Reply to @Investor: Don't you think a floating rate fund would be better than a short term junk bond fund? I mean if the inevitable ever occurs, rising rates, and junk bonds finally take a hit, the short term junk funds will follow them lower just as they always have in the past. And in that scenario, the floating rate funds would simply continue their march steadily higher. Plus, YTD the return on STHBX is identical to RPHYX so why even bother to switch. Just food for thought and would like to hear your comments as always.

Looking for another fund somewhat like RPHYX to add to the conservative part of my portfolio.
Both FFRHX and LSFYX are both floating rate funds but there is a large difference in return.
Would appreciate if there are some comments on the contents of LSFYX that makes it have this greater return.
There must be a greater risk content in LSFYX.
prinx
Symbol Fund Name 1 Wk 13 Wk YTD 1 Yr 3 Yr (Annualized) 5 Yr (Annualized)
FFRHX Fidelity Float Rate HI 0.25% 1.40% 1.22% 5.79% 5.08% 5.75%
RPHYX RvrPrk:Sh-Tm HY;Rtl 0.10 0.86% 0.71% 4.06% -- -- --
LSFYX Loomis Sayles:SFR & FI; Y 0.28% 2.17% 1.85% 9.45%
prinx

If I had a lot of cash, I would consider RPHYX for some of it to earn some return on it. David has a good analysis of this fund and there was a good discussion held with the managers. Read the fund profile and listen to the interview.
BTW, it is not that you do not have bonds. You do have significant amount of bonds in your balanced funds. If you want to put the cash to use, consider adding some more to your balanced funds and let the managers manage the duration/credit quality of bonds. For the rest you can keep it in RPHYX.
If you still want some other bond funds consider the following:
MAINX - An Asia Region focused Income fund. David has conducted Interview with manager as well. Read the profile and listen to the interview.
SUBYX - Unconstrained Bond fund. The managers has build a bond fund with 'negative duration'. Read David's profile as well - SUBFX is the instl. class.
FRIFX - This is actually not a pure bond fund. Consider it as a Real-Estate balanced fund. It has stocks, bonds, preferred and convertibles.

Soupkitchen
A recent job changed prompted a rollover to Fidelity so in effect " I started over" with allocation and funds. When I was done the mix turned out to be 40% foreign, 20% US and 40% cash /bonds. Some of the funds I used are bond funds and some were allocation funds with bonds or flexibility. Keeping cash is something I do also. Some of the funds might work for you.Funds are:
Matthews Asia Strategic Income(MAINX)
Fidelity Strategic Income(FSICX) 4 distinct areas of the bond world
Templeton Global Total Return(TGTRX)
Riverpark Short Term HY(RPHYX)
Northern Global Tactical(BBALX) 30%+ bonds at this time w/flexibilty.
Payden Value Leaders(PYVLX) A stock fund with a yield over 4%.
Art

Reply to @fidia: Wow. You do indeed carry a lot of interest rate risk. I would keep PREMX and PTTDX and dump the rest.
In particular, get rid of DEEIX, PGOVX immediately. If interest rates rise even a minuscule amount these will be hurt the most.
With your OAKBX and PRWCX you are about 18% Domestic Equity and 2% International Equity making the current Equity allocation 20%.
I think you may be able to increase your international allocation a bit and maybe bump up total equity allocation around 30%.
Here is what I am thinking for you.

OAKBX 15%
PRWCX 15%
FMIJX 7%
MAPIX 7%
PTTDX 12%
SUBYX 12%
MAINX 10%
PREMX 10%
RPHYX 12%

According to M*, this portfolio has about 18% US Equity, 15% Intl. Equity, about 49% bonds (direct or indirect through balanced funds), 11% cash and about 5% other. The type of bonds should handle interest rate hikes better. If you want more conservative consider replacing OAKBX either with GLRBX or VWINX.

