I purchased RSIVX based on the very favorable write-up it got from MFO in January. I'm retired and have placed money in this fund to balance some of my equity holdings. Should I move to a better fund? What conservative income funds would you recommend? [I've been tempted to put some money in FPA New Income]

RPHYX, RSIVX and FPNIX is where my "risky cash" is. So far so good.

As RPHYX nears a 3 year anniversary with almost $900 million in assets, I would have expected to see an expense ratio considerably below 1.17%. That's over $10 million being raked in annually for this fund. I guess the prospects for the RSIVX expense ratio to come down much from the current 1.24% are not too bright. I think that RSIVX is delivering about what I expected - 4.4% YTD with low volatility - but expenses ought to be lower.

Hi Skeet- I hadn't really thought of my setup as "sleeves", but the general organization is of a similar type, with four self-defined "areas"-
1) US Equity Funds: ANCFX, ACMVX, GABAX, GASFX, BUFBX, PRBLX, VVPSX, SCHD
2) US Balanced and Allocation Funds:ABALX, TWSMX, RSIVX, MFLDX
3) World and EM Equity Funds: SMCWX, CWGIX, ANEFX, MAPIX, ARTGX, SFGIX, WAFMX, GPROX
4) US Bond Funds: ABNDX, AIBAX, AHITX, ABHIX, RPHYX, LSBRX
As you say, it makes it easy to adjust balances within areas by adjusting various fund levels. The four areas are currently 20%, 20%, 31% and 29%, respectively. A series of graphs and charts in my spreadsheet give a good picture of the performance of each fund individually, as well as overviews of the total allocations as: US stocks, foreign stocks, US Bonds, foreign bonds, convertible, preferred, cash & "other".
BTW, am thinking about adding TOLLX.
Regards- OJ

Hey guys! Managed to find Internet on the beach. My brother who thinks his lil brother lost it a long time back, never invests in mutual funds. However thanks to this board and after I recommended RPHYX and RSIVX - the only funds he owns besides bunch of Vanguard in his 401k - he still introduces me to others as his brother. Sorry digressing...
When we discussed conservative (ahem) ways to get some yield, he says to look at PFF and the new VRP. Then he showed me how some preferred stocks have provided him good income over the past few years and especially after the financial crisis. Anyways, just some food for thought. I am going to research some preferred stock funds after I get back. Seems like a compelling diversifying opportunity to me
Wish my first generation IPad had a camera so I could post a picture of my first real vacation in years. I have already had enought beers in the name of each one of you.

Perhaps I am ignorant but what would be the benefit of such a fund structure?

It certainly seems that in its present incarnation, just having one low cost high yield bond index fund would accomplish about the same thing as that pack of high yield funds, with much lower expenses.
I've not read the prospectus or visited the website. It's called Strategic Income Fund, but one wonders if this is a "tactical income fund". You would suspect it is. I'm sure VF knows, and can JohnChisum's question.

I am actually surprised it holds so many high yield funds. I mean not all high yield funds are of the RPHYX variety. I am perplexed. How is fund achieving its mandate with such a bunch of aggressive bond holdings?

If you are looking for a cash substitute type fund, the fund David just highlighted in his commentary, ZEOIX, fits the bill. It appears to be even more conservative then short term HY funds like RPHYX. I'm considering it myself.

They describe themselves as a home for your “strategic cash holdings, with the goals of protecting principal and beating inflation by an attractive margin.” While the prospectus allows a wide range of investments, the core of the portfolio has been short-term high yield bonds, secured floating rate loans and cash.

http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2014/07/zeo-strategic-income-zeoix-july-2014/

Well, one of the premises of RPHYX is that they buy stuff that has either already been called, or is of very short duration to call, so they are not really that concerned about the market value of the bond itself, but are counting on collecting the full face value in a very short period of time. Theoretically at least that should make their stuff pretty resistant to the bear. The main risk is that the bond issuer could go bankrupt before repayment, but they do a pretty good risk analysis to make that sort of thing highly improbable.

Thanks a bunch rjb. But if you look at the numbers for RPHYX you will also see high numbers against BB and B. Now obviously the duration for RPHYX may be much smaller. It is only when I saw that I was intrigued and wanted to know if the similarity stops there or if the intent is the same with both funds.
Best.

Can we hope FSAHX is in the mould of RPHYX or RSIVX? Would love to hear knowledgeable people comment. Always good to know of lowest risk alternatives to MM funds given current interest rate environment. Good to know options for spreading manager risk for such holdings.
If anyone has any insight it will be much appreciated.

