The largest single holding (1/6 of the portfolio) is T. Rowe Price Dynamic Global Bond (RPEIX / RPIEX). That's where the magic may be be coming from.
A simple 18/82 blend of VTSAX and RPIEX produces a portfolio with
- lower standard deviation (3.84% vs 5.06%),
- higher Sharpe ratio (1.18 vs. 0.81),
- double the Sortino ratio (2.51 vs 1.26),
- max drawdown 60% less (1.74% vs. 4.68%),
- virtually identical correlation with the US equity market (0.66 vs. 0.67)
and an annualized return ½% better: 6.09% vs 5.50%
See Portfolio Visualizer comparison.
So far, I haven't been able to come close to this performance when substituting a different bond fund. There are a variety of other factors to consider. Rotation to value could account for some recent underperformance by the growth leaning TMSRX. The somewhat higher volatility (compared with my custom portfolio) could account for its relative underperformance in 2018 (a down year for the fund and my portfolio) and its relative outperformance in 2019 and 2020 (up years).
Just quick observations. I haven't looked into RPIEX yet, or taken more than a cursory look at the Portfolio Visualizer data.

Interesting fund. Sharpe+Sortino looks good, but after looking a bit more, performance for 2020-21 is not good enough for me to get excited

Per Yahoo Finance, TMSRX lost 3.21% in 1Q 2020. Haven't compared that loss with other alternative funds. 2021 YTD seems sluggish. Not currently adding to this fund;it's on probation for me right now.

Most absolute-return hedged or hedge funds that seek to outperform in a down market and "never lose money" over an extended period of time often use T-bills as their benchmark. More interesting, I think when examining a fund like this one is how well it held up during past periods of market stress and how well it recovered after them. One way would be to see how it did in the February March April period of 2020 versus stocks and conventional bonds.

My daughter recently had a hard time getting a couple of modest 401-k accounts rolled over fo Fidelity. Her employer was bought out, the retirement plan changed hands twice and wound up in the hands of Transamerica. I believe part of the delay was caused by people working at home without the ability to call in a superior or a colleague to solve a problem quickly. The several times she called back it was a different rep and on and on. Finally Fidelity returned to my daughter the physical check sent to them by Transam with the notation that it could not be deposited for no understandable reason. Weeks later it turned out Fidelity had flagged her account because my daughter worked overseas for many months in 2020-21 and the flag had to be lowered. PITA.

At the request of a Reader, I expanded upon an article looking at the "Best Moderate Mixed-Asset Funds" to look at all Mixed Asset Funds by Lipper Category.
Risk, Annualized Return, Risk Adjusted Return, Consistent Return, Capital Preservation, and Tax Efficiency Ratings over the past seven years are used to select the "Best" Funds. I limited the initial search to no-load funds open to new investors with fees below 1.5%, minimum life of seven years, fund family ratings of average or better, and with at least $100M in assets. To refine the list, I limited the funds to those available at Charles Schwab. The "Best Funds" is a list of 35 funds in 10 different Lipper Categories.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4435746-the-best-mixed-asset-funds
I learn a lot from comments and often find new "Best Funds" from Readers. Please feel free to offer your suggestions.

This may make more sense remaining as a private separately managed account strategy for high net worth investors than a public open-end mutual fund. Venture capital investments to any great degree inside public mutual funds have proved problematic in the past from a liquidity and pricing perspective. Look up Van Wagoner Funds or click here: https://sec.gov/news/press/2004-122.htm

I should have said: the magnitude of the relative underperformance of value with respect to growth in the past three years is unprecedented. This is clear from DFA's bar chart reproduced above. Also evident from that chart is value's relative but much smaller underperformance in the preceeding seven years.
For completeness, here's exactly what DFA wrote:

This three-year run [2017-2020] warrants further inspection—just how uncommon was this value premium magnitude? Literally unprecedented, as illustrated by the rolling three-year value premiums in Exhibit 2. Of the 1,093 rolling observations in US history, the three years ending in June 2020 ranked dead last. This is the very definition of an outlier.

