Phillyfed's Account Talk

[phillyfed]

Looks like we capitulated FINALLY. Im long 40% since yesterdays close and avoided the F fund for now and probably awhile. The F fund was great, it pretty much kept me afloat since Dec. I was fortunate not to be exposed in my TSP on up long side for pretty much the past 4 months. I am actually up a pt. and change over that course of that time taking away contributions and things have played out perfectly as planned to date. So if I choose to go long for the rest of the year, I'll outperform the S&P by atleast 10%. Thats inline on what I did last year.

My plan at this point is to observe how the market reacts short term. If they test out the lows and bounce (which I believe) I will add another 30% long to a total of 45% USM and 25% I, avoiding S for the short term. To conform with the new TSP trade rules to come, I will not be an active trader in TSP. I plan to trade a dozen times or so this year after this volitility subsides. We will probably have 5 or 6 times which we can make trades and outperform the market indexes easily.
If you got caught up in this mess and took the ride down with the markets, I wouldnt take too many chances in the hopes of catching up. You'll probably get whipsawed trading on emotions. I suggest just following the charts and macros and if your close to retirement, to avoid further risks.

Anyways, I like the risk to reward here, Esp with the money market rates being low. You are being forced to invest to keep up with inflation and this is a great place to START. Look for another opportunity to catch the bottom again and play it if the Dow bounces off 11.9-12k again . If you were in cash or bonds, you won. Congrats and go shopping

Anyways, I wont be posting here much more as I wont be trading too much in the future. I'd like to thank Tom and some of the other Moderators for guiding me along here.

I hope my suggestions here helped a few people out the past few months and I wish you all the best of luck in the future. I'll continue to lurk at the posters here that offer great information as always.

Checking out for awhile. Good Investing.

Ed

 

[nnuut]

Ah, Comon Ed, you're not going anywhere. Stick around and help us out. We don't like it when the GOOD ONES leave.
Norman

 

[Minnow]

Although I never had a dialogue with you, I really enjoyed reading your posts. Hope you won't be a stranger.

 

[caymanbrac12]

Ah, Comon Ed, you're not going anywhere. Stick around and help us out. We don't like it when the GOOD ONES leave.
Norman

At least come back so you can see my girlfriend!!! Com'on guys leave it there!!! You get that TSP up high enough and she has a girlfriend for you Philly. LOL

 

[nnuut]

HUBBA HUBBA! I'm never leaving!
I kinda like the one in the red and white hat!View attachment 3146

 

[caymanbrac12]

HUBBA HUBBA! I'm never leaving!
I kinda like the one in the red and white hat!View attachment 3146

THAT'S THE GIRLFRIEND!!!!!!! LOOKS LIKE CLEAR SAILING TO ME!!

 

[Geaux4it]

Can you spare one of the girls in the background? I want to discuss futures options.:nuts:
Thanks

Geaux

 

[phillyfed]

Thank You gentlemen (ladies).

I'll post here about once a month/Qtr or so. No use posting about every uptick each day. :laugh: Those are the people that cant sleep and get crushed by the big boys in volitile markets.

Bottom was called last week as some capitulation finally took place and is still waiting to be back tested possibly. Im heavily leveraged and Bullish and staying the course. Im not daytrading this any longer. No need to post my ideas from here on. The less information we get to take in, the better with all the volitility and whipsawing going on. Dont get caught up in it trying to be cute and scalping a pt. here and there. You'll lose. I guarantee you!

My TSP is now at 65% (40C- 25I) since Tuesday. I'll wait for a retest and if confirmed, I'll throw it all in and take on any risks. I missed the 15-20% slide and I have 25 years until retirement and am now contributing the Max in my TSP since my wife and myself are approaching the dreaded AMT tax (per my accountant)

In my Roth I Loaded up (my version atleast, 100 share blocks-LOL) on WB (7% yield), PBW (A JSLR play), FXI (ACCUM. MORE), MMM (3% and GLOBAL) early this week. 3 out of 4 are up nicely but I think theres alot more room for them to pop. You might want to wait on a pullback to pick these up but they'll be long term winners. Esp. PBW, as the theme at this years S.B. party is pushing alternative energy sources and you can bet your arse theres alot of bigtime networking going on there. If Hillary gets in, guess where alot of government monet will go to. Obama is along the same lines.

 

[phillyfed]

Oh yea, dont be shy about hijacking this thread for the purpose of some zestfully tasted Pix.


Keep them coming. MAS....MAS!!

 

[phillyfed]

Checking back in for my quarterly post.......How has everyone been holding up?

This is great! We have a solid trading range to play with, with some semblance of a short term bottom put in. I called this back on the 3rd week of Jan., that I thought the worst was behind us for the short term. If you are trader, this is what we were looking for!

Loving the Tuesday Pattern for C stocks and then to a lesser extent, the Wednesday follow through in the S fund. 3 weeks I have played this cycle, with each week being more aggresive. I was in 100% C yesterday, then made a rotation for 20%S and 80G today. Tomorrow and Friday, I will be exposed 100% into bonds.

Remember Tuesday is the day for now and it appears people are playing it. The pattern should end soon thou, I anticipate, as the shorts will recognize this and start trading out of their positions beforehand. Mondays may turn out to be the decent trading day if this happens. I posted an amazing statistic somewhere back a few pages in this thread regarding Mondays and their amazing return historically.

