.
this is not your typical trader\manager that capitulates on logic simply because some price goes up and stays elevated longer than expected.
momentum likely plays a minor role for giroux only during large block trading, where these houses have dedicated specialists.
am glad to pay slightly higher fees for such a mindset, especially GARP which i find tricky on individual names. i see giroux more now as a conservative but opportunistic asset allocater rather than stock picker. i have traded prwcx for prcfx in all ret holdings, and elsewhere w/min tax gains.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2025-08-06/inside-active-t-rowe-s-giroux-on-avoiding-fatally-flawed-firms

I'm using M*'s chart page (a tab found on any fund/ETF page) such as:
https://www.morningstar.com/etfs/arcx/fltr/chart
Set the Frequency to Daily and the Data Type to "Growth w/Dividend". That gives you total return and scales each fund charted comparably (total returns relative to $10K start).
If you set a date range of not more than 20 years or so, you can see where the peaks and valleys are. (You won't see much of anything if you look at the lifetime of VWELX, as that spans 86 years.) Mouse over spots to get approximate gains (losses). Or spend a couple of minutes zooming in on the exact start point you want. Then M* will calculate the exact gain on each subsequent date.
Over VRIG's lifetime (starting 9/20/16) FLTR has outperformed, though barely: 34.17% vs. 33.82% cumulative.
Zooming in to 2/1/20 through 4/1/20, one sees that they both peaked on 2/19/20. Setting that as the start point, one sees VRIG hit bottom on 3/26, losing 13.0437%, and FLTR hit its bottom on 3/18/20, losing 17.8062%. Other dips are similar though much smaller and not worth worrying about.
VRIG lost 1.3786% from 11/14/18 to 12/21/18; FLTR lost 1.8535 from 11/13/18 to 12/21/18.
VRIG lost 2.2798% from 1/21/22 to 6/16/22; FLTR lost 3.0049% from 2/7/22 to 6/16/22.
VRIG lost 0.7763% from 4/2/25 to 4/7/25; FLTR lost 1.9253% from 4/2/25 to 4/4/25.
YTD, FLTR has outperformed 3.11% vs 3.03%.
Overall, neither FLTR's small outperformance nor its slightly deeper short term losses seem consequential. This slight difference is mirrored in FLTR's slightly higher standard deviation. FWIW, M* gives FLTR a risk score of 3 (out of 100), and VRIG a 2. All of this is just splitting hairs.
I don't recognize what's in the CLO ETFs either. Another potential risk there.
Finally, I'll add that I keep looking at CBLDX. My concern here is that unlike Sherman's RPHIX, it doesn't mitigate risk by buying "money good" debt. Still, the numbers (stability of returns) impress for somewhat longer term cash.

One has to be comfortable with a large amount of hi-yield fare in RPHIX. I ended up with CBUDX instead. Information on the composition of the funds is near the bottom of the links. Two funds near their range of M* standard deviation would be JPST and FLOT.
This is what makes AAA CLOs so interesting. We've seen that no matter how an investment is structured (AAAs being first in line from a whole pool of debt) nothing will protect you if the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. That's what happened with CDOs in 2008.

What’s especially notable is that slight differences between CLOs and CDOs have given CLOs more resistance to economic downturns. In fact, a [White & Case] report notes that CLOs were minimally affected by the same troubles as CDOs during the Great Recession. A shift toward CLOs and away from CDOs could benefit traders, investors and lenders without forming a bubble that would inevitably burst.

https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/10353-cdo-financial-derivatives-economic-crisis.html
I'm not ready to pull the trigger on AAA CLOs just yet. Let's see what happens over the next few months. Even then, I'd look at just the best of the best - the most "pure" AAA CLO fund. That seems to be PAAA. Though JAAA serves as a good reference for how AAA CLOs have behaved over a few years. And JBBB serves as a good comparison for seeing how the quality of the tranche (AAA vs BBB) matters.
An ETF I haven't seen mentioned that's somewhat in FLOT's space is VRIG. FLOT and FLRN hold about 2/3 of their assets in corporate bonds (the rest in gov bonds) and track each other closely. VRIG takes a different path, splitting its non-gov bonds evenly between corporate and securitized. This seems to result in slightly more risk but with commensurate rewards.
VRIG has a longer (but still miniscule) effective duration (0.23 years vs. 0.01 years); lower credit quality (A+ vs. AA-), worse 3 year std dev (0.99 vs 0.57) resulting in a lower Sharpe ratio (1.34 vs 1.81). On the plus side, VRIG comes with better long term performance.
It also seems to do better with short term jolts:
Feb-March 2020: both dropped around 13% (daily data);
March 2023: both dropped around 1½% through March 13 but FLOT continued dropping another ¾% over the next few days;
April 2025: VRIG dropped ¾% while FLOT dropped twice that.
Some have used the word "gamble". I'm still looking for how best to spread my bets.