---

ᴇxʜɪʙɪᴛ 2

Back of the Pack
Rolling 3-year annualized return differences for value versus growth,
US market, June 1929–June 2020

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/935015/000119312521191702/d192552d497.htm
497 1 d192552d497.htm ARTISAN PARTNERS FUNDS INC
Filed pursuant to Rule 497(e)
File Nos. 033-88316 and 811-08932
ARTISAN PARTNERS FUNDS, INC.
Artisan International Value Fund (the “Fund”)
SUPPLEMENT DATED 16 JUNE 2021 TO THE
FUND’S PROSPECTUS
CURRENT AS OF THE DATE HEREOF
Effective after the close of business on 30 June 2021, the Fund is closed to most new investors. The Fund will accept new accounts from certain investors who satisfy new account eligibility requirements. Eligibility requirements are described in Artisan Partners Funds’ prospectus under the heading “Investing with Artisan Partners Funds—Who is Eligible to Invest in a Closed Fund?”
Accordingly, effective 30 June 2021, the following changes will take effect:
1.The following paragraph is added under the heading “Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares” on page 46 of Artisan Partners Funds’ prospectus:
The Fund is closed to most new investors. See “Investing with Artisan Partners Funds—Who is Eligible to Invest in a Closed Fund?” in the Fund’s statutory prospectus for new account eligibility criteria.
2.The following replaces the text under the heading “Who is Eligible to Invest in a Closed Fund?” on pages 101-102 of Artisan Partners Funds’ prospectus in its entirety:
Artisan High Income Fund and Artisan International Value Fund are each closed to most new investors. From time to time, other Funds may also be closed to most new investors. The Funds do not permit investors to pool their investments in order to meet the eligibility requirements, except as otherwise noted below.
If you have been a shareholder in a Fund continuously since it closed, you may make additional investments in that Fund and reinvest your dividends and capital gain distributions in that Fund, even though the Fund has closed, unless Artisan Partners considers such additional purchases to not be in the best interests of the Fund and its other shareholders. An employee benefit plan that is a Fund shareholder may continue to buy shares in the ordinary course of the plan’s operations, even for new plan participants.
You may open a new account in a closed Fund only if that account meets the Fund’s other criteria (for example, minimum initial investment) and:
∎ you beneficially own shares of the closed Fund at the time of your application;
∎ you beneficially own shares in the Funds with combined balances of $250,000;
∎ you receive shares of the closed Fund as a gift from an existing shareholder of the Fund (additional investments generally are not permitted unless you are otherwise eligible to open an account under one of the other criteria listed);
∎ you are transferring or “rolling over” into a Fund IRA account from an employee benefit plan through which you held shares of the Fund (if your plan doesn’t qualify for rollovers you may still open a new account with all or part of the proceeds of a distribution from the plan);
∎ you are purchasing Fund shares through a sponsored fee-based program and shares of the Fund are made available to that program pursuant to an agreement with the Funds or Artisan Partners Distributors LLC and the Funds or Artisan Partners Distributors LLC has notified the sponsor of that program in writing that shares may be offered through such program and has not withdrawn that notification;
∎ you are an employee benefit plan and the Funds or Artisan Partners Distributors LLC has notified the plan in writing that the plan may invest in the Fund and has not withdrawn that notification;
∎ you are an employee benefit plan or other type of corporate, charitable or governmental account sponsored by or affiliated with an organization that also sponsors or is affiliated with (or is related to an organization that sponsors or is affiliated with) another employee benefit plan or corporate, charitable or governmental account that is a shareholder of the Fund at the time of application;
∎ you are a client, employee or associate of an institutional consultant or financial intermediary and the Funds or Artisan Partners Distributors LLC has notified that consultant or financial intermediary in writing that you may invest in the Fund and has not withdrawn that notification;
∎ you are a client of a financial advisor or a financial planner, or an affiliate of a financial advisor or financial planner, who has at least:
○$2,500,000 of client assets invested with the closed Fund at the time of your application; or
○$5,000,000 of client assets invested with the Funds or under Artisan Partners’ management at the time of your application and, with respect to Artisan International Value Fund only, the Funds or Artisan Partners Distributors LLC has notified such financial advisor or financial planner, or affiliate of such financial advisor or financial planner, in writing, that you may invest in the Fund and has not withdrawn that notification;
∎ you are an institutional investor that is investing at least $5,000,000 in the Fund and the Fund or Artisan Partners Distributors LLC has notified you in writing that you may invest in the Fund and has not withdrawn that notification (available for investments in Artisan International Value Fund only);
∎ you are a client of Artisan Partners or are an investor in a product managed by Artisan Partners, or you have an existing business relationship with Artisan Partners, and in the judgment of Artisan Partners, your investment in a closed Fund would not adversely affect Artisan Partners’ ability to manage the Fund effectively; or
∎ you are a director or officer of the Funds, or a partner or employee of Artisan Partners or its affiliates, or a member of the immediate family of any of those persons.
A Fund may ask you to verify that you meet one of the guidelines above prior to permitting you to open a new account in a closed Fund. A Fund may permit you to open a new account if the Fund reasonably believes that you are eligible. A Fund also may decline to permit you to open a new account if the Fund believes that doing so would be in the best interests of the Fund and its shareholders, even if you would be eligible to open a new account under these guidelines.
The Funds’ ability to impose the guidelines above with respect to accounts held by financial intermediaries may vary depending on the systems capabilities of those intermediaries, applicable contractual and legal restrictions and cooperation of those intermediaries.
Call us at 800.344.1770 if you have questions about your ability to invest in a closed Fund.
https://www.artisanpartners.com/individual-investors/news-insights/news/press-releases/2021/artisan-partners-announces-closing-of-the-artisan-international-value-strategy.html
or
https://www.artisanpartners.com/content/dam/documents/press-releases/mf/Artisan-International-Value-Fund-Closing-16-June-2021-vR.pdf