Click on the 5Yr return column and and research the top 1-15 funds, especially how they "conserved and preserved" capital in 2008!
http://news.morningstar.com/fund-category-returns/conservative-allocation/$FOCA$CA.aspx To me ,and I don't own it but probably will at age 74,BERIX is a possibility.Just about everything you might buy at the moment is like today's Dow,at or near an all time high except commodities,and I wouldn't go there! Scott posted a good list and I know he is a fan of Steve Romick at FPACX, a fund I've owned and probably will continue to own, and add to, even at 90,which my father will turn this summer.Some good comments in the past week on this board about RPHYX and protection of capital,but as stated ,that fund was not in existence in 2008.
RiverPark Short Term High Yield Fund (RPHYX) – July 2011, updated October 2012

Reply to @Charles:
The issue is while it has very good risk adjusted returns most of it was excellent 2011. Than, he turned bearish waiting increasingly like Hussman. He will be right eventually.
Let's look at the fund right now. His performance has been worse than most bond funds. Downside is low but upside has been low too. Downside/upside ratio is barely above 1. Risk adjusted return is good but at the end of the day, you spend actual total return. The only way to take advantage of high sharpe is to lever up (i.e. borrow more money to buy more of this fund). Even so, margin interest would eat up the returns that are very low.
Basically, I sell this fund, with the proceeds, keep the 50% in cash or a fund like RPHYX and distribute the other portion in funds like GLRBX and wait until Mr. Cinnemon starts to find value again. So, far it looks like he is not going to find value until market corrects. That can be tomorrow which could be very unfortunate but I can deploy the other 50% and if it goes on like this for a while, maybe I can make some modest returns.

Reply to @msf: I believe that RPHYX has a more sophisticated strategy, it is not just short maturity bonds, see http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2012/09/riverpark-short-term-high-yield-fund-rphyx-july-2011-updated-october-2012/

I wonder whether there is any reason to buy FPNIX as compared to RPHYX, which is equally steady and yields almost twice as much as FPNIX?

Or, in my case, RPHYX: up 0.10%.
David

Reply to @prinx: Howdy!
I work with Scottrade, I don't really trade much and I add new funds rarely. Over the long term, that means one fund swap a year or so (selling Artisan Small Cap to buy Artisan Small Cap Value, for instance). That's how Northern Global Tactical came into the portfolio; I liquidated my Leuthold Global holding to buy it. I'd held Leuthold pretty much since launch. In the last 18 months or so, there have been a number of particularly interesting new possibilities, so I've been a bit more acquisitive than usual. I sold much of MASCX to add MAINX and SFGIX, for instance, for didn't entirely liquidate MACSX. Closed out a money market to add RPHYX. Generally, that's a slow enough process that I don't annoy the custodians.
My normal expenses go through my bank, of course. My cash management accounts primarily hold vacation and emergency money: I make a single largish transfer from the account into a linked bank account once in a great while, then handle the day-to-day stuff out of the bank. RPSIX comes with a checkbook, which helps. Most short-term alarms are triggered when you hold shares for fewer than 90 days but the great bulk of my investment is in place for more than that, so it also seems amenable to the custodians.
That feels incredibly rambly. If so, sorry: grading Propaganda exams all morning.
And now, off to help Will with his National History Day project on the Beatles.
David

I believe that Fidelity allows you to sell shares as many times as you want, provided that you invested in RPHYX more than 2 months ago. So if you just keep 5% or 10% of your money in RPHYX at all times, as some people may do, you can use these money at any moment.
I suspect that at Scottrade you do not have the 2 months holding period for NTF funds, but you better check contacting them directly; http://research.scottrade.com/qnr/Public/MutualFunds/Expenses?symbol=RPHYX, see also their general rules http://www.scottrade.com/online-brokerage/trading-fees-commissions.html#tab3

David to clear some confusion in my mind with regard to your using RPSIX and RPHYX as money market substitutes.When you see an opportunity in a new fund you sell from either of the above funds. What happens if you do this several times in a 2 month period when the custodian of your fund hits you with a frequent trader fine. From a money fund you can make as many purchases as you want. I use Fidelity, loaded with rules on what they consider as frequent trading. Have you or anyone else found a more liberal custodian? to make trades as frequent as they want. David which custodian do you use now?
prinx

Good article and it references RPHYX manager:

"If you think the 10-year Treasury note should be 4.5%, then high yield is not so cheap," says David Sherman, manager of RiverPark Short-term High Yield fund.

