Cactus' Account Talk

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I'm taking today's ~1% gain and heading to the G-Fund. We had a nice week last week and I can't see it going much higher. I'm expecting the market to head down this weak and next. I will look for an opportunity to buy in again on the downturn. That seams to be the only way to make any money lately.

Be forwarned that my strategy stinks. You can see that in my AT standing.
 
[TABLE="width: 500, align: left"]
[TR]
[TD]Gain for 2011:[/TD]
[TD]-2.9%[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Tracker Position:[/TD]
[TD]526 of 821 (64 percentile)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Distribution going into 2012:[/TD]
[TD]100% G Fund[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Strategy for 2012:[/TD]
[TD]Defensive, Capital Preservation[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

# Analysis of past years performance (2011) #
Not good. Trying to make up for previous years losses just resulted in more losses. I need to learn to cut my losses and accept that I can never make up the lost years. I have been trying to catch up from behind for the last 11 years and it is not working. Looks like some of us are really cut out for the G Fund.

The market this past year was highly volatile and I expect that to continue into 2012. In fact I think it is the new normal. I need to learn to trade in that environment or just stay out. The G Fund looks pretty good when your rate of return for the last dozen years is zero. :(

# Positive voice says #
Hey, no pain no gain. You have to take risks if you want to make money. Sure 2011 was bad but 2012 should be better. Nothing lasts forever and this is an election year, so things should turn around. You don't want to be left behind, do you? Expect things to turn around in 2012 and you can makeup for 2011.

# Negative voice says #
My pain hasn't resulted in any gain and taking risks has not paid off for me. It's very much like Vegas. Sure you get occasional payoffs but the loses are always greater. You just end up farther behind.

I actually don't expect the market to turn around in 2012. In fact, I don't think we have seen the worst yet. I expect things to completely fall apart in Europe and Iran to become even more of a pain in the arsch. Today's markets are totally news driven and swing wildly and unpredictably.

As for it being an election year, I don't think that will make any difference for the first half of the year or even the Summer. I think the administration will try a few more last desperate tricks in the fall but these will be as ineffective as everything else they've done.

2011 was actually a neutral year. I expect 2012 to be a down year. You better set your sights on 2013. :eek:

# Other things to consider #
Hey, I beat the S Fund, I Fund, and SS (Sentiment Survey).
I wasn't alone in my loses. Half of the AT was negative and about 2/3 were below the G Fund.
 
Hey Catus,
The good news is Tuesday you will be equal to everybody else.:D

You have a year under your belt and now have a good idea who's who and which ones have risk and reward styles you like. Pick a few and see if the majority agrees with your hunches. Nobody is right all the time and a team effort is sometimes safer.

In Capitol Preservation you must hessitate and sometimes watch for confirmation of the move before getting in. Sometimes you miss some gain. On the other side you are the first to bail and you only follow dips down 2 to 3% which can also make you miss the rebound. Keep an eye on how the resistance level hold as support. If you trust the support level below you is stronger that the resistance above you stay in.

You used to be able to to buy at the bottom of the channels and sell at the top. Now days you have to keep a eye out because the computer programs can sell on a dime.

If you don't have the time to watch, you can get a service that should do the worring for you. You can watch and have a service also to help your decisions.

Capital Preservation: Hessitate to enter, quick to exit and be slightly bearish as you interpete charts. If we could do this all the time it would be great, but we can't.:)
 
Thanks for the encouragement, Show-me, and the pointers Bquat. I think we have an interesting year ahead of us. Let's see how we do.
 
WOW!!! The AT Top 150 made more in the 1st 2 days of this year than I did all last year while I continue to sink to my natural position at the bottom of the list. How quickly things rearrange to their natural order.

Not sure What strategy I will follow this year. I was thinking of being mainly out of the market and only buying in on dips for a brief period of time. My wife wants me to just leave it parked in the G Fund forever as it has beat me long term. I'm currently in the I Fund which is overbought, and I should have already gotten out but I had wanted to be in equities for January and can't see switching to S or C at this point. I will probably be looking for an exit here -- maybe today.
 
