Thanks for all your warm welcomes. I guess the thing I want to learn the most is recognizing and anticipating indicators on when to enter and exit the market. I do enjoy reading about the market and like to read market outlooks before the following week to see what happenings are in the news (what companies are reporting, what data the g'ment spits out, etc.) Are there any good threads and/or other sites you could recommend that provide an honest, non-bias assessment of what is happening in the week and what to/not to expect? I typically read the CNN Money "Things to Expect" articles in the morning to see what's going on for the day along with the pre-market numbers. However, when I see that the pre-market is down 1.5% on a given day I think "Dang, was there something that has caused that was in the news this week that I missed, or was this a result of an unexpected event?" If I would have had an indicator, I could have exited the market a few days and re-entered at a lower price.
I'm in the data gathering stage of my TSP investing and would consider the prem service in the near future if that would help. Even that though, I see members getting over 15% (I'd be happy with 10%,) so their indicators must be doing well. I'd want a "teach a man to fish" approach rather than "here's your fish." I would prefer to take advice and execute trades based on that advice as long as the advise came with reasoning. I want to learn how to fish. That's why I am here.
Investing for me has been mostly a result of the fear of not being able to retire. I truly do feel for those that post things on here that are in a position where they may have to delay retirement or have to essentially work until they physically can't. The g'ment says that I can early retire at 55 1/2 so that's when I'll be done. I plan to achieve that through diligent investing: my wife and I have maxed out a Roth IRA for 5 years, pay off CCs at the end of every month, no car payments, and we are conditioning ourselves slowly to getting to a point of hitting the IRS TSP contribution limit (Currently I put in 11%, matched by 5% on a GS12/5 salary isn't terribly far away.) When dad/grandma send a birthday card with money - savings. When I get a tax return - savings. The wife's a stay at home mom for now but when our boy goes to day care, she'll go back to work. I do honestly feel those 3 years of missed income for her to be with our boy is worth 10 times more than any other investment. When she does, we'll work to condition ourselves so she max her 401k, I'll max mine (TSP) and we both will max our Roth IRA contributions. I can smell the sunshine now.
If anyone has any opinions/recommendations on news articles or commentaries please send links. If you have any opinions on the prem services, I'll take that too. Thanks for all you do.
