Just a new short-term position in CAPE Initiated in early August. I have owned it before. The last couple of up days have pushed it squarely into the green, but it’s been a rough ride. I may have explained elsewhere that I don’t trade DSENX, but treat it as a core holding. Therefore, no change in my positions in that fund in three different accounts. As you know, we all feel like geniuses when the market goes up!

to god's ear
do you think warren-buttigieg can win? that does not sound so promising to me. young midwest mayor ...
it cannot be two women. did you read jcapehart's wapo family reunion piece (in SC, I think, maybe NC? I think everyone is AA, like him; many said no to black candidate, country not ready, and elders --- women --- said no woman, either, 'we tried that and look what happened' ... hence biden's reassuringness).

@GREGT
If you come to think that a fund which automatically sells and value-buys within the SP500 world every month might be sort-of defensive (not like low-vol funds and ETFs, though), you will want to take a look at DSENX/DSEEX and the etn they are based on, CAPE. There is much deep diving on them within this forum.

This is the latest example of a poor article from a Forbes 'contributor'. Specifically, very poor timing. Where was this guy in late December? Probably busy selling all his preferreds. It is articles like this one with its incredibly poor timing that effectively provides newbies for existing pfd holders to distribute their preferreds.
Most quality preferred are now trading well above their call/par value, having rocketed in price in reaction to declining yields. Yes, you can clip coupons until a call date arrives, but if rates stay low, those preferreds WILL be called away from you at par. The call price will act like an irresistible magnet as the call date approaches, inevitably pulling down prices.
Investing in collective vehicles of preferreds (i.e. ETFs, OEFs, CEFs) doesn't escape this simple arithmetic reality. All (most) preferreds held in those vehicles are similarly trading at steep premiums to their call prices.
OTOH, if (when) rates rise, pfds will fall harder than fixed-duration debt instruments.
I don't pretend to know where rates are headed. But investor sentiment is overwhelmingly bearish on rates. That bearishness has certainly been reflected in the price you will pay for any preferred offering today...

another interesting datapoint about lower SWR probabilities in a time of high p/e; from a place I do not know:
https://www.crestmontresearch.com/blog/excerpt/5/
(appears to conform with a kitces piece bee posted a year ago
https://finpage.blog/2018/02/28/cape-and-safe-withdrawal-rates/ )

I own both DSENX and CAPE, but I use them differently. The MF is a buy-and-hold in both taxable and Roth accounts our family has. As @davidmoran has pointed out elsewhere, the monthly MF distributions serve to buy more shares regardless of the market's level. CAPE, the ETN, I use as a short to medium term position. My current position represents three buys during the last two weeks' volatility. I don't know how long I might keep this position.

Thanks @BenWP. What are your current thoughts on CAPE?

I was one of the grandfathered age groups, @Catch, here in MI, so escaped the effect of the original legislation. I’m still proud to have been union, but my state is certainly no longer pro-worker. Indiana eliminated collective bargaining for public employees by gubernatorial fiat; Wisconsin went to the dogs funded by Ménard money, and we are also a “right to freeload” state. Hard to fathom, at times.

I never got into DLEUX, but I am a fan of DSENX and CAPE. It's hard to make a case for international stocks. CAPE has gained 96% over the past five years while VXUS has lost 1.27%. The highly touted FMIJX has a yearly return of about 5% for the same time period. I own some SMID global/international and some MIOPX, but the days when I owned a big chunk of international either in my TIAA retirement account or my actively managed portfolio are long gone. Foreign under performance is quite long standing as typified by the demise of Harbor International, a former kingpin. On the other hand, I am a fan of global funds (MGGPX, ADPFX, ARTRX).

The reason to write about it now, responding to the OP, is that for almost 6y it has consistently behaved differently from (similar to but better than) SP500 vehicles, ditto for CAPE, and also differently from actively managed (stockpicker) LV funds.
Presumably, weasel word, if past is any guideline. in a bear market it will do similarly.
In other words, when you graph ($10k growth) of it vs CAPE and VFINX for the six months from last Sept 20 to last March 20, it tracks that sharp decline exactly but slightly worse, meaning the Christmas low point is down almost $2k to $8k (20 bucks short), whereas the CAPE loss was slightly less and VFINX went to $8124 only, not quite as bad.
Then for the comeback it lagged slightly until February, and by March 20 both DSEEX and CAPE pull ahead of VFINX, a little, with DSEEX slightly ahead of CAPE.
Breakeven for all back to $10k was around April 4.

DSEEX up 2.9% above SP500 the first half of this year, in a crazy-strong period thus far (over 18.5%);
1.6% above CAPE alone;
and even a percent or so above TRBCX and FCNTX.
A hair under FLVCX, of all things, which is otherwise not good at all, and even a hair over QQQ.
So again wow, so far.