Bought some more Akamai on Monday for $27 and change and sold it today for nearly $32.....Akamai is gold under $30. A 13% swing in a day. I should have bet more

My long term play is INFI. Take a look at this $5 pharma stock with brilliant Scientists from MIT trying to cure Cancer at stage 1 currently in clinical trials. Look at their resumes. Look at their insider buying. They have enough cash to keep operations going onto 2009 and you can get the stock cheaper then the Venture Capitalists paid in for. This is one of those stocks that you roll the dice on, its either boom or bust but I like my chances and if you do your due diligence, perhaps you may feel the same. Good luck.

My TSP is up nearly 4% so far this year and I only made about 8 round trip trades YTD not counting Bond trades.

F fund for Thursday and Friday for me.

Good luck.

BTW, has the TSP board gotten anybody yet with their trade restrictions?

 

[phillyfed]

Are we in a recession? YES WE HAVE BEEN. I made the claim back in December when alot of people were saying BUY for the Xmas rally and that the Dow will surpass 14,000 and the s&p breaks 1500 again. Now I see those same people are now overhyping the gloom and doom....Its funny how the media controls peoples minds....Things are never as bad as they seem nor never as good.

We have established a trading range for the 2-3 month term and as a trader, thats all I care about. Scalping a pt. or two here and there. As I said yesterday, Im in bonds today and maybe tomorrow. I purchased some SDS (short S&P inverse X2) just before yesterdays close just under 60. I'll ride that for a 5 pt. gain. Maybe I'll ride another Tuesday rally next week when all the doom is lifted and the market goes up another 300 pts and bank the profits again.

Its times like this, the trader plays off of peoples emotions. Heres a clue. Do the exact opposite of everyone else.

 

[phillyfed]

Screw the TSP.... (My take)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/23/AR2008042303344.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter

​

According to the TSPshareholders.org, the total management costs of the TSP actually WENT DOWN LAST YEAR in 2007, yet they blame 3,700 traders (out of 4 million) for running costs up but show NO PROOF. (laughable) This is the same group of people that threw $300 million to a subcontractor called AMS that butchered up the TSP modernization project back in 2001 that was intended to allow TSP'ers to make daily transactions instead of the previous monthly. You can Google that. Wonder what that blunder cost us shareholders?

Just one more instance where your right to MANAGE YOUR OWN MONEY will be limited and restricted. Pretty dangerous considering social security funds will start to pay out more then take in in just 9 years and our pension is a fraction of the CSRS system. The real problem with what happened last year was with Barclays (our fund's brokerage firm that executes trades) and the volitile shift in overnight currency fluctuations, the weak dollar. (The Yen carry trade). The I fund cost the TSP some real money problems. All other trades are executed electronically and cost pennies.

The stock market has been relatively flat since 2000. The Nasdaq was at 5200 and today it trades at only half of that. Only people that made timely trades, made money. And if you bought and held since last November, your down about 15%. However, if you can read a charts ebbnflows, you can actually make some money buying the lows and selling the highs. I made 13.62% last year vs. the C funds paltry 4% return and I only made about 16 round trip trades all year.

I hope the TSP board will allow the frequent traders the right to pay transaction fees, that will more than offset their costs and should richen the TSP's fund totals. Doubt they will thou. They would wind up botching that up as well. And while they are at it, they should charge extra fees to anyone thats in the L funds. Those funds are traded and rebalanced daily. They cost the TSP more in charges then any other fund.

 

[nasa1974]

Good article in govexec.com

 

[Gumby]

got a link please?

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=39853&sid=2

Here ya go.

 

[nasa1974]

http://www/govexec.com

 

[nasa1974]

Gumby gave you the right one. I was one key over should have been www. not www/ :embarrest:

 

[nasa1974]

If you really want some interesting reading follow some of the links (blue words). The comments are pretty good to.

 

[Guest2]

I just entered a comment to this article, under
the name squalebear. Lets see if it gets published.

Heck, this is what I wrote, why make you wait!

"I got a question. The TSP has operated for years without limitations. Ok, times have changed and costs for Oct.Nov.Dec. may have
gone up significantly enough for the Board to feel a change was needed. Instead of informing the TSP Participants that they intended
to submit to the Federal Registry a rule change and it would be open for comment. They sent out letters first and told frequent traders
to stop or be placed on Mail Restrictions for doing something which was totaly legal at the time. When 547 decided to wait for the rule
to be finalized. That must have enraged the Board so much that they penalized the 547 by placing them on Mail Restrictions. Now that
type of retaliation, being a non emergency, is down right illegal. To disguise it as a "interim rule" leads one to believe that the change
was needed immediately. Or was it the fact that BGI (Barclays) was knee deep in the Credit Crisis with liquidity issues and Billions in
Writedowns? I find it most interesting that the focus was on 4000 TSP Participants and not whether our money was safe within Barclays
hands to begin with".

Sounds like they were afraid of a "RUN ON THE BANK" or on the tsp in this case.

 

[nasa1974]

I can't believe some people are still so ignorant. Buy & holders who plunked their money in G or and L fund and forgot about it. I hope they get what they deserve at retirement...which is not enough.

I was one of those ignorant government types for about 19 years. See my ramblings in uptreands account.

 

[nasa1974]

No offense taken. I never gave my account much thought for 19 years until I met a couple of guys from the USACE during some training. They where FERS and kept checking their laptop for updates. We started talking and I realized that I could do better and use my TSP as a vacation fund or for buying a new car after I retire. Something to really supplement my government pension. That was in 2004. I am 52 then and planned to retire at 60 so I figured why not get a little agressive and see what I could do with the TSP. Now I have found all of you.