Reply to @prinx: I eat the taxes. I don't have either a savings account (other than a holding tank for my property tax) or a money market. RPSIX and RPHYX serve in their stead. While both have downside (heck, money markets are buying record amounts of French bank paper, with exposure to Europe's weakest countries), it's perfectly acceptable in scale and the combination of upside+taxes is more attractive than most of the alternatives.
David

Thanks, David, for your response. Thanks also to the MFO, I hold MAINX, SFGIX, and RPHYX from your portfolio.
Mohan

Reply to @David_Snowball: David, why would you ever touch her dialect !?! Its wonderful. I thought she was Scottish. Regardless, a very pleasant sounding voice and a real find. And, BTW, you did a nice job on the RPHYX conference call. Thanks for all your efforts (but, I imagine, it must in part be a labor of love).

David,
Great job as always by you and the team. This is a really great web site and resource. Thanks for the many features and materials you've added.
D.S.
P.S. Recently "discovered' the MFO podcasts -- whose voice is on the MFO overview of RPHYX?

Like many, tried PRPFX and VWIAX during the Great Recession, but got a hang of doing my own asset allocation and therefore now choosing more pure funds for broad categories. Within those categories however, i am choosing more flexible mandates. Categories and current allocations:

23.0% US Equity
15.0% FN Equity
18.2% CREDIT
8.3% CPI+
21.2% FI
13.0% SV+rphyx
1.3% MM
My several flexible mandates are within CREDIT..

The urge to do something usually passes. Last reallocation was doubling precious metals exposure from 5% to 10% last spring and summer, Vanguard and Fidelity mining stock funds,
the Fidelity fund routinely tracks the xau index, the Vanguard more a basic materials fund, their performance markedly diverges.
'Take action now' bond fund reallocations since new years--
All of SGL, a UBS managed closed-end nonleveraged global income fund, for more RPHYX.
Seldom mentioned, SGL has outperformed GIM in recent years.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=SGL&t=2y&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=gim
GIM was at a premium, SGL at its typical high single digit discount when acquired in '09,
took the recent rebound and spread compression as an exit opportunity.
Two thirds of MAINX for SUBFX, initial position after observing a few months, they seem to have mostly taken to the sidelines from recent reports. Hopefully paid-to-wait reduced risk havens in the event of a general bond market selloff. By any traditional measure bonds/fixed income are overvalued thanks to central engineering, perhaps it is different this time but if history serves guide that is not the way to bet. Good luck to all.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323717004578157152464486598.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323316804578161324169068746.html#printMode
A mini “exit strategy” is definitely in order – and it’s been awhile since the markets had to fret about a reversal of Fed accommodation. And, importantly, the longer “risk on” spurs global market excesses – the more pressing it will be for the Fed to act. Yet, ongoing “fiscal cliff” risks abound. Fed timidity raises the probabilities that an unleashed “risk on” finds an opening. And a scenario of runaway “risk on” - and a Fed some months down the road forced to reverse course - would play right into the “2013 fat tails, bi-polar outcome possibilities” thesis. Less hypothetical is today’s predicament that highly speculative global risk market behavior is dictated by expectations for ongoing extreme policy accommodation – although I suspect policymakers have little clarity on the future course of policy because they haven’t a clue as to what the future holds for a rather robust and unwieldy “risk on, risk off” speculative market Bubble Dynamic.
http://prudentbear.com/index.php/creditbubblebulletinview?art_id=10748
Fun fun fun til daddy takes the t-bill away.