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I agree. I saw Sigi's first post here, and wondered what was going on, then scrolled down and found this whole thread a little...odd.What the...
I’m a little more conservative with real money. My real TSP
account is at 18.5 % for the last 12 months (as of 12/6/2012). I tend
to move in too early and out to late which is a human trait I think. I test on the fantasy account and
then apply what works to the real account. I retire in 2 years.
Hey Sugar Plum,
I've been thinkin' about ya lately. Wondering if things are going okay with the house selling and everything.
...
Well, with every waking moment I'm longing for you to come back. Hey I know you have a Life outside of this place -- but still that's no excuse.
............
Hi Joylynn,
There are cycles to everything. The main cycle in the stock market to
watch is the 4.4 year cycle. The last up cycle was from 2003 to 2007.
The cycle we are in started in April of 2009 and if you apply the 4.4
year cycle to that start date then it ends around September of 2013. The
down cycle is much shorter and therefore much faster. The last down
cycle was 2 years ending in 2009 so we should see a down slide through
2015. It may be a good idea to move into the F or G fund around
September 2013.
I don’t do fundamentals. It’s almost impossible to tell what is really happening and why. I look at charts and go with fear and greed.
When the market gets to the point where it is gut wrenching I buy and when I think to myself “the market will continue to go up” that’s when I get out.
This year my gut was really churning about the fiscal cliff so I played it safe and started the year with the F Fund.
So I went against the “gut” mainly because I didn’t trust the politicians to do the right thing. I let logic take over so I
missed the big move in the first two weeks of 2013.
I went against the “gut”. The “gut” was saying push through the fear and go 100% S Fund.
I move between the F, S and I funds (sometime C if the big stocks are doing well) and I go 100% when I do.
When I say I ignore the fundamentals that means things like the
Price/Earnings (PE), Shares Outstanding, etc. You can have a company
like Sears that looks great on paper (past history) and all of a sudden
it is falling apart. Now the TSP really invests in Mutual Funds so that
spreads out the risk as in the S & P 500, one stock won’t drag down
the entire index (or index fund). And the financial press doesn’t know what
moves the market. One day they say that falling gas prices at the pump
are helping to ease economic pressure on Middle America and the market
went up. Then they will say rising crude prices lifted the market. And
of course, OPEC is going force crude prices even higher and the market
falls.
What I do pay attention to is the general tone of the
press and the market. That is where “gut wrenching” come in. When the
press is spouting doom and gloom that is when to buy. In the case of
real catastrophes, markets will react and often fall and can continue to
fall for months. And when the press is elated about new highs be ready
to sell.
I started studying stock charts in the mid 80’s. That is when I subscribed to a monthly service that sent out a
book (magazine) with printed NYSE stock charts. When PC graphics got to
the point where you could interact with JAVA charts, life became easy
and complicated. Of all the chart types that are out there, I like
candlesticks the best. And StockCharts.com - Simply the Web's Best Financial Charts
is one of the best charts on the Internet. I did subscribe to their
premium services but found that I could get most of what I needed from
the basic site. This chart will help with TSP –
PerfCharts - StockCharts.com - Free Charts and this one
CandleGlance - StockCharts.com - Free Charts
BigCharts: Stock Charts, Screeners, Interactive Charting and Research Tools is very good.
Here is a very good charting site.
FreeStockCharts.com - Web's Best Streaming Realtime Stock Charts - Free
You have to download the Silverlight plugin to make it work. You also have to set up a userid and password
but that is all. No additional personal information is needed. The
freestockcharts.com site lets you set up (kind of program) simple
searches (like - find all stocks that moved above the 50 day moving
average today) and it stores them for you which is why you need to set
up the userid. The charts are free but the scans are limited.
On the help tab there is a tutorial video.
I’m a little more conservative with real money. My real TSP
account is at 18.5 % for the last 12 months (as of 12/6/2012). I tend
to move in too early and out to late which is a human trait I think. I test on the fantasy account and
then apply what works to the real account. I retire in 2 years.
I also go to TSP Talk Market Commentary daily and see what Tom Crowley has to say and check out the monthly historical chart at the bottom.
And finally this page will let you track the TSP funds during the day.
Wilshire4500CompletionIndex: INDEXNASDAQ:W4500 quotes & news - Google Finance
Good Luck,
Sigi