Boricua's account talk

[Boricua]

Hello all,

Man, was I confused about IFT's. I always thought I could go from the G fund, into a Stock Fund or F fund and jump back to G fund, with an IFT left to go back into the Stock Funds or F fund. Well, I went to jump back into stocks today ( I was G fund 12/30/2014, went into S Fund 1/6/2015 and back into G Fund 1/13/2015) and it stated that I had completed my 2 IFT's for the month. That Sucks!!!!. I called TSP and the lady told me my IFT's have been completed for the month, I can jump within the stock funds 2 times a month, but once I am back into the G fund, from a stock fund, that's it, I am done; those are my 2 IFT's, That is ridiculous!!!

Anways, venting.

B

 

[nasa1974]

Hello all,

Man, was I confused about IFT's. I always thought I could go from the G fund, into a Stock Fund or F fund and jump back to G fund, with an IFT left to go back into the Stock Funds or F fund. Well, I went to jump back into stocks today ( I was G fund 12/30/2014, went into S Fund 1/6/2015 and back into G Fund 1/13/2015) and it stated that I had completed my 2 IFT's for the month. That Sucks!!!!. I called TSP and the lady told me my IFT's have been completed for the month, I can jump within the stock funds 2 times a month, but once I am back into the G fund, from a stock fund, that's it, I am done; those are my 2 IFT's, That is ridiculous!!!


Anways, venting.

B

Yep 2 IFT's a month. Many of us complain about it.

Let's say you have made your 2 IFT's for the month but you have most of your shares not in the G fund. You can make as many moves to the G fund that you want for the rest of the month as long as you have shares in the other funds. You just can't take shares out of the G fund and put it in any of the other funds. Example; You used up both IFT's by the 15th of the month but you still had 70% not in the G fund. You could move up to 5% per day back to the G fund. That would be almost another 15 IFT's for the month. Just saying.

 

[jason011235813]

Yeah, its totally bogus. When making moves, i have to know w absolute certainty the fund will make "X" amount of gains, for several days. Having only 2 IFTs is more like gambling than managing a retirement fund.
If its nearing the end of month and you have an IFT left, use it to set up account for the following month. You may lose some money, but may make it up next month. And then you'll have 2 IFTs to play w.

 

[Boricua]

Jason,
I agree wholeheartedly, I just thought that if you jumped into c, s,I, that you could jump out and that would be 1, but, geez, come on, that's 2, I now think this is ludicrous. This is gambling, that's b.s..

 

[Skorcher]

Yep 2 IFT's a month. Many of us complain about it.

Let's say you have made your 2 IFT's for the month but you have most of your shares not in the G fund. You can make as many moves to the G fund that you want for the rest of the month as long as you have shares in the other funds. You just can't take shares out of the G fund and put it in any of the other funds. Example; You used up both IFT's by the 15th of the month but you still had 70% not in the G fund. You could move up to 5% per day back to the G fund. That would be almost another 15 IFT's for the month. Just saying.

That would explain how certain members have up to 7 IFT's this month in the Auto Tracker. When I go to G fund it's usually 100%. So I better not use up one of my two IFT's to do that. Thanks.

 

[Dinicti]

Dear Nasa1974,

Thank you for this information. I was unaware about transferring into the G-fund in piecemeal. This is wonderful and yet a little quirky as I am suprised they would allow this. Once again thanks!

 

[nasa1974]

Dear Nasa1974,

Thank you for this information. I was unaware about transferring into the G-fund in piecemeal. This is wonderful and yet a little quirky as I am suprised they would allow this. Once again thanks!