@fred495
Congrats & thanks for sharing. Have you tried dissecting the fund’s holdings / positioning to determine where the outsized gains have come from? Things like opportunistic short positions, high yield bonds, exposure to gold … big tech or non-dollar denominated stuff? I know that kind of analysis takes a lot of time and perseverance. M* doesn’t seem to list QDSNX’s top investments in any specificity.
What I can glean from M* the top sector “exposure” is 17% in technology, followed by 16% in financial.
These numbers from M* (Classic View) appear a bit off-the-wall. I have owned L/S funds before, but can’t recall numbers as high as these.
Long equity 135% / Short Equity 127%
Long fixed income 291% / Short fixed income 278%
Short cash 174% / Long cash 204%
In defense of those large numbers, it does appear the bond duration is largely on the short end with approximately 50% under 1 year out. Bond quality looks good with about 70-80% investment grade.

A few observations about this FoF, and replicating it on your own:
Unlike Vanguard that uses expensive share classes of underlying funds, AQR uses its cheapest (R-6) share class for acquired funds. In replicating this FoF, one would only have access to N class shares - adding 0.35% to the cost. That's still less than the 0.44% that QDSNX charges, but it is close.
Shorting is not cheap. One can see this in the underlying fund QMNRX. Its offical ER is 4.55%. When M* backs out the cost of shorting, it comes up with an "adjusted" ER of 1.23%.
M* says that the managers add value by tactically varying the weights of the underlying funds. I'm not so sure.
I took what appears to be the nominal weights by rounding the current weights. Over the past five years (nearly the whole lifetime of the fund), from end of July 2020 to end of July 2025 (60 months), M* says QDSNX returned 11.76% annualized. Portfolio Visualizer concurs exactly. But the DIY portfolio (annual rebalancing) returned 11.95%.
Portfolio Visualizer five year comparison
Unfortunately, after subtracting 0.35%/year to use the more costly retail shares, one falls a little short of the QDSNX return.
To address @hank's concern about this fund being too new, you can take the PV model, and set it for max timeframe (PV is limited to ten years). The static mix I used to approximate QDSNX did not distinguish itself over the ten year span. Perhaps the actual QDSNX would have done better with its managers resetting weights than with this static mix.
I also added a second portfolio, a blend of Wellington and cash, that gave similar performance over the past decade.
Portfolio Visualizer ten year performance

Thanks @yogibearbull. Most of the articles I’ve seen on TIPS are positive. This one is an outlier (which I was searching for). Yes, it’s somewhat dated - referencing the 2020-2022 period. I think it says more about the herd mentality of retail investors than anything else. Many buy what’s been going up and sell when it turns south.
You are correct that TIPs funds bear little resemblance to TIPs held individually / laddered. Fair criticism. There has been some recent discussion here of a short-term TIPS fund. These are safer than the intermediate / long term funds the article likely references.
One more article I’ve dug up takes a more neutral stance on TIPS, pointing out the benefits and potential risks. All of this side-steps the issue of how accurate the BLS CPI data is / or will be going forward - a hot topic now days. Worth considering as the TIPs inflation adjustment incorporates that data.
I’ve posted these articles merely to show that investing in TIPS (especially thru funds) will not necessarily protect against inflation under all circumstances. There are no free lunches.

"I’ve looked at QDSNX before and decided it’s not for me.
Too short a track record for my comfort level.
But the numbers are amazing since the fund opened in 2020."
I've taken a brief look at QDSNX.
The fund has performed very well since inception.
QDSNX is extremely complex since it is a fund of funds allocated to six AQR alternative funds.
It could be challenging for me to stay invested in this fund if it experienced a severe decline
because—in all likelihood—I would be unable to determine what caused the fall.

Interesting Morningstar Article (dated 2023)
”In December 2020, inflation-protected securities funds were sitting pretty. The average fund had gained nearly 10% over the past year as Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities’ real yields went progressively lower. Investors noticed, shoveling $22 billion into TIPS funds that year … ”

Nothing new per se, but the charts are interesting. Also probably means that any moves up or down will quickly become rather exaggerated once computers catch up to discresionary traders ... which also probably explains some of the completely INSANE daily price moves on single stocks in recent weeks/months, too. (It was annoying but bearable - if not predictable at times - when trading before/during the GFC when algos were first taking off, but nowdays the dial is turned to 15 on these things!)
Computer-guided traders haven’t been this bullish on stocks compared to their human counterparts since early 2020, before the depths of the Covid pandemic, according to Parag Thatte, a strategist at Deutsche Bank AG.
The two groups look at different cues to form their opinions, so it’s not a shock that they see the market differently. While computer-driven fast-money quants use systematic strategies based on momentum and volatility signals, discretionary money managers are individuals looking at economic and earnings trends to guide their moves.

