deckem8's Account Talk

[deckem8]

50% to S
50% to I

Strategy - Stay in longterm, and continue to allocate to the same fund if price goes down. Buying the funds when it is at a lower price means you earn more then if you transfer to a lower earning fund, and when the price goes back up you would in the long term earn more money.

Any comments - it sounds like the common strategy

 

[Birchtree]

Re: deckem8 Allocation

It's been my portfolio redeemer for years - nothing like letting fate control the DCA process.

 

[luv2read]

Re: deckem8 Allocation

Know when to hold em, know when to fold em. There are a lot of strategies out there and on this MB. What you decide to do depends on your circumstances. How old are you? How close to retirement? Other investments? IRA? Roth? Just a few things to consider. Buy & hold isn't necessarily the best strategy for everyone and can get you into just as much serious trouble as market timing that will take YEARS to recover from. Like the 2001 tech bubble. The market declined for another 17 months while people who got in at what they thought was the bottom rode it down "buy and hold." S&P 500 is unchanged from where it was 8 years ago. The only people who made money on it were the buyers and SELLERS. So much for buy & hold. Best advice is to READ, educate yourself (most everyone here is self-taught), pay attention to indicators, technical analysis and ignore the talking heads in the media...unless the indicators and TA match up with what they are spinning. Even with all that, things happen...like BSC. Who knew they would broker a deal on a WEEKEND and spring it on Monday morning? All that said, I sat in I fund for a few years for an average 22% return before I started IFTs between I and G and increased my return to 24% last year. Through the years I've DCA'd a percentage of profits into G for safety and to lock in the profit. If I made 20% profit, the profit stayed put. I know - "put that profit to work for you." It's earning G pennies...not as much as it would in the equity funds, but I'm happy. Now on the sidelines waiting for an opportunity to get back in.

Birch, are you S, I, C, F, or a combination? I can never tell...it seems to change from thread to thread. I thought you were 100% I and holding until it hits $27.00 a share, then going to 100% C. The only thing that doesn't change is your buy and hold stance.

 

[Birchtree]

Re: deckem8 Allocation

Please check the tracker - I've been 70C and 30I for a long while. I've round tripped the I fund on two previous occasion and started buying in again on 11/20/07 with a 3% position. I'm usually a 100C fund type of guy but I'm branching out.

 

[luv2read]

Re: deckem8 Allocation

Please check the tracker - I've been 70C and 30I for a long while. I've round tripped the I fund on two previous occasion and started buying in again on 11/20/07 with a 3% position. I'm usually a 100C fund type of guy but I'm branching out.

Thanks Birchtree! I thought sure you were a "C" fund guy..."branching out" indeed great tree!

The other point I was trying to make is not to restrict oneself to I and S with DCA contributions. Buy and hold if that is your strategy, but diversify with C fund as well.

 

[Birchtree]

Actually anyone in TSP that rode the 2000-2003 thunder came out smelling like a rose, providing they had the discipline to dollar cost average all the way down and all the way back up. It's the accumulation of those mighty lower priced funds that makes the difference - it's not easy to continue to throw good money down the well when there appears to be no bottom but the shares certainly add up and that's the objective. It does take courage to go contrarian but that is how money is made.

 

[tom1tom1]

I also rode the C-fund out during the yrs 2001-2003 then went buy-and hold in the I-fund for 4 and 1/2 yrs until the end of last year. Needless to say buy-and hold worked better for me than any other strategy up to now.