I would argue that CTFAX is no longer contrarian. Based on the fund's 5/1/2020 Asset Allocation Update, the fund will always hold at least a 50% stock allocation. With the previous guidelines, the fund had the option to hold only a 10% stock allocation once the S&P 500 reached a predetermined threshold. As @Old_Skeet mentioned above its no longer a risk off, risk on fund, and should not be classified in the 15%-30% Allocation group, but rather,say, in the Tactical Asset group.

In high yield I've been satisfied with VWEHX TGHNX and MWHYX .

There's no perfect recipe for anything in this world, including investing. I don't own any bond funds calling themselves "high yield" any longer. I looked at those three. It seems to me that for "HY" products, those dividends are rather sub-par. ...Right now, my PTIAX offers the best of my three funds' distributions, and it is closer to breaking-even in 2020 than my PRSNX or RPSIX. Yields on these funds range from 3.69 to 3.88 to 4.68.
Which particular angles on all of this can someone point out to me?

Related covid19 news...new normalcy..enjoy
Coronavirus Forces Gulf States to Reckon With Their Scores of Migrant Workers
A new cluster of cases in Seoul tests South Korea’s easing. Belarus held a tank parade.
Published May 9, 2020
Updated May 10, 2020, 12:12 a.m. ET
This briefing has ended. Follow our latest coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
Here’s what you need to know:
South Korea aimed for ‘a new daily life with Covid-19.’ Four days later, Seoul found a new cluster.
Oil’s collapse and the pandemic force Gulf states to reckon with their vast armies of migrant workers.
The latest in science: More children have died of an illness associated with the coronavirus; a drug cocktail shows promise for Covid-19.
In wealthy Geneva, a food line keeps growing.
China let Elon Musk reopen a Tesla factory, but California refused — and his anger is evident on Twitter.
The coronavirus isn’t going away soon. Two new studies provide a picture of how the future might look.
Overlooked no more: June Almeida, the scientist who identified the first coronavirus.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/09/world/live-coronavirus-news.html

Here is a sample from one thread of the article:

For years, commentators of a conspiratorial lean have half-jokingly suggested that humanity is living in a simulation, à la The Matrix. When it comes to economic activity and markets, that is no longer an absurd suggestion.
...around three-quarters of those laid-off workers "receive benefits that exceed their former wage," Goldman says.
Goldman's projections actually call for a small increase in disposable personal income.

Again, we are living in a simulation.

But there is a problem related to living in a simulation:

The Treasury can make up for people’s lost wages, but people need the things wages buy. So replacing lost wages and revenues will not be enough for long: the economy has to produce goods and services.

Another thread of the article discussess Modern Monetary Theory and ties it into current Fed and Treasury activities. Here is a sample:

The US can always buy whatever there is to buy that's denominated in US dollars. It has no need to borrow dollars from anyone else because it is the issuer of those dollars. The US can spend too much, which risks stoking inflation, but the US does not, will not, and has never, needed to borrow dollars. Suggesting otherwise is to traffic in patent nonsense.
Why do governments sell bonds whenever they run deficits?...By selling bonds, they maintain the illusion of being financially constrained.

Here is the link to the article:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4345783-simulation-game

These articles hardly ever get the info you need/want. The most interesting are funds in the 3-6% yield where you find good risk/reward + yield.
Over the years I find myself using many times HY Munis + Multisector/NonTrad funds, especially securitized/MBS. Many of these got hit hard in 2008 and 2020 but they will be back.
FAGIX is an interesting fund I have watched over the years but not used. Did you know that FAGIX performed better than the SP500 for one year since the bottom on 3/6/2009?
In 2020, SPY is better since the bottom of 3/23.

A state by state experiment involving moving beyond the pandemic shut down is underway. It involves both numbers and attitudes. We will see over the next several weeks and months how it plays out. Hospital patient volume limitations may place a cap on the willingness of states to open up. But, within that cap, it may turn out that the effective end of the pandemic for most people includes acceptance of monthly death and infection numbers that force the more vulnerable portions of the population to be quite cautious.
That type of ending could accelerate the rate at which the economy rebounds.

