Nsjsaacks,
Separate your current assets (the stuff you have in TSP) and what you are contributing via your salary.
As far as new contributions – ONLY invest in C/S/I. You are buying new items (equities – stocks) on sale when the price comes down. Read BirchTree’s thread. He illustrates the value of Dollar Cost Averaging new contributions into the market at sale prices. Birch made me A LOT of MONEY over the last couple of years. Yummy…
To help manage your allocation (current assets) I would recommend Ric Edelman’s
‘The Lies About Money’. Also, visit his
web site and take the ‘Guide to Portfolio Selection’ on the home page. Also, listen to his radio show.
Additionally, (definitely an equal to Ric Edelman), listen to
Ray Lucia’s radio show. His discusses a lot of topics, has great co-hosts, and is very informative. I started my understanding about retirement asset management by reading his very good
‘Buckets of Money’ book.
At your age I would follow Steady’s guidance. Maybe not 100% in G, but that is quibbling. I would consider using L2020 in place of the G when things are trending down and going full invest (C/S/I) when things start consistently heading up . That way you won’t be 100% out of the market when things turn. And, you won’t have any G/F holdings dragging you down in an obvious bull market. Then again, Steady has a good eye. You can watch him make his move on the TSPTalk ‘AutoTracker’. Find some folks on the blog part of this site and watch their moves.
Finally, this site has folks with a myriad of trading methodologies. There are ‘Buy and Holders’, ‘Asset Allocators’, Swingers, followers of Technicals, and probably followers of the stars – yuk, yuk. All have value – excepting maybe the astrologers (watch out for Birch when he starts yakking about Saturn crossing Mercury or whatever:nuts
.