Reply to @Junkster: During 2011 it fell a massive 7 basis points in the third quarter while staying positive every other quarter and for the full year (+3.86%.) If that's the worst it gets, I'm staying in.
http://performance.morningstar.com/fund/performance-return.action?t=RPHYX&region=USA&culture=en-US

Nice distribution this month @ about a 4.35 % annual rate.Thanks to David and other posters to alert many of us to this fund and it's purpose in our investment and everyday financial planning.
Dividend and Capital Gains Distributions RPHYX
Distribution
Date Distribution 10/31/2013
NAV 9.98 Long-Term
Capital Gain 0 Short-Term
Capital Gain 0 Return of
Capital 0 Dividend
Income Distribution 0.0364
Total 0.0364
10/31/2013

David: Interesting discussion of Morningstar ratings - particularly with respect to RPHYX. I'm in agreement. To me classifications and ratings (taken as a whole) from M* and others often appear arbitrary, capricious, and display serious lack of understanding of certain funds' missions and methods.
FWIW: Lipper and Max Funds haven't exactly published glowing recommendations either.
http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/Fund/RPHYX
http://www.maxfunds.com/funds/data.php?ticker=RPHYX&pg=d
Regards

How about just cost-averaging into VWELX? Keep it simple.
I am the king of conservative, and as Vert mentioned, RPHYX is closed. And so is my other favorite fund, MFLDX.
I consider MERFX a quasi-cash substitute fund. Nothing exciting, but you won't get burned.

Dex, you and I are in practically the same circumstances. You might think about adding some stock exposure by way of your IRA. I firmly adhere to Benjamin Graham's suggestion that no one should have any less than 25% of their investable funds in stocks no matter how pessimistic they were, nor should anyone have more than 75% in stock no matter how optimistic they found the current situation. It's simply impossible to really know the future.
On the theory that if you're going to have active management you ought to give them maximum leeway to make their decisions, you might look into global funds like TWEBX, FPRAX or JGVAX; or possibly global allocation funds like SGHIX or RPGAX. None of these are too big for the manager to handle (a couple are very small), turnover and expenses are reasonable, the fund families are good, and they all appear to have relatively low risks. That latter consideration makes is far more palatable to consider investing in them immediately.
To produce income, I think short term junk bonds might be considerably less risky than longer term junk. Funds like OSTIX, DHSTX or WHGHX pay out something like 4 1/2% - 5 1/4 %. Much more aggressive might be closed-end funds like BGH or BLW which would pay out something like 8% and sell at nice discounts at the moment (but both are also highly leveraged). Maybe combine the junk with something like FPNIX. RPHYX seems the perfect place for cash but unfortunately is closed to new investment (fortunate for Observer readers who got into it, however).
Just some ideas to think about. Good luck.

At a brokerage you will always have imposed "early redemption" fees regardless of any the fund company levies. So that's why I made the subtly point of being able to put "only $1000". I plan to buy once a month so I can start withdrawing in 60 days to avoid charges.
However I would reconsider your options. "Parking Place for Money" is really bank or other money market fund. RPHYX and RSIVX are bond funds at the end of the day, and NEVER the same thing.

Reply to @AndyJ: From David's description, it sounds like with this fund, as they actually did with RPHYX, the managers intend to keep it small enough so they can take advantage of bonds that most bond funds are too big to take advantage of. To me that seems part of how they can possibly achieve a better-than-average return with lower-than-average volatility.

Thanks. If these guys were smart, they'd pay for a transcript and put it on their website. This site is getting some of these up and coming fund cos tons of assets.
RPHYX filled a great niche. Hopefully he can do the same to the short bond fund as well.

Reply to @kallerid: I asked for you. The manager says that he thinks of it as a hybrid between short- and intermediate-term, with a lot of flexibility and a strong commitment to capital preservation.
Right now, he's about 30% in cash. Within the fixed-income investment there's 35% overlap with RPHYX, 28% money good / buy and hold bonds, 23% dented debt, and 14% other. The duration is about 2.25 years and the yield is in the neighborhood of 7.5%. Believing, as he does, that the number of "interesting opportunities" might be climbing rather shortly, he's accumulating cash day by day.
For what interest it holds,
David

Reply to @willmatt72: Mr. Sherman would, I suspect, discourage that behavior. He's been pretty clear that RPHYX is a cash-management account but the new fund is not. His intention is to manage it very conservatively (that is, with an emphasis on capital preservation as a first priority) but thinks of it more as the "money you might need three to five years from now" fund.
David

Hello, I am a long time lurker and 1st time poster. Any feeling out there on how susceptible RSIVX would be to a rising interest rate environment? I have held RPHYX for a couple of years for supplemental cash and love it. It has held up well during the concerns of the Fed easing up on QE. Would RSIVX be closer to RPHYX or more of a traditional short or even intermediate bond fund. Thanks....