When will the Covid-19 pandemic end? And how?
According to historians, pandemics typically have two types of endings: the medical, which occurs when the incidence and death rates plummet, and the social, when the epidemic of fear about the disease wanes.
“When people ask, ‘When will this end?,’ they are asking about the social ending,” said Dr. Jeremy Greene, a historian of medicine at Johns Hopkins.

https://nytimes.com/2020/05/10/health/coronavirus-plague-pandemic-history.html

Hi @Level5, For someone that has not followed the fund I can understand why one could become confused. It took me, years back, a while before I fully understood how the fund works. Know, I am not trying to change your thoughts on the fund ... Just, trying to help bring a better understanding on how it works from my past experiences.
Here is the link to the fund. https://www.columbiathreadneedleus.com/investment-products/mutual-funds/Columbia-Thermostat-Fund/Class-A/details/?cusip=197199755&_n=1
First, know that it has a 31 day trading rule and it can not change position direction once established until 31 days have expired.
Second, to see how the fund is positioned follow the link and open The Asset Allocation Update which will be a pfd. On this pfd you will find the last six asset allocation changes the fund made with the last one taking place on 4/28/2020 where it moved to a 35% stock / 65% bond allocation.
Third, once annually (May 1st) the fund managers set the trading ranges for the fund going forward for the coming year. With this, on May 1st of 2020 the fund made an asset allocation change from a baseline 10% equity allocation to a 50% baseline equity allocation before adjusting for the movement of the 500 Index. Since, the 31 day traiding rule is in effect the fund will not make the actual declared adjustment until the 31 days has expired from the date of the last asset allocation change. This will be done somewhere around May 29th.
For me it was a risk off ... risk on ... fund holding. Now with the baseline asset allocation change from a 10% baseline equity allocation to a 50% equity allocation it is no longer, from my perspective, a risk off ... risk on ... fund. With this, I have it under review, myself, to determine just how much of it I will continue to hold going forward.
I hope my above comment bring some clairty for a better understanding of how the fund positions.
Skeet

@Old_Joe
I agree completely. I think this is not going to be a "V" shaped recovery; It may not even be "U" shaped, but more "L" with a long tail.
All it will take to close movie theaters again is a couple of cases linked to a local theater. Same with restaurants, cruise lines fitness centers.. any business that depends on face to face public interactions etc.
Most REITS have reported collecting less than 70% of the rent owed them in April. How long before that number is lower?
If you can accept a 3 to 5 year stock market sag, I guess you are OK staying in the market, although it was down 80% in 1929- 1933 and did not fully recover until 1954, right?
People really need to consider why they are in the market. IF it is to fund a retirement 20 years away go for it. But if it is to get a dependable income stream for your current retirement I would be very very careful. I would much rather spend principal for a few months to live on than run the risk of a 25% decline
While I doubt the feds will help, maybe by mid to late summer if there is enough contact tracing and testing there will be the ability to identify cases quickly and keep the infection rate low. However, given the way the right wing is "weaponizing" Covid Politics, I think there are likely to be large areas of the country with significant disease for a long time
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/09/us/politics/coronavirus-death-toll-presidential-campaign.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Hi @linter, Recently as of May 1, 2020 COTZX & CTFAX changed it's equity weighting scale. With this, I am now rethinking just how much of it I am wanting to hold as it has now become more aggressive. This may help increase long term fund performace. It now takes on more risk in raising its threshold equity allocation from 10 percent to 50 percent before adjusting for the movement of the 500 Index.
You can find its new equity weighting scale under the Asset Allocation section in the below link ... Fact Sheet button.
https://www.columbiathreadneedleus.com/investment-products/mutual-funds/Columbia-Thermostat-Fund/Class-A/details/?cusip=197199755&_n=1

Krugman is arguing that this rally is not a bet on a V-shaped recovery, but on the Fed avoiding a financial crisis and interest rates likely near zero for near forever, precisely because the recovery won't be fast. So, relatively few bankruptcies among big companies + TINA makes the rally more or less sensible, though even he thinks it's gone a bit too far.

thoughts on durability
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/us-unemployment-rate-jobs-report-stock-market-dow.html

VWINX is a fine one stop fund for income and some capital gains. It is paying only a little more than a core bond fund but subject to more equity risk. IT lost 8% in the recent crash.

Looking at VWINX's most recent Drawdown (-8.5%):
https://screencast.com/t/HKfu96M9JFC

VWINX is a fine one stop fund for income and some capital gains. It is paying only a little more than a core bond fund but subject to more equity risk. IT lost 8% in the recent crash.

I "love" when someone says averages. You can do better than the average and/or find better than average funds. It also depends on when you start and end the results.
Any time you start before a crash and end after a crash, "safer" higher-credit bonds look better.
So, if I compare PIMIX to BND from 01/2010 to 01/2018(link). PIMIX did 3 times better and why PIMIX was a major % of my portfolio. Since 01/2018 it wasn't as good but IOFIX was great until end of 02/2020 when I sold it.
Basically, it depends what kind of investor are you, style, goals, retiree or accumulator and more.

