I'm new here. Questions about funds

[Single_Tasker]

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Hi Everyone,

I'm Bill. I'm a TSP member- have been for 6 years now. Not knowing much about 'the market' I never moved my money around. That changed this year...I got murdered when the market went 'bad' 2 years ago. I started to track which funds were doing well and which weren't.

For 5 years I just kept 70% in C and 30% in G as co-workers just kept telling me, "Don't worry about loses... this is a long-haul thing, you'll make it all back."

For the past year I have made 3 or 4 changes based on what the funds were doing as shown on the TSP website for the previous month.

Currently I'm spread about evenly in the C, S, & I funds. I have nothing in the conservative funds. I check the TSP website every day and see that my money keeps growing so I leave it alone.

OK... You now know EVERYTHING I know about the TSP and the stock market. If you compared my knowledge of the TSP to my knowledge of quantum mechanics they are about equal. I'm 46 years old

So, I have some questions:

Is there a way to see day-to-day how the funds are doing... or only month-to-month as shown on the TSP website?... Many of your posts look as though you have day to day information of how a fund is doing.

Can we make changes as often as we wish or is there a limited number of times per month or per year?... I saw someone talking about changing on 'Mondays'.

Etc., etc. Bottom line- I could use an education- hope my lack of skill isn't an irritant.

Thanks!!!

Bill

 

[Spaf]

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Hi Bill
TSPTalk or Tom the owner of this site should stop by and formally welcome you aboard!
About 6PM you can go to the TSP web site and pick up the daily returns. You can make daily fund changes (allocations and transfers). They say it takes 2 days. But if You get it in before 12 EST it will be adjusted that evening. You can also cancell them in the morning if things change.
With few exceptions we are all novices. This site is a great learning tool. You will pick it up!

In the mean time one of your comments was priceless: "Don't worry about loses... this is a long-haul thing, you'll make it all back." I'm putting it here so Tom can read it .
again.

Welcome Spaf

 

[Single_Tasker]

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Hey Spaf,

Thanks for the quick reply. Do the daily returns show how the funds are doing individually?

Thanks,

Bill

 

[neirbod]

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Hi Bill,

Welcome.This is a great site. Iam pretty new here myself, but have lalready earned a lot from these guys. I check out Tom's (who runs this site) comments daily. Even if you don't follow his lead, he always has an informative analysis of the markets.

Here is a link to the part of the TSP.gov site that will show daily returns for each fund. As SPaf wrote, they are updated around 6 pm.

http://www.tsp.gov/rates/share-prices.html

You can also check out tspmoney.com. They have some fund graphing tools where you can show moving averages, and some other nice tools.

There is no limit on the number of changes you can make. Lots of people on this site move funds nearly every day, for no cost.

Dave

 

[tsptalk]

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Hi Bill! Thanks for joining us. Sounds like Spaf and neirbod have answered your questions. (Thanks guys) That's the beauty of this site. We are all here to learn from and help each other. We hope to hear more from you.

Tom