< - >
Free link https://archive.ph/X5mf6

Fred said ”However, my bottom line is a fund's risk/reward profile, not its fees”
I think there.’s a good case to be made for that line of thinking. More true I think in “frothy” markets like today or for someone in their “golden years”, more concerned about “not losing a lot” rather than with “making a lot”.
I’ve looked at QDSNX before and decided it’s not for me. Too short a track record for my comfort level. But the numbers are amazing since the fund opened in 2020.

@WABAC - thanks for the post, and for reassuring me that I'm not an idiot posting about BBH and Payden. (Or perhaps we both are :-)).
Some of the funds you mentioned as not losing money did draw down microscopic amounts (in the rounding error range). Worth mentioning only to show that unlike cash, all bond funds can lose money. The Fed announced raising rates on March 16, 2022.
Portfolio Visualizer drawdown graph of BIL, TFLO, and USFR. Of the three, only USFR has beaten cash since March 2022.
I've looked at most of the other funds you mentioned. All worth the look, none that jumped out and said "pick me". Not that I don't have some preferences, e.g. USFR over TFLO. But the differences are minor, and I've been happy rolling my own 1-3 month T-bills as opposed to using Treasury funds. A bit more work, though.
RPHIX does hold lots of high yield debt. Normally that would concern me as well. Which is why I've been more inclined to look at funds like FLOT and FLRN than funds with lower grade assets. But RPHIX reduces risk in a few different and distinctive ways. With rare exceptions it has succeeded and has a long track record to point to.

To summarize the Fund’s goal and investment approach, we seek to invest the Fund’s assets in securities that we believe are ‘money good’, that we are highly confident will pay interest and principal without interruption largely because they are extremely short term in maturity, have been already called for redemption, or are uniquely positioned within their capital structure as it relates to their priority claim on assets and cash flows.

RiverPark Short Term High Yield update, March 2020

Bill Fleckenstein is a virtual encyclopedia on the precious metals and miners. I’d be much wealthier had I followed 100% of his advice going back about 5 years. From yesterday’s ”Daily Rap” (8/09/2025):
”… these tariffs won't impact demand or the spot gold price much. However, they do cause a problem for folks who arbitrage between London Gold and Comex Gold, because Comex Gold requires 100-ounce bars for settlement, which is what comes out of Switzerland and has now been sanctioned to the tune of 39%. Meanwhile, London gold has 400-ounce bars … what this has done is thrown a monkey wrench into the plumbing of gold … ”
Excerpt from: Daily Rap (Fleckenstein Capital LLC). This is a subscription based service. Link takes you to the site one year ago. You’d need to “pay-up” to read current commentaries.

Margin loans come to private markets.
Ran across this blog post from a law firm yesterday. As far as I know, and I'm willing to be schooled, margin debt in public markets is mostly a gamble by individual investors on specific companies. The description of margin debt in the linked post seems to me to indicate a different purpose.

Interest in “private” margin loans has grown as fund managers seek new ways to ease distribution bottlenecks that have constrained cash flows to investors. According to Bain & Co., private markets distributions as a percentage of NAV have fallen from an average of 29% between 2014-17 to 11% in 2024, the lowest rate in a decade.
Private margin loans have helped ease the pressure by unlocking debt capital, which fund managers can use to finance acquisitions or return capital to investors. The loans are secured against the equity stakes that the managers hold in the relevant portfolio companies.

snip

Interest from sponsors is growing, as many are still holding on to assets that they would rather not sell in the currently volatile environment. They are looking for ways to secure additional liquidity against those assets to fund follow-on investments and support their funds. Given these conditions, private margin loans are poised to become an increasingly popular financing option.

Auto Industry Takes $12 Billion Hit From Trade War
"President Trump’s tariff war has inflicted almost $12 billion of losses on global automakers,
the biggest hit they have faced since the pandemic.
The scary reality: This may be just the beginning."
"For the world’s 10 largest automakers, not including those in China,
net profit is currently forecast to fall by roughly a quarter this calendar year
to its lowest level since 2020, when the pandemic led to cash-draining factory shutdowns."
...

The very people and sector that were promised a leg up, instead will be getting a boot to the head. Predominantly in Trump country.
"The majority of automotive manufacturing facilities in the US are in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana - home to a large number of American assembly plants and parts suppliers. States like Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi for foreign automakers and their suppliers.