The former DFA CEO established Avantis Investors in 2019 and poached some key DFA personnel.
Avantis launched five ETFs in September 2019 and three more in 2020.
They also offer separate mutual funds which are essentially the same as these ETFs.
Link

IMPORTANT NOTICE ON PURCHASE OF FUND SHARES
Effective as of 4 p.m. on June 18, 2021 (the "Closing Date"), Retail and Institutional Class Shares of the RiverPark Short Term High Yield Fund (the "Fund") are closed to new investors.
After the Closing Date, existing shareholders of Retail and Institutional Class Shares of the Fund and certain eligible investors, as set forth below, may purchase additional Retail and Institutional Class Shares of the Fund through existing or new accounts and may reinvest dividends and capital gains distributions.

Makes sense. Using the MMA as a buffer reduces the number of transactions with RPHIX. That not only cuts down on transaction fees, but reduces the headache of keeping track of cap gains. And over the period of a year or so, you should not lose money due to minor fluctuations in the share price of RPHIX.
You surely already know this, since you're currently using TRBUX and PRWBX.
Another advantage of RPHIX over RPHYX aside from lower ER is that, should you need the cash quickly, Schwab won't charge you a short term redemption fee. Brokerages typically add that transaction fee on some NTF fund trades.

Schwab’s short-term redemption fee will be charged on redemption of funds purchased through Schwab’s Mutual Fund OneSource service (and certain other funds with no transaction fees) and held for 90 days or less.

https://www.schwab.com/public/file/P-6374145
Also, some fund families are a bit flexible about how much money they require you to keep in the account after you open it. You might check with Schwab and/or Riverpark to ask how low you can let your balance go.

@fred495 - Thanks for the great summary. You make a strong case. I didn’t miss your original meaning / intent.
At a glance, I’d say these guys know how to short bonds & employ leverage thru derivatives. I like to check returns back to at least 2008 when possible. This one’s less than 10 years old. I’m sure there’s a place for a fund like this in some folks’ portfolios. But if you hold bonds for the “old fashioned” reason - to hedge against economic calamity (like 2008) - than shorting investment grade bonds ISTM probably isn’t going to achieve the desired effect. Possibly these guys are quick on their feet and good at changing course.
Bonds today are a bit of a mystery. Just when everybody and his brother was expecting the 10-year to rise from around 1.7% to 2% it reversed course and fell all the way down to 1.46% (at last look). I’ve heard 2 reasons put forth: (1) Even these low rates look attractive to foreign investors; (2) Corporate pension funds are again healthy because of the hot stock market and need to lock-up funds in bonds to meet obligations 30 + years out. So they’re pouring stock gains into fixed income products.