We could talk about the >1% option but I don't want to confuse you. It does seem a bit strange but the G fund is considered the safety net so you can move shares to the G fund as many times as you like. The restriction is moving between the real money funds F, C, S & I more than twice. Just remember if one of your first 2 IFT's for the month is to the G fund it counts against your 2 IFT's. After that the only move you can make is to the G fund.
The biggest excuse we are given from the FRTIB is that the two IFT's a month saves us money. Everytime you make a transaction it costs a few bucks to do so. These transaction costs effect everyone in the TSP not the individual making the change. So at the end of the day the FRTIB is hit with the transaction fees that come out of the TSP overall fund. Their thinking is that if a handful of us make more than 2 IFT's a month that the whole group suffers, so why penalize those that don't make IFT's any more than they have to or at all. At one time we had the option of making an IFT once a day. But that's another story. We have come a long way in making our IFT's compared to the way it was when the TSP first started up. But again that is another story.

Dinicti, good luck and keep asking questions.

 

[BuddyAnalog]

Ok, now I'm dying to know. Go slow and I'll try to keeip up. What is the >1% option?

We could talk about the >1% option but I don't want to confuse you. It does seem a bit strange but the G fund is considered the safety net so you can move shares to the G fund as many times as you like. The restriction is moving between the real money funds F, C, S & I more than twice. Just remember if one of your first 2 IFT's for the month is to the G fund it counts against your 2 IFT's. After that the only move you can make is to the G fund.
The biggest excuse we are given from the FRTIB is that the two IFT's a month saves us money. Everytime you make a transaction it costs a few bucks to do so. These transaction costs effect everyone in the TSP not the individual making the change. So at the end of the day the FRTIB is hit with the transaction fees that come out of the TSP overall fund. Their thinking is that if a handful of us make more than 2 IFT's a month that the whole group suffers, so why penalize those that don't make IFT's any more than they have to or at all. At one time we had the option of making an IFT once a day. But that's another story. We have come a long way in making our IFT's compared to the way it was when the TSP first started up. But again that is another story.

Dinicti, good luck and keep asking questions.

 

[Cactus]

As I understand it you can still make IFTs after your 2 IFT limit as long as you don't go over 1%. I think that is a consequence of our L Funds that rebalance everyday. The idea is you can rebalance your funds as well. For example say you move to 50:50 G & C. Then pretend after day 1 you made some in the C Fund so your balance is now 49.9% G : 50.1% C. You are suppose to be able to rebalance you funds so they are back to 50:50 or 49:51. Some people on here have used this to slowly increase exposure everyday. Personally I think it's too much trouble for too little gain and have never tried it.

 

[Skorcher]

This is how the TSP worded it in their April 2008 memo:

Q2. What are the new limits on interfund transfers?
For each calendar month, the first two IFTs can redistribute a participant’s account
among any or all of the TSP funds. After that, for the remainder of the month,
participants may only move money into the Government Securities Investment (G)
Fund (in which case the participant will increase the percentage of the account held in
the G Fund by reducing the percentage held in one or more of the other TSP funds).
We will count the interfund transfer based on its process date, not the date the interfund
transfer is requested.
If the first or second interfund transfer in a month moves money only to the G
Fund, it still counts toward the two (2) unrestricted interfund transfers per month
limit.

 

[FAAM]

Good brief explanation about <1% IFT Cactus! I agree it is usually not worth the trouble. However I've used it occasionally... If you have a fairly large nest-egg in TSP (where a fraction of a % means more) and you used your 2nd IFT early in the month, and the market is going UPPPPP (& even better, if you have some peanut-butter spread of your TSP across a few funds), then doing <1% IFTs a few times, increasing your market exposure a few % each time, that can amount to a DCA into the up-swing of up to 10% or even 20% by month's end... perhaps worth a few bucks gain overall.

 

[Dinicti]

Dear Cactus, that is great information. I may never use it, but just learning about these quirky possibilites is interesting. None of this is listed in the TSP website, and I would be ignorant without this forum. Once again thanks.