FD1000,
I said crypto is very risky, probably 5-10% max in portfolio. Just pointing out like you implied that politics should not factor into investing decision. Many people have missed out on biggest gains of last year because (maybe in part at least) they don’t like politics of people in the space (crypto, Palantir, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac).
I have advocated more than 12 years ago that Treasury should take very small amount from bond sales and put into S&P 500 - very radical at the time but President just this year is talking about setting up a sovereign wealth fund.

Gemini won’t reveal source for data, but
https://www.tiingo.com/products/end-of-day-stock-price-data
$30/month
Claims to have data from 1970s, then can have AI write Python code to generate output needed.

They offer a pretty generous free subscription as well. Access to all of their data (all stocks, funds, 30+ years of historical data), but limited in quantity: 500 unique symbols per month, 50 queries per hour, 1000 queries per day.
Quality of data looks very good. I ran a query on VFIAX between 2/19/20 and 3/23/20 inclusive (max drawdown dates) to compare with M* and the Gemini figure given above (-33.72%).
M* chart gives -33.80%, exactly what one gets using Tingo's (10 digit precision) adjusted prices. Tingo also gives a more precise div figure for March 9 ($1.1794/share) than I've been able to find elsewhere. Using that div figure I was able to validate Tingo's adjusted price for March 9th.
In contrast, Yahoo's adjusted price for that date seemed off a little. And using Yahoo's (two decimal place) adjusted price figures for the drawdown endpoints produced a drawdown of -33.83%, vs. Tingo's and M*'s -33.80%. (We already knew that Yahoo's rounding results in inaccuracies.)
I also found that if one compounded the daily gains (after accounting for the div on March 9) the result is also -33.80% so long as one uses at least five decimal places of precision. Rounding each day's gain (or loss) to 4 decimal places resulted in a perceived loss of -33.82%.
All in all, Tingo seems to be both very accurate (not giving wrong values) and very precise (lots of decimal places). Easy to use - output in JSON and csv format.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1644419/000158064225004978/anchorglobalstrat497.htm
497 1 anchorglobalstrat497.htm 497
Anchor Risk Managed Global Strategies Fund
Advisor Class Shares – ATAGX
Institutional Class Shares – ATGSX
(a series of Northern Lights Fund Trust IV)
Supplement dated August 8, 2025
to the Prospectuses and Statements of Additional Information dated December 30, 2024
______________________________________________________________________________
The Board of Trustees of Northern Lights Fund Trust IV (the “Board”) has determined based on the recommendation of the investment adviser of the Anchor Risk Managed Global Strategies Fund (the “Fund”), that it is in the best interests of the Fund and its shareholders that the Fund cease operations. The Board has determined to close the Fund and redeem all outstanding shares on August 28, 2025.
Effective at the close of business August 8, 2025, the Fund will not accept any purchases and will no longer pursue its stated investment objectives. The Fund may begin liquidating its portfolio and may invest in cash equivalents such as money market funds until all shares have been redeemed. Any capital gains will be distributed as soon as practicable to shareholders.
Prior to August 28, 2025, you may redeem your shares, including reinvested distributions, in accordance with the “How to Redeem Shares” section in the Prospectus. Unless your investment in the Fund is through a tax-deferred retirement account, a redemption is subject to tax on any taxable gains. Please refer to the “Tax Status, Dividends and Distributions” section in the Prospectus for general information. You may wish to consult your tax advisor about your particular situation.
ANY SHAREHOLDERS WHO HAVE NOT REDEEMED THEIR SHARES OF THE FUND PRIOR TO AUGUST 28, 2025 WILL HAVE THEIR SHARES AUTOMATICALLY REDEEMED AS OF THAT DATE, AND PROCEEDS WILL BE SENT TO THE ADDRESS OF RECORD. IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS OR NEED ASSISTANCE, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR FINANCIAL ADVISOR DIRECTLY OR THE FUND AT 1-844-594-1226 (toll-free).
This Supplement and the existing Prospectuses dated December 30, 2024, provide relevant information for all shareholders and should be retained for future reference. Both the Prospectuses and the Statements of Additional Information dated December 30, 2024, have been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, are incorporated by reference and can be obtained without charge by calling the Fund at 1-844-594-1226

It appears that new car/truck prices may be increasing appreciably in the near future.
I posted this is another thread.
Auto Industry Takes $12 Billion Hit From Trade War
"President Trump’s tariff war has inflicted almost $12 billion of losses on global automakers,
the biggest hit they have faced since the pandemic.
The scary reality: This may be just the beginning."
"For the world’s 10 largest automakers, not including those in China,
net profit is currently forecast to fall by roughly a quarter this calendar year
to its lowest level since 2020, when the pandemic led to cash-draining factory shutdowns."
https://msn.com/en-us/autos/electric-cars/auto-industry-takes-12-billion-hit-from-trade-war/ar-AA1K4ODX