Now we're reaching well into the realm of diversions.
You cannot spend unrealized gains.
What's being taxed is what we get in, i.e. income, regardless of whether it is spent or saved. If you want to switch what's being taxed from what we get in to what we spend, then suggest replacing income taxes with consumption taxes and see how well the middle class fares.
I have never heard of 'unrealized income'
You've probably heard of phantom income - income that's recognized for tax purposes but not realized. That can't be spent either.

Eliminating capital gains carry over and trying to tax unrealized capital appreciation, even limiting it to a large dollar amounts will only hurt the baby boomers who have inherited the stock Mom got in 1950
Except for 2010, there is no capital gains carry over. Just the opposite - heirs get a step up in basis. So let's skip the nonsense about baby boomers who have inherited stock with several decades of taxable gain. True the gain from 1950 is unrealized, but for tax purposes has already been wiped off the books. Same as ETFs wipe their gains off the books - by passing it along to someone else without being taxed on the transfer and without a cap gains carry over.
Perhaps you're thinking about introducing a capital gains carryover and eliminating the step up, so that the gains become taxable to the heirs. Whether that tax is assessed immediately (by taxing unrealized gains) or not (by taxing gains when realized), the tax liability on that gain remains the same. Only the timing is different.
So how large is that potential liability that "will only hurt baby boomers"?

The Obama administration proposed repealing stepped-up basis subject to several exemptions, including a general exemption for the first $100,000 in accrued gains ($200,000 per couple). The US Department of the Treasury estimated that, together with raising the capital gains rate to 28 percent, this proposal would raise $210 billion over 10 years. Ninety-nine percent of the revenue raised would come from the top 1 percent of households ranked by income.

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-difference-between-carryover-basis-and-step-basis
You may very well be right demographically. It could be the baby boomers getting all this liability. But that's not the question. The question is which baby boomers. The 1 percenters or the 99 percenters?

@msf
I disagree that there is an adequate way to "tax" unrealized gains, that would not end up hurting the middle class and upper middle class more ( at least proportionally) than billionaires. So much more of the "billionaires" wealth is in non publicly traded vehicles and items that are hard to value at all ( Art and collectibles) that trying to value them for tax purposes would be almost impossible.
You cannot spend unrealized gains. People have claimed that Billionaires can borrow money against them to avoid paying taxes without data to show this really happens.
I have never heard of "unrealized income". You either receive income or you don't. There is no way I know of to realize income without declaring it except in an IRA.
I believe this issue is a diversion, taking our attention away from practical and easy fixes to the tax system.
The IRS budget has been gutted in the last decades, making it very unlikely that high income returns are audited at all. This is easy to fix with more staff and more audits, which would go a long way to identify unreported benefits that should be taxed and hidden tax shelters
"Carried Interest" is just one example of simple changes in certain tax items that benefit mainly the wealthy that would raise a large amount of money.
Eliminating capital gains carry over and trying to tax unrealized capital appreciation, even limiting it to a large dollar amounts will only hurt the baby boomers who have inherited the stock Mom got in 1950 or who have seen their 1980's $100,000 house become a $1,000,000 "mansion"

ProPublica did its usual thorough job in crunching numbers, with thoughtful and transparent methodology. See, e.g. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-we-calculated-the-true-tax-rates-of-the-wealthiest
That said, I agree that the press release was designed as much to shock as to inform. Like some others, I'm not thrilled with the way the "true tax" rate was presented. But there is something real behind it. The greater the wealth, the greater the amount of unrecognized income.
The problem I see with ProPublica's presentation is not in the point being made, but in the way it glides too easily between wealth and income. ProPublica is more precise in its full writings, but is glib in its summary.
Net increase in wealth is a reasonable measure of income for the wealthy, because "operating expenses" like necessities and taxes become a smaller percentage of asset gain as wealth goes up. But for the "common man", this is not a good calculation.
For the typical middle class, early 40s household, net increase in wealth over the past five years (ending in 2018) was $65K while this household paid $62K in federal taxes - a 95% "true tax" rate. (ProPublica figures.) The reason is twofold: taxes and living expenses roughly match wage income so savings/growth is a small percentage of wealth, and what growth there is comes almost all from home appreciation.
I hesitate to say that the issues raised by Shostakovich and sma3 are distractions, but they are details that don't take away from the main point. It's not just on growth of old-tech company stock where taxes are deferred, but also on the laborer's home appreciation.
Further, how we tax home appreciation shows it is possible to protect the average person while still taxing outsized gains. We exempt $250K/$500K of gain on homes, even when it is realized. That means a lot to most people, but but it is a pittance on $100M mansions.
sma3 wonders how unrealized capital losses would be handled. Why would that be any different from the way we treat realized losses? Currently you get to apply $3K of losses against ordinary income, but you have to carry over the rest on your books. It's not a hard problem; it's what we do now. And that $3K cap is another way in which we try not to hurt the typical taxpayer (letting them get an immediate benefit from losses) while not facilitating abuse of the system (converting huge cap gains losses into ordinary losses).
I agree that the headline piece was designed for shock value; I disagree that there is less substance in the whole piece of work than meets the eye.

