@rabockma1
FWIW: TCELX gained 59.0% in 2020.

Are you concerned about the Matthews Asia personnel turnover in 2020?
The following portfolio managers left the firm last year:
Tiffany Hsiao, YuanYuan Ji, Beini Zhou, and Lydia So.
Yu-Ming Wang, president and global CIO, resigned from Matthews Asia on 09/30/2020.
Mr. Wang joined the firm only seven months earlier.

It seems this thread is started to be dominated by FR/BL funds. It was not my intent to hijack this thread from the OPs original intent. MSF gave a more detailed analysis of MWFLX, according to M*. The OP is a Fido investor, and I am a Schwab investor, so we may not view funds quite the same as far as availability between these 2 brokerages. I have done some due diligence analysis of funds in this category, and I maintain a M* Portfolio Watchlist of funds that I am most interested in monitoring, but as I said above, the OP has to apply his own personal due diligence criteria, IF he has any interest in this category.
For full disclosure, I have invested in this category off and on for the last several years--SPFYX and SAMBX are 2 funds I have held in the past, before 2021. In 2021 I have owned several BL/FR funds including the following: AFRAX, EIFAX, MWFLX, FFRHX, and PRFRX, but currently I only own 1 fund from this category. At Schwab, their 2 BL/FR funds they recommend are FRFZX and SAMBX. The "hottest" and highest performing BL/FR fund YTD is OOSAX, likely a favorite for bond traders, but it has a somewhat checkered past and the fund investing strategy was changed significantly in 2020.
Because investors differ so much from each other in their investing style and due diligence approach, I am very reluctant to do much more than "suggest" this might be a category the OP "might" want to consider, and if interested he can do his own extensive due diligence. Good luck!

Fred: "Here is what dtconroe said about the fund in January 2020:"
"The Bank Loan/Floating rate bond oef, that I would most likely invest in, is MWFRX/MWFLX. It is from a stable of bond oefs, offered by Met West, and it has an established history of being managed very conservatively, at least "conservative" for a sector HY bond category."
Yep, that is what I said in January, and M* does rate it as a "Low Risk" fund. M* does not seem to think as highly of this fund, based on its fund analysis commentary. So, when I listed FFRHX, PRFRX, and SAMBX, on this thread, I did so because M* fund analysis statements are very complimentary of these 3 funds. There are many good BL/FR funds, so it ultimately depends on what the OP would be comfortable with, after he does his own due diligence.

Howdy folks,
Great discussion. Start with @msf and Ford raising his workers wages so they could afford to buy a Ford. Another classic was the GI Bill after WW2. It was simply a labor control device to slow the reentry of the GI's into the work force. After WW1, the GI's marched on WashDC for jobs and Uncle to call out active duty soldiers to quell the uprising. That said, what the GI Bill resulted in was an incredible investment in human capital which led the the posterity of the 50's and 60's. Both are example of Demand Side economics . . . which we need more of. Not because we're bleeding heart liberals or socialists or even nice guys. IT'S TO STIMULATE AGGREGATE DEMAND. Duh. That's what this Employment strike will result in. That's why the states that maintained the excess unemployment benefits had better economies than those that didn't. The extra bennies went to AGG Demand. And what is so brain dead, is that the republicans are so damn mean, they continually choose the wrong actions and shoot themselves in the foot.
@Ben and @oldJoe, Unions were and are a necessary evil. However, once they were founded, they became institutionalized and aren't much different today than management. Not unlike organized religion. Once established, they become more obsessed with preserving the institution than the membership.
@hank, all true about the demise of organized labor, etc. That said, a DC pension can be a good substitute for a DC pension but it has to be done right and at the beginning of employment and most often they are not. You can have decent benefits for employees and not have enormous legacy costs. My township has great benefits and no legacy costs. 403(b) with match and investment guidance and flexibility. Health care while working and health savings for retirement. It can be done, but you first have to give a shit about your employees.
We need more demand side economics. Raising the minimum wage would be perfect but it's going to have to be a grass roots movement (like a general strike) due to the inability of Washington to do anything right for the right reasons. Infrastructure? Huge. It's jobs. That's what people need and want. The reason why demand side econ is so superior to supply side is the Marginal Propensity to Consume. This is how a person saves or spends each additional dollar. Down around the bottom of the income ladder the MPC approaches 1.0. They are forced to spend (consume) every additional dollar. By consuming, they're buying stuff and then stuff has to be made. When the cost of capital is 0.0%, nothing will ever 'trickle down'.
And for every business with a Help Wanted sign in their window. PAY YOUR WORKERS MORE AND YOU WON'T HAVE THIS PROBLEM.
and so it goes,
peace and wear the damn mask,
rono

The 'story' from Bloomberg so far is really only a small window into how the traders, based in a remote suburb of London, took a huge risk to hit the jackpot in April 2020. Regulators are investigating whether they were brilliant or conspired to manipulate the market. Personally I hope they fairly outwitted Big Oil and the Street. But who knows? Apologies if this has been posted previously.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2021-05-11/the-day-oil-went-negative-these-unlikely-traders-made-660-million-video