Last edited:
cactus
i normally dont voice my opinion much, but i have to make a few comments here. a good freind of mine came on with the feds about 10 yrs ago. he is very conservative and does not like risk. so of course when he came on he was putinto the G fund. i tried to tell him that in his situation looking at 30 yrs to work he needed to put his money to work in eguities. i talked to him for years with no change. one day he called and wanted to know what he should do. so we divided his percentages into equities. after that 1st year he told me he made more that year than he had made the whole time in the G fund. as of this day he is still in equities. i tied to explain to him that with the time he has left to work, who cares if the market is tanking as long as he continues to buy shares. and that he was buying on the low end rather than the high and accumulating shares. i learned about dolllar cost averaging (DCA) from this board. my point is everyuones circumstance is different, but for him it was a shame to just sit in the G with little or no return on your money. the G will not get you to retirement.just my thoughts...
 
And good thoughts they are....so many people clucked to the lily pad today the darn thing may sink. With the Fed printing money with QE4 the risk is being out not being in.
 
Birchtree said:
And good thoughts they are....so many people clucked to the lily pad today the darn thing may sink. With the Fed printing money with QE4 the risk is being out not being in.
Click to expand...
Looking at the number of folks staying out of the F fund and this correlating to the negative Vix numbers, next week could see some positive earnings in the market.
 
Thanx for the feedback, everyone. I ended up staying put for now since I missed the deadline. Had problems with internet this morning and then I had to deal with a flat tire on the car. We'll see how things develop next week -- hopefully in the opposite direction to my tire. :)
 
Since you're already in I, have you considered following the Last Month Best Fund strategy? Hard to argue with its results over the years. Just check in at the end of each month to see where you'll be moving your money, then forget it for the rest of the month. Pretty stress free. (Of course, this will probably end up being the year it goes down in flames now that I've suggested it :embarrest:)
 
Cactus

If you haven't beat the G Fund in years, I'd agree with GUCHI on a buy and hold or Sensei on LMBF. However, it sounds like your very conservative, so I would implement a "sell in May" into that strategy (e.g move to G Fund in May and forget about the market until October). IMO
 
Thanks for mentioning the LMBF, Sensei. I will have to look into that. I had seen that on the AutoTracker but never looked into it. Once a month IFTs and stress free are right up my alley. :D

Thanks for bringing up "sell in May", ILoveTDs. That is what has bitten me in the posterior these last few years. I would have done a lot better if I had done that.

Come to think of it, my first dabbling in the market was in May. I had been in the G Fund throughout the 90s and got into the C Fund in May 2000. I don't know why I never thought of that before. I will need to consider that this year. Of course, there are years like 2009 where you did want to be in the mrkt for the summer and the rest of the year. Still something to be aware of in my case.
 
TSPFundTracker.com, just issued a Buy on F or G Funds today. This is just a Heads-Up for anyone who checks in on that site since it doesn't change often. They advocate infrequent market timing (1 to 3 trades a year).

TSPWealth.com is still 50:50 CS since March 2 for those curious about that site.
 
Cactus said:
TSPFundTracker.com, just issued a Buy on F or G Funds today. This is just a Heads-Up for anyone who checks in on that site since it doesn't change often. They advocate infrequent market timing (1 to 3 trades a year).
Click to expand...

Do they list their performance anywhere, I wasn't able to find it.
 
Good point, I've never seen their performance listed anywhere and the charts are only of the TSP Funds. They used to have dates listed of their last couple of trades, but I don't even see that any more. Maybe that's because I got bored with their site when nothing changed for a year and a half in the 2009 - 2010 time frame. Of course, the trend was up during that time. :D

It looks like I made a mistake, though. The date they give on their front page is no longer the date the change was made, but the current date. That's bizzare. Reading their discussion I see they made their decision back in Dec 31, 2012. I guess they missed out on our little rally this year. :toung:
 
A third TSP site TSPWealth.com was mentioned some time ago. But I only go to tsptalk cause its the best dang one!
 
I was invested 50:50 in the S & I Funds but bailed to 100% G on COB Friday. With all 3 equity funds punching through the upper Bollinger band I can't see it going much higher in the near term. I decided to potentially sell a little early this time instead of selling after it's already started to drop like I usually do. I don't expect much of a drop; more like consolidation next week. I have 1 IFT left and expect to jump back in before November. My TSP balance was approaching my Nov 2007 high Friday morning so I decided to savor that over the weekend. I just checked my Friday closing balance and I'm now $56 over where I was in Nov 2007. I'm finally back. Let's hope I keep it this time.
 
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