Well, you've got RPHYX, with their lousy 1* rating, yet closed to additional investors, who doesn't really seem to care that M* really has no idea what they are all about. A healthy 20% of our portfolio is with them.

What's with the 1* on that? Odd. Fund would appear to be doing what it set out to do just fine.

What rjb said - it's just the math of a fund that doesn't fit neatly into M* categories. They lump all HY together, regardless of duration, whereas they break investment grade down into 3 duration categories.
There was a thread earlier here pointing out that a short term high yield category would make a lot of sense, since funds that invest along those lines behave pretty differently from either investment grade or all-duration high yield. The catch with RPHYX is how extremely short the maturity/duration it is - its numerical ratings might not look terrific even in a short term HY category.

Well, you've got RPHYX, with their lousy 1* rating, yet closed to additional investors, who doesn't really seem to care that M* really has no idea what they are all about. A healthy 20% of our portfolio is with them.

What's with the 1* on that? Odd. Fund would appear to be doing what it set out to do just fine.

Well, you've got RPHYX, with their lousy 1* rating, yet closed to additional investors, who doesn't really seem to care that M* really has no idea what they are all about. A healthy 20% of our portfolio is with them.

Same sort of thing with RPHYX- unable to find enough very short-term corporate HY junk, so they closed except to existing holders. They are presently holding about 9% cash.

Well, RPHYX is probably a bit safer, but I have both RPHYX and RSIVX, and am comfortable with both. Stash a little here, a little there...

A mixed bag...
ABNDX 12.75 +0.03 (0.24%)
AIBAX 13.55 +0.02 (0.15%)
MAPIX 16.18 +0.06 (0.37%)
LSBRX 15.75 +0.01 (0.09%)
SFGIX 11.80 +0.01 (0.08%)
AHITX 11.60 0.00 (0.00%)
RSIVX 10.42 0.00 (0.00%)
RPHYX 10.01 0.00 (0.00%)
WAFMX 3.27 0.00 (0.00%)
ABALX 25.33 -0.11 (-0.43%)
ANCFX 53.60 -0.25 (-0.46%)
SMCWX 50.58 -0.34 (-0.67%)
CWGIX 47.34 -0.19 (-0.40%)
ANEFX 39.41 -0.18 (-0.45%)
ACMVX 17.12 -0.09 (-0.52%)
TWSMX 7.51 -0.02 (-0.27%)
ABHIX 6.28 -0.01 (-0.16%)
BUFBX 14.94 -0.05 (-0.33%)
PRBLX 39.12 -0.22 (-0.56%)
VVPSX 19.33 -0.15 (-0.77%)
GABAX 68.11 -0.46 (-0.67%)
MFLDX 17.93 -0.01 (-0.06%)
GASFX 30.61 -0.05 (-0.16%)
ARTGX 16.21 -0.01 (-0.06%)
GPROX 12.85 -0.04 (-0.31%)
SCHD 38.30 -0.23 (-0.60%)

@Scott - "Made actually a lot of changes today"...
In the last week I've added a bit to:
SCHD SCHWAB US DIV EQUITY ETF
WAFMX WASATCH FRONTIER
GASFX HENNESSY GAS UTILITY
RPHYX RIVERPARK SHORT TERM
GPROX GRANDEUR PEAK GLBL
PRBLX PARNASSUS CORE EQTY
Excuse the caps- copied from Schwab site & too lazy to redo.
If this market can stand my actually buying something it's more solid than I think it is. You staying with MFLDX? Just curious as to your thoughts on that.
OJ

Vanguard also allows for an exchange into the institutional versions of RPHYX and RSIVX without incurring capital gains. Schwab does not permit investors to make this exchange. Also, at Schwab, while you can sell RPHYX you obviously cannot use the the proceeds to buy $100K of RPHIX since it is soft closed.
Off topic, but if GPROX ever hard closes, my understanding is that Vanguard will allow investors to continue to invest in the GPROX through a previously set up AIP; Schwab will not.

The new ERs, for retail, are 1.05% for Wedgewood and 1.17% for RPHYX.
As ever,
David

Regarding RPHYX, Is this accurate? Morningstar shows their top 25 holdings as maturing in 2015-2019

Those holdings might be callable bonds, meaning that the issuer has the option to pay off the bonds early in certain circumstances. Part of RPHYX's strategy is to buy bonds that have already been called (i.e. the company has already announced that it will be paying off the bonds early) and will be paid out soon.

Regarding RPHYX, Is this accurate? Morningstar shows their top 25 holdings as maturing in 2015-2019.
http://portfolios.morningstar.com/fund/holdings?t=RPHYX&region=usa&culture=en-US