China has been working on the development of a national digital currency since 2014.
In 2020, China started real-world trials for the digital yuan in several major cities.
Increasing international use of the yuan is one of their primary goals.
This may potentially threaten the U.S. dollar's position as the world's reserve currency.
The U.S. should conduct a thorough cost/benefit analysis to determine if the usage of "digital dollars" would be advantageous.

Junk and semi-junk munis and securitized. Yup: PTIAX.

Hiya Crash, Their limited total return this year is down to the kind of munis they own: long term, IG, and rate sensitive. That's overall/longer term a decent way to barbell lower quality structured credit, but those munis haven't fared nearly as well this year as junk or mixed IG & junk.
It's still my one rate-sensitive taxable fund. Their new fund PTCRX is looking pretty good - with more credit and a just a small stake in munis compared to PTIAX.
Notice, though, how PTIAX is racking up gains since 10y and 30y Treasury yields have been falling just in the last few days.
Yes, you and I (and maybe a few others) are the Perf Trust Appreciation Association.
Cheers, AJ

I think this "true tax rate" is ridiculous headline generating nonsense. They take the total unrealized gain of public companies stock and then claim Buffet and Bezos, etc should have paid taxes on that number. They may be "worth" that on paper but these are unrealized gains, not money in the bank.
Under this theory, we would all have to pay taxes on any unrealized gains, including the appreciation in your own real estate. If property values fall would the government give us a rebate?
Buffet's income tax rate is 24/125 or 19%. I agree this is low, but so does he. Buffet has always said that the tax system is stacked in his and other millionaires favor.
Wealth taxes have been tired and abandoned in Europe as ineffective. What we need is a simpler tax system, that makes it harder to game, and better audits and enforcement

I am in bond funds because they offer me the best returns with the lowest risk. Their trend persistency combined with their low volatility enable me to best implement the scale up buying strategy I learned from Nicolas Darvas. My first bond trade was in junk bonds in 1991. It was January 17 one of the greatest momentum days ever in equities. That day the Dow surged some 114 points which at that time was its second best on record. As is often the case there was a lag and a few days later junk bonds went on tear and had 60 consecutive trading days without a decline. That smooth ride upward continued for the next three years until February 1994 in junk bonds as they bested the S@P over that period.
That one LUCKY trade made a lasting impression on me and the way I have traded my capital ever since. Most especially after the tech wreck in March 2000. There have been many repeat performances and exhibitions of unreal trend persistency since 2000 in various bond fund categories. Emerging market debt in the early 2000s, junk bonds 2009-12, junk munis 2014, bank loans 2016, and last but not least the securitized category since last spring - IOFIX, BDKAX, abd SEMPX. IOFIX has had something like only 8 down days since last April 2020 when many of the veteran bond traders re entered. An amazing run over a 15 month period.
Some remember me as a day trader in the stock index futures. Others as a trader in tech funds who also exploited the new fund effect as well as datelining. Yet less than 3% of my total trading profits have come from daytrading and only around 13% from tech funds, new funds, datelining. Meaning almost 85% of my nest egg has come from bond funds - my one true love in the financial arena. I have always said everyone needs a trading or investing niche and I found my niche in bond funds.