Interesting link, @davidmoran, to 2013 MFO commentary. The link to Sam Lee's M* article on CAPE is worthwhile, particularly where he says he'd prefer more history than just back to 2002. He was also very prescient in saying he'd feel more comfortable if CAPE were shown to work in overseas markets. As members have said here, DEULX has not really shown much until this year.
My re-reading also reminded me that the Oakseed Boys were announced with some fanfare in that issue of MFO and RPHYX appeared to be a world-beater. History was not kind to SEEDX (liquidated in 2017) and RPHYX tested shareholders' patience when Mr. Sherman seemed to stumble in trying to explain a period of severe under performance. I previously in this thread noted (obliquely) that Ryan Caldwell's Chiron Capital Allocation (CCAPX) fund benefited from a nice write up in MFO and then promptly showed it couldn't keep up with its M* bogey. The success of CAPE really stands out against a backdrop of a several failed efforts to invent a new mousetrap.

Some interesting things I found tonight:
- boilerplate from DoubleLine which somehow I missed before:
'The Fund may use leverage which may cause the effect of an increase or decrease in the value of the portfolio securities to be magnified and the Fund to be more volatile than if leverage was not used.'
- smartguy FD1001 on M* forums has done extensive crunching on managing volatility.
https://community.morningstar.com/t5/Exchange-Traded-Funds/Low-Volatility-ETFs/m-p/9630
shoutout to DSEEX
similar more recently here:
https://community.morningstar.com/t5/Allocation-Balanced-Funds/DoubleLine-Shiller-Enhanced-CAPE-I-DSEEX/td-p/7228
Q&A not by him (which a look at CAPE could've partly answered):
Q - One thing that's confusing: is it DSEEX's bond sleeve that's been responsible for its 3% annual outperformance over SPY? Or is it the Shiller sector selection methodology that favors the cheapest sectors? Does anyone know? Have the fund managers commented on this point?
A - Last webcast covered this. Over last 5-1/2 years of fund existence, the fixed income portfolio annualized return was 296 bps. Over the same timeframe, DSEEX outperformed the S&P500 Index by 340 bps per year, NET of expenses (trading costs and expense ratios). Note: The fixed income portfolio is designed to be low volatility with the objective of outperforming cash. It is used as collateral to fund the total return swap on the Schiller Barclay CAPE Index.
FD1001 MFO-type profile:
https://community.morningstar.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3408 ;
more:
http://socialize.morningstar.com/NewSocialize/blogs/fd1000/archive/2014/05/14/investing-and-my-basic-system.aspx
Historical shoutouts:
DSnowball (https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2013/11/november-1-2013/) alerted us all to Lee's kickoff analysis almost 7y ago:
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/583010/cape-crusader.html

>> Barclays calculated the index values at least as far back as 2012
You mean 2002, correct?
That is odd he would make such a bald volatility claim, as I study this graph, yes.
https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/VZJ_aAz5A0gSKHXbVIpZZg--~A/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9NDgwO2g9MzY3O2lsPXBsYW5l/http://globalfinance.zenfs.com/en_us/Finance/US_AHTTP_SeekingAlpha_ETF_H_LIVE/saupload_cape-hypo_thumb1.jpg
To my eye it does not show 'that volatility has changed significantly between the 2002-2013 period'. Yours?
MFOP's 5y UI for DSEEX is slightly higher than for CAPE (which is slightly higher than for VFINX, yes), indicating the Gundlach bond sauce does not modulate anything, by my grokking anyway.

\\\ ... pointing to the fact that using CAPE as an investment strategy has shown lower volatility and a higher rate of return over time
>> I don't know what he was looking at.
Well, he's speaking after CAPE has been in operation only 54 weeks, right?

Sure, but he wasn't talking about literally buying the CAPE ETN as an investment strategy. (CAPE doesn't appear in the DoubleLine fund, to state the obvious). The index on which both DSENX and CAPE are based was launched by Barclays in 2012. However, Barclays calculated the index values at least as far back as 2012. (See CAPE prospectus, p. PS-33, pdf p. 36).
Take your pick: Gundlach was not aware of the available data as he promoted his fund, representing volatility figures of those 54 weeks as being "over time"; he was aware of the available data going back a decade but chose to disregard it in representing the investment strategy as having low volatility; or he did consider that data, it confirmed his claim of lower relative volatility, and that volatility has changed significantly between the 2002-2013 period and the 2012-2019 (present) period.
Any better alternatives that might make one more comfortable?
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/barclays-shiller-cape-sector-rotation-123731560.html

\\\ ... pointing to the fact that using CAPE as an investment strategy has shown lower volatility and a higher rate of return over time
>> I don't know what he was looking at.
Well, he's speaking after CAPE has been in operation only 54 weeks, right?
Outperforming VFINX 2.4% in that year-plus, with both up >30%.
It does look like the peaks and dips are very slightly greater than SP500 in that timeframe, hard to tell from the graphs, but I think so.