However, if you are a conservative investor looking for a low risk floating rate fund you may want to check out MWFRX/MWFLX. It's standard deviation is 6.2%, according to M*, and during the market crash in March 2020 it lost "only" 8.35%, whereas RSFLX lost 14%.
Here is what dtconroe said about the fund in January 2020:
"The Bank Loan/Floating rate bond oef, that I would most likely invest in, is MWFRX/MWFLX. It is from a stable of bond oefs, offered by Met West, and it has an established history of being managed very conservatively, at least "conservative" for a sector HY bond category."
Since we are talking about HY bond funds, and the OP said to "Keep it coming", may I suggest also checking out OSTIX, a short term HY fund that according to M* is "[...] a unique high-yield offering with a strong risk-adjusted return profile, particularly over the longer term." It also rates the fund's risk as "low".
While its YTD total return is a respectable 5.14%, its 3, 5, 10 and 15 year returns range consistently between 5 and 6%. The fund's average effective duration is currently 2.28, and the standard deviation 5.74%.
OSTIX's consistent performance over the past 15 years recommends it as a possible long term holding. Thought it deserves to be mentioned.
Good luck,
Fred

I have always believed their "we are not money grubbing investment advisors.. we only work for you the fund shareholders, who own the company" is total BS. We you ever asked to vote on the CEO's compensation?
I suspect this cut back was precipitated by the capital they need desperately to upgrade their computer systems

Just wanted to add one last post to this thread.
Today the S&P is currently within 0.5% of it's previous HIGH. Given that and scoring at home, when we get to this point I consider the current Dip/Diplet effectively over. YMMV (but I'm not sure why it would).
So for this latest Dip/Diplet (DOWN from 4,537), the correct response was to BUY or HOLD it, not SELL it.
FWIW, we made a few broad market BUYs and started DCA'ing into two new stock ETFs around S&P 4,300 using cash, CD proceeds and bond OEF SALE proceeds. Those new BUYs are UP in aggregate ~5%.
PLEASE don't try to frame this as boasting or bragging (though I know some will). It's simply a statement of what we've been doing since the March 2020 crash. It's worked EVERY time so far and ALL Dip/Diplet BUYs are now UP between 5% (most recent Dip) - 70% (post-crash BUYs). BUY funds would have all been stagnant, losing money or barely treading water had they been left where they were.
So if any further studies are presented showing Dip/Diplet BUYing does NOT work, please at least add a footnote regarding the March 2020-current as an outlier performance period.

From Yahoo :
Allowab (non-advisory)
Commonwealth Universe
Mid Atlantic Capital Group
Pershing Retirement Plan Network
Raymond James
Raymond James WRAP Eligible
Vanguard NTF

Calamos Market Neutral Income Fund (CMNIX / CVSIX / CVSCX)
https://www.calamos.com/globalassets/media/documents/tax-center/calamos-market-neutral-income-fund-estimated-2021-capital-gains.pdf
Estimates for all other Calamos funds will be available Nov 1
https://www.calamos.com/resources/tax-center/

Several posters commented on this fund on another tread. Quite a flexible allocation fund with good risk profile with respect to 2020’s drawdown and recovery time. Also it is more value oriented.

FWIW saying I created a new Schwab account in Aug 2020 and moved those significant assets over soonafter because I have been through brokerage migrations before and they always are problematic ... I didn't want to go through it again. Not to mention, I was *livid* after TDA's week-plus of extreme technical glitches at the time and the company's deafening silence about it despite people screaming about it, so it was also a form of protest from me.

Are you asking why the beta is so low in magnitude (since the price moves sharply, one might expect the beta to be higher), or why it's that high, or even why it isn't negative (since the US market has trended up in the past few months while ENIC has trended down)? I really can't tell what you're expecting from this chart.
One can take the data from the past 12 months and smooth it by looking at monthly returns. In seven months (Oct, Nov and Dec 2020, Jan, March, Aug and Sept 2021) it moved in the same direction as the US equity market; in the other five months it moved in the opposite direction. Consequently one might expect a relatively flat (small slope, i.e. beta) regression line.
See this PortfolioVisualizer chart comparing ENIC and VFIAX. Clicking on the Metrics shows a beta for ENIC of 0.84, but with a small R² of just 21%.
Regardless of what value the calculation produces for beta, it's pretty much meaningless because of the low correlation.
Of course I'm assuming that your beta is relative to the US market. If you're using a different (and hopefully better) benchmark, that could make the beta value meaningful.