Reply to @msf: You can't imagine how much of a headache this one point has caused. Here's the explanation for the resets that Schaja and Sherman offer:
Interest rate resets – uhhh … my ears started ringing during this part of the interview; I had one of those “Charlie Brown’s teacher” moments. >>> These are bonds where the yield-to-maturity is significantly different than the yield-to- worse. As interest rates rise or fall issuers will either have a greater or lesser desire to call a bond, thereby creating the opportunity. The “cushion bonds,” of the RPHYX portfolio, where the coupon rate is greater than the yield-to maturity, would fall into this category. In this case investors benefit from any delay in the call where they can clip the higher coupon for a longer period than was priced into the market. <<<
The same point from their press release:
Interest Rate Resets - Securities that present opportunities because of rising or falling interest rates. These resets would include traditional floating rate securities and opportunities that present themselves because of a difference between a security’s yield to maturity and yield to worst.

"Fidelity Global Balanced Fund (FGBLX) manager Ruben Calderon has taken a leave of absence for an unspecified person."
Any guesses on who she is? :-)
Whitebox " Investor and Advisor shares carry a 12b-1 fee. Some brokerages, like Fidelity and Schwab, offer Advisor shares with No Transaction Fee. (As is common in the fund industry, but not well publicized, Whitebox pays these brokerages to do so – an expensive borne by the Advisor and not fund shareholders.)"
I think that's a bit disingenuous. As M* (and others) note, "fund supermarkets such as Schwab and Fidelity add to the fee layers because they charge fund companies between 30 and 40 basis points to be included on their no-transaction fee platforms. Some funds pay part of this cost with a 12b-1 fee, and others pay it from their management fee."
One cannot complain about a 12b-1 fee on the one hand, and then suggest that the management is paying for the platform out of the goodness of their hearts. Even funds without a 12b-1 fee simply charge higher management fees to cover their platform expenses. The fund shareholders bear the costs.
"Interest rate resets – uhhh [...] I’m confident that the “cushion bonds” of the RPHYX portfolio, where the coupon rate is greater than the yield-to maturity, would fall into this category."
I'm inclined to think the opposite - these are not cushion bonds (though I'll have to check the transcript when it's available). Reset bonds are just floating rate bonds - their interest rate is changed ("reset") periodically. Think ARMs, where there may be no cap on maximum interest or rate change per period. Each time they reset, their market value should be brought back to par (since they reset to market rate interest), barring increased credit risk (due to the borrower's inability to pay the higher rate).
That would be the opposite of a cushion bond, which is a bond that sells at a premium (because its coupon is higher than market rate), and thus expected to be called early. The "cushion" comes into play not because of a reset, but rather because it is priced to call (worst), but carries a risk (and hence an interest premium or cushion) of not getting called (and thus paying a lower rate for a longer time, i.e. to maturity or a later call date).

Hi Skeet: Sure appreciate all your reasoned comments.
Re bonds - which I believe you have been selling. They've been hammered this year, and rightfully so. Everything from unsustainably low yields (recently under 1.5% on the 10-year treasury) to possible default on munis by Detroit. I'm not a long term bond bull. But near term there may be some opportunities depending, as always, on which way the economy turns. The linked chart shows a nice uptick over the last month. High yield bounced +1.5% and long term treasuries +1.8%. Most bond sectors were up. I'd say if you're willing to play around here, some selective picks might possibly enhance fixed income performance over next few months. Not much else out there in fixed as I see it. Money Market funds are yielding effectively 0%. My ultra-short probably won't earn1% this year. RPHYX - used by many here - is up 2.17% & should pull about 3% by year-end.
Now - If you want to go heavier equities (or alternative investments) and cut back on fixed income, I have no issues there. On the other hand, if you want to hold some fixed income, some of the most beaten up bond sectors might be worth a look. A bit riskier IMHO is to rely on conservative allocation funds to replace or augment fixed income. I suspect that this approach is reality just a way of substituting a certain amount of equity investment for fixed income. FWIW, I recently upped the % of bond funds allowed in the fixed income sleeve to 65% - from the 50% where it had long sat. (Remainder is cash or ultra-short). I think the big losses in bonds this year are behind us. Beyond this year it's very problematic.
There's no right answers here. Really depends on risk tolerance and how important one views fixed-income to their portfolio & overall strategy. And, with double-digit advances in equities this year .... I doubt many are thinking much about whether they're making 1, 2, or 3% in fixed-income. (Fund flows seem to support that ). Regards
http://news.morningstar.com/fund-category-returns/