Seeing as DSENX invests in those sectors that are the cheapest, I would it expect it to be less volatile than the market and that it would resist downdrafts better. Why don't the numbers play out this way? The downside capture ratios are all slightly greater than 100%.

Apparently Gundlach also thinks so:

“We think [DSENX/DSEEX is] a better mousetrap,” he said, pointing to the fact that using CAPE as an investment strategy has shown lower volatility and a higher rate of return over time. Hopefully, the fixed-income expert says, it will result in “a tastes great, less filling type of investment experience.”

https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2013/11/22/gundlach-on-shiller-cape-fund-a-better-mousetrap/
I don't know what he was looking at. According to Porfolio Visualizer, over the lifetime of CAPE, VVIAX and VFINX have been similarly volatile (std. dev about 11) based on monthly returns, while CAPE's std dev was nearly 12.
There's greater separation in maximum drawdowns: about 11% for the value index, 13½% for the 500 index, and 15¼% for CAPE.

@BenWP,
What brokerage do you use for CAPE?
Bid-ask of 16 cents on $134 (if I am reading the Fidelity listing right) does not sound so wide, and it tracks its NAV pretty closely. Am I missing something?

The Barclay's article linked by @msf helped me a lot in grasping how the CAPE sector rotation works. It's illuminating to see what sectors never made it in at all and that energy was in for only one month. If CAPE had a "value" tilt, sectors such as utilities, real estate, financials, and materials might be selected, but they were not. Sherman's comment as cited above by @davidmoran, makes it clear why investors should not expect the fund to act like a bulwark against market downturns.
I am happy with my holdings in DSENX because the strategy and implementation are way beyond what I could replicate on my own. Over my investing years I've read explanations by several smart-seeming managers (anyone remember Ryan Caldwell?) whose funds never produced anything worthwhile. The CAPE and DoubleLine people strike me as being really smart and they are producing returns for me and others on this board.
I have also owned the CAPE ETN at times because I like to trade certain CEFs or ETFs when I see a possible market inefficiency. As I have said before, CAPE is a tough fund to trade because the spreads are so wide. Only occasionally is there an advantage to exploit.

... managers ... look at 11 US stock sectors and select 5 undervalued sectors, then take 4 sectors out of 5 with the best momentum.

A couple of clarifications:
The five candidate sectors are the most undervalued not relative to the market, but to themselves. This allows for the inclusion of traditionally overvalued sectors that may still be overvalued relative to the market, albeit somewhat less so than historically. People seem to think that the methodology is designed to select sectors that are undervalued relative to the market. That is not the case.
Edit: @LLJB - I composed this before seeing your better post on relative valuations. One sometimes sees 20 year lookback periods (as you described for the CAPE values used) and sometimes 10 year periods. Each of the CAPE values itself is computed with a 10 year lookback, so the raw data that feeds into this index could extend as far back as 30 years!
Here's a paper that shows for the 11 sectors, in which months during 2018 they were included in the Shiller Barclays CAPE® US Sector RC 10% USD TR Index. That index picks the same four sectors as the Shiller Barclays CAPE® US Core Sector Index. The only difference is that the former adjusts its market exposure up or down to temper volatility.
https://indices.barclays/IM/33/en/efsdocument.app?documentId=374&filename=Shiller10PerformancAnalysis.pdf
Two sectors were included in all twelve months: technology and healthcare. IMHO, a fund that maintains a steady 50% exposure to technology and healthcare (combined) is no value fund. The sectors may have had low valuations relative to their historical norms, but they were not low relative to the market. See, e.g. US News, The Most Overvalued and Undervalued Stock Market Sectors of 2019, Jan 11, 2019.
Based on forward looking P/Es (I believe Shiller uses retrospective figures), technology and healthcare were smack in the middle of the pack. Compared to their historical P/Es, they're undervalued (as are several sectors according to the article).
Regarding momentum, that's based on a one year look back, as opposed to the ten year look back for Relative CAPE® Indicator (historical valuation).

>> That's as clear as mud. It says that there's a fee to "buy into" DSEEX, but doesn't say whether converting shares counts as "buying into" the fund.
I find it clear, but that may be because I have executed it so often; also, I've known for years that our reading comprehension differs.

If it was even possible that your experience influenced your read, regardless of whether it actually did, then the text was not without objective ambiguity. Either that, or you sometimes read things differently than the plain text on the page. As might I.

Sometimes the custodian will issue a trade confirmation on the swap, which makes it look like we sold one share class and bought into another. Though technically that is true, it is essentially a non-taxable swap into a different share class of the same mutual fund, albeit one with a lower expense ratio.

Emphasis added . ParsecFinancial, What is a Mutual Fund Share Class Exchange