 

[felixthecat]

Hello all,

Man, was I confused about IFT's. I always thought I could go from the G fund, into a Stock Fund or F fund and jump back to G fund, with an IFT left to go back into the Stock Funds or F fund. Well, I went to jump back into stocks today ( I was G fund 12/30/2014, went into S Fund 1/6/2015 and back into G Fund 1/13/2015) and it stated that I had completed my 2 IFT's for the month. That Sucks!!!!. I called TSP and the lady told me my IFT's have been completed for the month, I can jump within the stock funds 2 times a month, but once I am back into the G fund, from a stock fund, that's it, I am done; those are my 2 IFT's, That is ridiculous!!!

Anways, venting.

B

Yep! We have been putting up with this Bull even longer than the Stock Market Bull Run. If you move to F/C/S/I/L or any combinations of these funds...and then move back to G. Your done and cannot move back into these funds. You can always move as much as you want back to the G Fund if you do have any aggressive fund allocations still out there...For example...you might see a lot of moves in the autotracker for any given contestant in th emonth of January...however...the autotracker mimics the TSP and therefore you can only make safety moves back to the G in any increments you want....but only to the G once your two moves are done.

Now...there are <1 percent increment strategies folks have tried. You might have to get with those folks who play this little loop hole. I'm no expert....so I defer on this.

 

[blueroadster]

If you've used your 2 monthly IFTs for the month and are stuck 100% in G, using the <1% IFT option can get you back into equities before the end of the month. To make use of this for example, you need to change your contribution allocations to be disbursed across funds that have equity exposure (i.e., L Income, L 2020, L2030, L2040, L2050, C, S, and I). Once your payroll contribution has been applied to your account (i.e., Day 1), you'll then have fractions of a percent in each of these eight funds. The <1% IFT option allows you to then be able to round up your allocations by submitting an IFT for example on Day 2 to go 92% G and 1% in each of the other eight funds. If all of those eight funds close higher the next business day (i.e., Day 3), then you'll have greater than 1% in each. The day after that (i.e., Day 4), you can then submit an IFT to then go 84% G and 2% in each of the other eight funds. If Day 5 closes higher, then on Day 6 another IFT can be submitted to round up percentages to 3% in each of the eight funds...and so on and so on until the end of the month.

Basically, using the <1% IFT option provides a means to move small percentages of your balance back into equity funds rather than being stuck 100% in G for the rest of the month and then having to burn one of next month's 2 IFTs to get back into equities.

 

[Boricua]

To all of you,

I appreciate the positive feedback. I am now stuck in the G fund until next month, today I would have made a nice profit, if I had known the rules correctly because I was going to get in yesterday. Blueroadster, I will need to learn the 1% allocations, just in case this happens again. With respect to moves and fees, I would rather be charged a small fee after a certain amount of moves per month, then not be able to do anything. Another thing, they should actually give us 2 true moves a month, so if I want to jump out of stocks and then jump in again later in the month, I can do this. This b.s. that I can jump into stocks and then move to another stock and those are my two moves, other than going into the G fund for safety. This is like playing Russian Roulette. Sorry guys, if this subject has been talked to death, all this time I thought I had two true moves. Thanks for all the info.

 

[kave]

To all of you,

I appreciate the positive feedback. I am now stuck in the G fund until next month, today I would have made a nice profit, if I had known the rules correctly because I was going to get in yesterday.

Hey Boricua, (how do you pronounce that anyway??)


I know I learned more life lessons from the times I got knocked flat on my back than the times a got a pat on the back. Don't sweat it !! You'll get there !!

As Denzel Washington's character , Robert McCall said in the movie the Equalizer, " We aren't looking for perfection, just work towards progress"

 

[jpcavin]

Bor E qwa

 

[Boricua]

Kave,

JPcavin, got it right, thanks JP. It is a Spanish word that means Puerto Rican, which I am. Proud of my heritage and proud to be an American! God bless America!!!

B

 

[jpcavin]

Cubanita in da house.

 

[Boricua]

Blueroadster,

Thanks for the info on updating your allocations, based on your contributions. I currently have contributions going to C and S, so I went ahead and upped it to 1% each and it works like a charm. I guess that is the only way to get back in, oh well.