JP Morgan fund not paying interest and dividends

[MichaelL]

I have had this fund for about ten years and it has returned about 8% on average including interest, dividends and capital gains, until this year. It was my 401k from a job that I left in 2011.

Given the recent increase in interest rates I ran a trend report on all of my investments to see if I should reallocate and this one was still showing a good return for the last 12 months, but declining over previous years.

I checked the individual transactions and saw that there were not any for 2022 but that the large December 2021 disbursement that was being averaged in made it look like it was still doing okay over 12 months. Previously this fund had 5 disbursements per year.

Now I have examined the 2022 transactions for all of my accounts and calculated a more accurate rate of return that does not average in the December disbursements which were unusually large. I will redo this in January after I see the December disbursements. I have put much of my free cash into laddered CD's, agency bonds and treasuries. I most likely sell this poor performing fund and reallocate the money.

I should have kept better track of these investments, but I spent more time examing spending and not enouch on examing income. I have fixed that now. While the missed income bothers me, at least I've earned enough overall that I'm doing fine, but lesson learned about the effects of the rate changes and the need to look more closely at payouts.

[marinauser]

If you read the prospectus, it only indicates an expectation of annual payouts. More importantly, the payment of a dividend or capital gain simply lowers the NAV of a mutual fund so it has no real impact on the total return of the fund. One fund could make no dividend payouts and still have a higher actual return than a fund paying a 5% dividend.
That you were seeing 8% payouts does not mean that the fund was returning 8% either. The dividends could have been a payout of capital. The actual return on the fund may have been more or less than 8%. A decision to keep or sell a fund to me should be based on the total return and how that compares to what would be expected of a fund with like goals and strategies. I would fire the broker though if they have sold you something that they cannot explain and did not arrange to find out answers to all of your questions. Depending on the amount you have invested, they may be able to put you in direct contact with the fund management company that is actually managing your money.

[marinauser]

If you look at https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xn...ax/performance
you will see that returns have varied significantly from year to year like most investments. Since 2015, returns have varied from -4.7% to over 13% with 2022 returns being the worst negative year like most bond/income funds at -14%

[MichaelL]

Quote:

Originally Posted by marinauser If you look at https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xn...ax/performance you will see that returns have varied significantly from year to year like most investments. Since 2015, returns have varied from -4.7% to over 13% with 2022 returns being the worst negative year like most bond/income funds at -14%

I am down about 14% since last December as far as the value of my shares. I expected that. Much of the 8% was due to an increase in NAV. This is an income fund with a large percentage in bonds. Some of the payouts were due to an increase in NAV but many were interest payments from the bonds. What I don't understand why there have not been any interest payments this year.

I have tracked my total value of this fund for 10 years. I have been tracking this fund (and all of my investments) in detail since the end of 2018 using a program that pulls the transactions so that I don't have to go and read that statements.

I am still reinvesting but these were all payouts that I could have taken in cash to my bank for 2021, but nothing for 2022. You can see that some are income, some are long term capital gains and some are short term capital gains. This is from the management program.

12/31/2021 JPM SmartRetirement Income - A-INCOME REINVEST 0.21223 $4,951.75
12/16/2021 JPM SmartRetirement Income - A-CAP GAIN REIN 1.34229 $28,857.09
12/16/2021 JPM SmartRetirement Income - A-ST TERM CG REIN 0.07352 $1,580.56
10/1/2021 JPM SmartRetirement Income - A-INCOME REINVEST 0.05667 $1,214.43
7/1/2021 JPM SmartRetirement Income - A-INCOME REINVEST 0.07963 $1,698.88
4/1/2021 JPM SmartRetirement Income - A-INCOME REINVEST 0.06326 $1,344.74
1/4/2021 JPM SmartRetirement Income - A-INCOME REINVEST 0.15033 $3,168.17