Gee there really is a MASKX
Who would have known?
On a sadder note, my sister in the Texas Hill country says people are yelling at her for wearing a mask and she is avoiding certain grocery stores because of the hostile reaction she has had from MAGA wearing customers in the parking lot.
She says "down hear you assume everybody is carrying a firearm"
It is happening elsewhere
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/07/oklahoma-city-mcdonalds-shooting-2-workers-shot-customer/3086975001/

I would rather not have to set up another account, especially a retirement account to buy Marcus CDs. While FDIC guarantees work ( I lost two CDS during the 1980s housing crisis) it does take some time to get your money back so there is some opportunity cost.
1.5% after taxes will not beat inflation, unless you think there is a massive deflation coming. There are a number of 1 year A+ bonds paying up to 2.5% from companies that are highly unlikely to go bankrupt in the next year ie, Kimberly Clark, Home Depot, Wells Fargo. If a good analyst knows what they are doing I think they can avoid bankrupcies and make more than that with longer duration bonds.

Certainly moving money around in IRAs is more difficult. In a post I made on another board I acknowledged that. Here, it just didn't occur to me that the question concerned IRAs. You're right that they're more problematic.
I used to work with someone who had taken delight in putting money into the most shaky Texan S&Ls in the early 80s. He said that he had gotten his money back a few days after each institution failed. Apparently your mileage did vary :-)
I am curious about the bonds you're looking at. I did a search on Fidelity's site, expanding the parameters to look for corporate bonds with maturities through Nov. 2029, and S&P or Moody's rating of at least BBB+/Baa1 respectively. Fidelity showed an inventory of 1139 bonds. When sorted by YTW (highest to lowest), the highest yielding WF bonds I found were:
94974BGL8, 2.922%, BBB+/A3, 7/22/27
94974BFY1, 2.558%, BBB+/A3, 6/3/26
95000U2D4, 2.497%, A-/A2, 1/24/29 (call 10/23/28)
95001D6P0, 2.314%, A-/A2, 4/17/28 (call 4/17/22)
949746SH5, 2.181%, A-/A2, 10/23/26
949746RW3, 2.108%, A-/A2, 4/22/26 (and callable)
94974BFN5, 1.975%, BBB+/A3, 8/15/23
94974BGP9, 1.940%, A-/A2, 9/29/25
No other Wells Fargo bonds yielding at least 1.92%. The bond I bolded comes closest to what you were describing - it should be called in two years (not quite a one year bond) and it is rated just a couple of notches below your A+ or better requirement.
Corporates rated A+ or better that I can find with YTW over 2.5% that may be redeemed sometime in 2021 are premium bonds callable next year. One expects premium bonds to be called, so I would count these as 1-1.5 year bonds; at least until problems prevent them from being called. So some possibilities do exist, albeit with liquidity risk (they may not be called, and there are added trading costs to sell rather than wait for redemption).
They're largely from health companies and banks - BP Capital, Credit Suisse, Barclays, UnitedHealth, Merck, etc. But no Wells Fargo, no Home Depot, no Kimberly Clark. The Schwab screener lets you look for issuers, and the only bonds it shows for these three companies are generally rated A-/A2 for Wells Fargo, or A/A2 for the others.

@MikeW JSCVX has been hurt this year like every other small-cap value fund from coronavirus. The point is in funds that are style box dependent whether the fund is beating its peers within the style box. JSCVX is this year, beating 81% of small-value funds in 2020. Other reasons to like it--below average 0.92% expense ratio for active management, moderate turnover 39% so lower trading costs, but most important I think is its tilt towards high quality small-value, more resilient small companies that can hopefully survive the recession we are entering. But this is by no means an "absolute returns" fund focused on positive returns each year. If small value is down, it will be down too. This is a relative return fund seeking to beat other small-value funds and the Russell 2000 Value index. Absolute return funds are a completely different animal.

@Bitzer SCPZX is one of the funds that did well this year esp in March, but M* is leery
"But such wins depend on precise timing, and mistakes can sting. The strategy slashed its 40% agency mortgage-backed securities stake to 4% in late 2008 and doubled down on commercial mortgage-backed securities (to 34%), for example, missing a rally in the former and getting hammered by the latter."
@msf I would rather not have to set up another account, especially a retirement account to buy Marcus CDs. While FDIC guarantees work ( I lost two CDS during the 1980s housing crisis) it does take some time to get your money back so there is some opportunity cost.
1.5% after taxes will not beat inflation, unless you think there is a massive deflation coming. There are a number of 1 year A+ bonds paying up to 2.5% from companies that are highly unlikely to go bankrupt in the next year ie, Kimberly Clark, Home Depot, Wells Fargo. If a good analyst knows what they are doing I think they can avoid bankrupcies and make more than that with longer duration bonds.
Unfortunately even the most conservation fund seems temped with asset backed securities and even emerging markets
I can't argue with cash, other than it pays very little and I want some diversification but also want to avoid the potential for capital loss.
Correlation are helpful in the big picture, but they are really backward looking as we don't know what is coming. While some individual companies will go under, the Feds entire reason to buy stuff is to keep the system from going under.

"The Momentum work remains negative despite a blue-chip rally, which briefly exceeded 30% last week." I don't think that accounts for the selective gains this week.