BigJohn's Account Talk

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I'll add my congratulations, also! :) Apparently letting your account sit steady paid you well ! Grandma
 
Thanks for the welcome back.

I would really like your thoughts on the following:

Taking Warren Buffet's advice back in September of '08, I lept from the G fund into the S...hoping that the end of the downturn was in sight. Well, as we all know it wasn't.

As I watched the market continue to drop, I had many co-workers baililng to the G...even those that had 10+ years before retirement. I told them that it made some sense if they were close to retirement, but if they weren't, all they were doing was locking in a loss. While the drop in share prices was real, it was not set in stone until the shares were sold. I had many tell me I was nuts.

Well...was I? :confused:
 
My calculations have you down still by about 13%.

You were NOT nnuuts if you continued to DCA. Did you?
 
That's excellent. You've experienced the benefits of throwing good money down the well - getting those golden prices and many more shares.
 
My revised 2011 investment strategy:

Going back to 2005 (using the first trading day of the year as a measuring point) and charting the share prices of the C/S/I funds I found the following:

C Fund: 10.76 (lowest share price) --- 16.32 (highest): as of 1/10/2011: 15.36

S Fund: 12.49 (lowest) --- 21.56 (highest): : as of 1/10/2011: 21.51

I Fund: 14.54 (lowest) --- 24.60 (highest): as of 1/10/2011: 19.68

My thought is that each fund will eventually get back to their respective highs (at least measured by the first trading day of the year) of the last 5 years; with that in mind, the I fund has approximately $5.00 to go to get back to the high in 2008...and that is where I went all in the morning.

I have many years to go before retirement and can afford more risk than many of my co-workers; so I am going to try it for the rest of the year and see.
 
Good to see you posting! I did an autotracker study once, identifying consistent outperformers and if I recall correctly, your name came up more than once. :)
 
I thought I would throw my new theory out there, not sure if will hold water...but nothing ventured nothing gained. I have had a lot of luck over the last few years; I harass my co-workers with my collection of travel mugs...all in good fun of course. Most of my success has been by tagging along with some of the forum standby's, from Griffin to Fundsurfer...to Birch and 350 Z.
 
BigJohn said:
I thought I would throw my new theory out there, not sure if will hold water...but nothing ventured nothing gained. I have had a lot of luck over the last few years; I harass my co-workers with my collection of travel mugs...all in good fun of course. Most of my success has been by tagging along with some of the forum standby's, from Griffin to Fundsurfer...to Birch and 350 Z.
Click to expand...

Either ways you deserve the recognition, if anything this gives our newer members a learning opportunity
 
after 9/11 more like 02 i started to really take an interest in MY tsp. back then i found the I fund great. it just kept going and going. today i would not trust it because of its by-polar mood swings related to the dollar.
 
The key to what success I have had so far is demonstrated here: I have no idea of what you just said.

I am going to hang in the I for a while and see what happens...

Who's with me???
 
you know after i read what i wrote i even had a hard time figuring what i said . i think i meant to say that i was a I fund maniac always in 100% did well for several years but then the recession talk and the housing fall hit and the market went into a reactive mode made me pull. i profitted nicely then but i am still leary of the I fundafter the last two to three years because i am not comfortable with the up and down of the dollar verses the euro. so as you said "i have no idea what i said" too. any points or views as to why the I fund is attractive to you.
 
The I fund is a proxy into the emerging markets with their individual large cap companies via their exports. At least that's my thinking.
 
goforit said:
you know after i read what i wrote i even had a hard time figuring what i said . i think i meant to say that i was a I fund maniac always in 100% did well for several years but then the recession talk and the housing fall hit and the market went into a reactive mode made me pull. i profitted nicely then but i am still leary of the I fundafter the last two to three years because i am not comfortable with the up and down of the dollar verses the euro. so as you said "i have no idea what i said" too. any points or views as to why the I fund is attractive to you.
Click to expand...

The I fund is attractive to me based solely on the current share prices in relation to the highs and lows over the last five years. The I fund may never get back to the previous high; I can't point to a single objective reason why it will, or an objective reason why the S won't keep climbing.

Along those same lines (and even though you really didn't ask for it), I will share my overall approach. Because I have no background in finance or years of experience in investing, I have had to make due with strategies that make sense to me:

The Point Guard: I played college basketball and certain lessons on the court I find applicable to my TSP. My very successful early years on TSPTALK was due mainly to dishing to the hot hand, i.e. who ever was hitting their shots (making the right moves) kept getting the ball from me. I followed my fund allocations to those that "had the hot hand."

The Statue: Later on, I found myself getting hyper-competitve with those ahead of me on the Auto-tracker. I realized that I was making moves to climb the ladder, and that cost me. So, the year (2009) when I was the top of all performer I made a grand total of zero moves; I sat in the S fund and resisted the urge to do anything.

The Caveman Investor: I know that I don't know much, but a very basic approach (share price values) makes some sense to me, so that is what I am trying out this year.

I hope that answered at least part of your question
 
ok i understand the approaches believe it or not. i too have followed the hot hand but not consistently. i did a big mistake and thought i knew what i was doing and tried my own way(didn't work). going back to trying seasonality vs. historic share prices and implement the old buy low sell high mentallity. currently 80G 20F expect pullback for a few days maybe 3-6% consolidation type and then i will use last IFT to spread out in c/s/ maybe I. thanks for your view
 
Had a very good first month of the year; if the I fund can stay in the green today it will work out to be a good exit point. I am going to wait for a really poor morning (hopefully something like a 1-2% drop before the IFT deadline), and then jump back in.
 
BigJohn said:
Had a very good first month of the year; if the I fund can stay in the green today it will work out to be a good exit point. I am going to wait for a really poor morning (hopefully something like a 1-2% drop before the IFT deadline), and then jump back in.
Click to expand...

Great job, the I-Fund's motor has been purrrrrring pretty...
 
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