Howdy folks,
It's going on as we watch. How can we play it?
All around us, not only in the US, but overseas as well, we're witnessing (and participating in) a General Strike by workers everywhere. 'Take this job and shove it. I ain't working here no more'.
Workers have more power than they've had in decades and they're using it. Deere and Kellogg are out and on the west coast, the TV and Movie peeps narrowly avoided a strike because management caved in on every issue. At Deere, they were offered 5-6% and the workers are saying, Stuff It. I seriously believe the west coast hospital workers will walk and think of their leverage. And folks, this is only the beginning. Pilots can't strike, but they sure can get sick. Oh, and think how easy it is right now to supplement your strike pay. McDonald's is hiring at $21 per hour. This seems to me that the workers are going to win. Tough to bet against them.
The pandemic has created a perfect storm for workers and employment in general.
1. Not safe to go to work because of the virus.
2. Kids at home.
3. Tired of receiving shit wages for shit work.
4. Additional unemployment benefits [although the bs the republicans spread about exacerbating the problem has proven to be just that - BS. Indeed, the states that cut benefits early not only didn't see any reduction in help wanted signs, but it actually hurt their overall economies more than the states that maintained them due to a reduced aggregate demand.]
5. Lack of some spending - travel, dining out, concerts, movies, etc. - has allowed many households to become cash flush.
6. Perfect opportunity to change careers.
7. Virtual options for financial gain - Ebay, Market Place, OnlyFans, etc. My barber has a friend, who is buying Amazon 2nds for peanuts and reselling them.
Sokay, how to play?
Watch for the companies that figure it out and take the 'high road' vs. the ones that don't. A very easy tell, is whether there are Help Wanted signs or not. The businesses with pervasive help wanted signs are having a very tough time even staying open. How many restaurants do you know with reduced hours and menus? Which are simply raising wages and benefits and not bitching.
New industries that get it (e.g. pot. I was talking with a budista and he said, they were receiving great pay and benefits and it was the best job he'd had in years).
Short? Anyone that relies on truck drivers. Again, POT. To drive a semi, you have to have a CDL. With a CDL, you are subject to random drug testing and pot has a half life of 30 days. Hell, they're pushing to allow teenagers to drive. Feh, in my state, you've got to be 21 to buy pot.
Just a start of a discussion.
and so it goes,
peace and wear the damn mask,
rono

It was a nice clean calculation (+1).
One needs to read the source cited for the estimated 2022 premium to discover the ultimate source. That's the 2021 annual report of the Medicare trustees.
https://www.cms.gov/files/document/2021-medicare-trustees-report.pdf
A few items in that report worth mentioning:
1. The premium is computed based on expected 2022 costs for Medicare (pdf p.26, second paragraph). That's no different from what virtually every other insurer does when setting premiums. This calculation is de novo; it does not look at what the premium was last year.
2. The $158.50 estimate does not (yet?) include the impact of covering Aduhelm (pdf p94, bottom paragraph). So that might affect the final numbers.
3. There's a $3 claw back for some premium reductions (hold harmless reductions and the 2021 cap on the premium increase). Pdf p. 89. This is projected to be added onto premiums through 2025 (pdf. p 90, 2nd full paragraph).
In a desperate attempt to relate this to mutual funds, I'll point out that this claw back is very similar to the claw back that mutual funds employ with temporary fee waivers. See, e.g. TRBUX (gross ER 0.29%, but net ER of 0.31% including a 0.02% claw back).

Interesting looking income focused fund. It has done especially well since the 2020 downturn. Here are it's recent stock %'s per M*.

- “Assuming your question is in good faith and not a rabbit hole invitation...”
- “Other posters have presented studies to show it does NOT work. I've argued that such studies produce statistics that support the Three Kinds of Lies.”
Arguments others may have made to the contrary need not be characterized as lies. It is possible for good and rational people to view the same evidence and arrive at different conclusions.

Yeah, you kind of short-handed what I've posted here. I did NOT state any specific poster lied.
Here ya go (again)...
Studies produce statistics. A very old saying about statistics (maybe only amongst people who professionally crunched data for a living for three+ decades?) goes like this....
There are three kinds of lies.
1. Lies
2. Damned lies.
3. Statistics.
Meaning, in this specific discussion...
Any study that produced/produces a statistic to show that BTD does NOT work is effectively a lie in relation to the ACTUAL results of of my BTD trades since March 2020.
And there are/will be thousands of other examples of BTD success stories and IMO they can't simply be dismissed/treated as outliers.
Adios on this thread.

"much of my gains would evaporate (at least temporarily) in a SEVERE market crash."
What a surprise! Who would have guessed?

If you're poking fun at me, not sure why. I posted that because some posters here seem to have needed that stated clearly.

Buying dips is easy. Catching a falling knife is difficult. Selling just before a dip is damn impossible . Hence why most studies show buy and hold works for most people.
I kind of think when people here say they bought the dip they are talking about a fraction of their portfolio. Again the benefit is not very significant versus risk compared to buy and hold. Could be wrong but I doubt it.

Agreed on everything except your reference to "a fraction of their portfolio." That does not describe my particular case.
I'm a LT, B&H, TR investor who significantly increased my stock exposure by about 50% through BTD since the March 2020 crash.
Funds for ALL BTDs was from cash, CD proceeds and bond OEF sales. Most funds came from CD ladder rungs that fell off during that period and I chose to not replace and instead BTD.
It has worked tremendously well for me since March 2020.
Really tired of trying to explain that and going to move on from this thread after two more replies.