Reply to @hank: Your thought re the differentiation between "investment" and retirement" portfolios centered around Investor's observation that he didn't believe that our portfolio was adequately configured to assure inflation protection, because of the ultra-high (at the moment) cash component. And he was right.
In discussing that however, I pointed out that as things look now we do not anticipate needing to draw down that portfolio for living expenses. Investor responded that in that case it really shouldn't be considered as a "retirement" portfolio, but rather as an "investment" portfolio (held while we are retired, it's true), and that indeed a different calculus might apply: If there is no strong need to bolster return for living expense, perhaps a lower risk/return is OK.
Over the years I've become aware that seemingly no two people on Fund Alarm or MFO seem to calculate their "portfolio" in exactly the same manner. And that's quite understandable, as probably no two of us are looking at exactly identical situations, and after all this is an informal forum- not held to commonly accepted accounting standards, thank goodness.
And you're quite right re the cash or cash equivalent allocations causing a great deal of head scratching. If you keep a bundle aside for living expenses in case of disaster or extraordinary expense, is that part of your portfolio or not? Is RPHYX a cash or bond allocation?
This is why comparisons of "portfolios" in this informal MFO environment really isn't possible. And that's not really a big deal either. My original growl re the word "portfolio" as used in this thread was simply because it was being used as if it were a commonly accepted definition here, and I just don't see that it is.
From your link above: "Bogle has a great point: use your Social Security income for the fixed-income portion of your portfolio, and allocate the rest to stocks (and precious metals, obviously)." What total bunk! A pension isn't "fixed income"? Nor rental property? Nor annuity income? Nor trust income? And do any of those deserve to be considered a part of a "portfolio"? I don't think so, and neither does the Investopedia definition.
All of these conveniently unmentioned factors are exactly why I prefer to look at the whole thing as in "keep it simple", above.
Take care- OJ

Reply to @JoeNoEskimo: Yes, me too on RPHYX, but unfortunately it's now closed to new investors.
Note that I understand that RPHYX is basically a bond fund, but because it is exploiting a very narrow and specialized market niche I also consider it a "cash/conservative fund" for my purposes.

Yes, its the "Jimmy Carter" era for bonds! This asset class is swimming upstream against strongly negative retail investor sentiment. And truly, what are the medium-term expectations for bonds as interest rates have nowhere to go but up? It's been a great run, but I don't think you can count on bonds (short-term or long-term) as your true portfolio anchor.
I use RPHYX as my proxy for cash/conservative fund while I wait for that magical Fed "tapering" announcement. Then we will find out just how much the Fed's stimulus has been propping up the equities market.
There is a certain amount of complacency in the stock market, and us "sideliners" are praying for a strong pullback. And I think the "sideliners" are an increasingly large group.
Just my $.02.

It looks like the expense ratio will drop by the end of the year for RWGFX. Looking at the RiverPark semiannual report, it looks like the fund charged $178K for advisor waiver recapture over the last 6 months and there is another $37K left it can claim over the next 2 years (this is on a fee base of. My read is that fee should level off at around 1.15% in a year or so, and there isn't room for it to go much lower than that.
Also, it looks like RPHYX will burn through the its advisor waiver recapture by 2016, at which point the expense ratio will drop (but not by a lot).

Reply to @Old_Joe:
See my post below. RPHYX is also paying the manager extra money - in the case of this fund, approximately 0.03% of AUM. That is, without the reimbursement of waived fees, the ER of the fund would currently be around 1.22%. Not a big deal, but indicative that sooner or later, expenses even on this fund should drop, if ever so slightly.

Reply to @Old_Joe: Different fund. All explicitly stated expense ratios in the Opening Post is for RWGFX and that is a retail class fund. Ted must be commenting on RWGFX because ER for RPHYX is not stated at all.