DakotaKid's Account Talk

[poolman]

Ok... so I got my hard drive recovered, which is a good thing. The motherboard on my laptop is what failed.

I'm doing some more work on this system, and have reached a dilemma. Which is the more correct way to calculate a yearly gain or loss: 1.) (end of year value - beginning of year value) / beginning of year value, or 2.) the sum of the daily gains and losses for the year? These yield two completely different numbers, and I can see the argument for each. Personally, I tend to think the sum of the daily gains/losses is more accurate.... thoughts?

I don't really know which way would be the best Dakotakid. I trade so much through Scottstrade and TD Ameritrade that I just use Turbotax. Turbotax sucks all my trades into it's from these two brokerage's and does it for me. I do think they use actual dates to your trades meaning when you bought and sold. I would imagine lot's of people on this board use a commercial product on the lines of TurboTax, TaxCut or have them done by a professional.

 

[DakotaKid]

So here's the result of my system to date:

DakotaKid S&P 500
2009 31.57% | 24.78%
2008 8.4% | -40.15%
2007 3.28% | 4.74%
2006 13.16% | 13.27%
2005 4.38% | 3.48%
2004 8.90% | 9.23%
2003 (2nd Half) 14.33% | 14.47%
84.02% | 29.83%
Or 12% / yr | Or 4.26% / yr

These were calculated on a percent change per day basis, based upon the allocation invested (100% at all times for S&P 500).

During positive years, this is basically a buy and hold system, with some minor moves here and there. During down years, it's out to the G fund primarily. Almost the entire year of 2008, and nearly all of March of 2009, this was the case.

I'm going to be following this system from this point on. Yesterday it triggered a buy back to 100%. I will be moving to this probably at the beginning of the month.

Good Luck out there!

DakotaKid

PS. After a beating my head into the wall trying to get this to keep the formatting above... I gave up. Sorry it's not very readable, but I can't figure out how to get it to keep the formatting....

 

[DakotaKid]

Bringing my allocation in line with my system.

 

[nnuut]

Bringing my allocation in line with my system.
PS. After a beating my head into the wall trying to get this to keep the formatting above... I gave up. Sorry it's not very readable, but I can't figure out how to get it to keep the formatting....

I use white periods to space things they are invisible!

 

[Scout333]

Dakota, If you like, take a look at my spreadsheet. It has two simple Return on Investment calculators (one including matching contributions and one without). Converts dollars in your TSP account to % earned.

"Hello Fellow TSP'rs, The new version of the Scout TSP Contribution spreadsheet is out. Tom was kind enough to post it in the Utilities section. It is very similar to the 2009 version. I did add a couple of very simple return on investment calculators. See the TSP Return and Tips tabs for info. FERS employees receiving matching contributions can input the employee contribution amounts each paydate and the calculator gives you return on investment %s including the matching contributions.

1-5-2010 Version: http://www.tsptalk.com/utilities/Scouts_Spreadsheet.xls

Enjoy the spreadsheet!
"

 

[DakotaKid]

The drops over the last few weeks have taken it's toll, and yesterday's drop pushed my system into a 100% G allocation. Good luck out there!

 

[DakotaKid]

Been a while since I posted in my own thread... I went 100% S on the nearly 3% drop a few days ago, expecting a bounce. Didn't happen. Small loss yesterday, looks like another small loss today. Given it's the last day of the month, the current political ridiculousness, and the looming debt ceiling, I decided it was prudent to pull half my assets off the table. Will soften the blow of next week whether it goes up or down. With 2 fresh IFTs next month, I can still go 100% G at some point and get back in later if I choose, or load back up.

 

[DakotaKid]

Seriously thought about going back in 100% today. Decided to leave it at 50% G and 50% S. Not convinced as to what will happen in the near future. Don't want to burn an IFT right away on a lark...

 

[DakotaKid]

Currently trying to decide whether to punch out for a while till a bottom is found.... Haven't expected this constant downward movement. Thoughts anyone?

 

[DakotaKid]

Man... alot of people moving in yesterday and today.... Guess I'll keep my 50% S invested...

 

[DakotaKid]

Much to BT's glee I'm sure, I'm punching out. I've avoided some of the loss over the past week by being only partially invested. I hope to escape the day with minor losses. With the 200 EMA being broken, I just don't see much of a rally any time soon. I have a long time to retirement, so it wouldn't hurt too badly to stay invested... But I've only lost around 3%, so why stick around to try to regain that when I risk losing alot more? I'll be watching from the G fund for probably quite a while now, waiting for a either a bottom or a substantial drop to jump back in, in which case I'll then look to stay in for a long haul. My two cents....

 

[DakotaKid]

1257 broken
1243 broken
1235 held
1225 support
1220 support
1200 good support
1180 good support
1160 support
1140 Support
1120 Support


If we continue down I think 1180 to 1200 will be a good turning point ( November 2010)

Borrowed above from another's post (Bquat?) Wanted to have it somewhere that's easy to access. Something to think about / be aware of...

 

[DakotaKid]

This downside (not sure if it's a trend yet) does seem to have one silver lining.... Look at all this chatter on the message board. I haven't seen this much interest in people in a while!

 

[jkenjohnson]

Much to BT's glee I'm sure, I'm punching out. I've avoided some of the loss over the past week by being only partially invested. I hope to escape the day with minor losses. With the 200 EMA being broken, I just don't see much of a rally any time soon. I have a long time to retirement, so it wouldn't hurt too badly to stay invested... But I've only lost around 3%, so why stick around to try to regain that when I risk losing alot more? I'll be watching from the G fund for probably quite a while now, waiting for a either a bottom or a substantial drop to jump back in, in which case I'll then look to stay in for a long haul. My two cents....

Right now it looks like you made a good choice. Hope you don't miss out on the forthcoming big rally.

 

[DakotaKid]

Must have missed that memo, when would that be? :cheesy: I will prob get back in soon... looking for an entry around 1180 or so, in line with what a number of people have suggested will be strong support. Even if it drops a bit below that, I won't mind...

 

[DakotaKid]

Decisions decisions.... Do I use my last IFT now that we're already near 1180? That didn't take long, eh? Sheesh....

 

[DakotaKid]

Oh bloody hell.... S&P downgraded the U.S. to AA+ from AAA rating....

 

[DakotaKid]

So here's my dilemma, any advice would be welcomed. I've been moving the last couple of weeks, so I've only been able to keep half an eye on the market at best, and will be moving again at the end of next month. My bias is that the markets will move down again - that we're topping. But it's not based on much, mostly emotion. Because of it (emotion), I've missed significant rallies before. I want a pullback to the 1100 area or lower for a good entry point. However, with the last couple of days being up, then modestly down so far today, I get the feeling that we're trending up, at least for the short term, and that I should go in on this buying opportunity. Full disclosure, I have 1 IFT left for the month, have been itching to use it, and would like to enter September in the market to take full advantage of my new IFTs, but am also worried about the lack of strength September usually brings. Penny for your thoughts?....

 

[Birchtree]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/more-buy-signals-in-place-2011-08-30

 

[DakotaKid]

So you're saying I should have bought today... I may have, but I got pulled away from the house till about 12:15... oh well, perhaps tomorrow will be another down day.