ssdave's Account Talk

[ssdave]

New to the forum, been lurking about a month. I'm a recovering hold and hope TSP'er, I held through the last years meltdown, and held up until Sept 23, when I decided to take control of my own destiny, for better or worse. I did my first IFT that day, by luck picked a high and managed to make 5% by rebuying back into CSI at the next low, and going to G on one of the Monday peaks last month. Rebought again on Black Friday, and transferred back into the F yesterday, again locking in gains from the current peak.

I've spent the last two months learning how to do fund transfers, watching the markets, tracking the funds. I've learned a lot by reading here, some fits my philosophy, some doesn't.

My strategy is ultimately simple, and of course, totally unworkable: Buy low and sell high. My real goal is to use IFT's to reduce risk by not sitting through another pronounced meltdown or bubble burst again. I don't expect to outperform Hold and Hopers in a Bull Market, but will be able to limit my losses in a meltdown, if one occurs.

Thanks for the opportunity to learn here!

dave

 

[JTH]

Welcome, good to have you here

 

[KevinD]

Welcome Dave!

 

[nasa1974]

Welcome aboard. Your heading in the right direction. Lots of great information on this MB.

 

[Show-me]

Glad to have ya around, welcome.

 

[shitepoke]

Newbies of the mmb unite. Been lurking myself and have made/saved a load soaking in the mmb info. Wanted to do premium service but how do you top service of Steady, Uptrend, PermaBull (BT), Coolhand, JTH (chartmeister), FedG, PoolM...

Plus, the freakin' humor is unreal. Its a Steady dose, with some Bull manure, and Sugar and Spice thrown in. Whoever said "more investing and less Philing" had me off my chair...

Honestly think all i need to do is check what Cool/UPTr/JTH are up to and i'm only spending a few minutes a week and it feels like a premium service...

Appreciate everyone's input, it surely beats buy and hold even if the numbers aren't always positive.

E

 

[tsptalk]

Hi Dave. Your goals are good ones and quite realistic. It will be tough to beat the buy and holder in a bull market, but during downdrafts it can be very rewarding to be sitting on the sidelines.

Good luck!

 

[FAB1]

Welcome to the board ssdave -

Yes you lock in gains, but what will you pay for shares the next time
you decide to risk the markets? In a real bull market less likely the dips
will be lower than when you sold-out last. Just food for thought no pressure.

There are 58 people in the Tracker now with 100% G, another 30 that
have up to half in the G. The rest of us are making some money this week.

Tom, if downdraft means what happened last fall I AGREE- there is a time to get out
to preserve your profits. But having tryed BHSL during brief dips or surges it was more trouble
than what it was worth.

Ssdave pay attention to the Leader board youll see whos making the highest % and what
they did do get there, Have fun!

 

[nnuut]

Welcome to the Board ssdave and shitepoke best of luck with your investments.
Norman

 

[ssdave]

Thanks for the welcome and advice, all.

Fab1, I'm quite aware of being so nervous that you crop the top off all the gains, and buy back in at the middle to top of the next rise trying to wait for the lows that never go as low as you'd like. I made enough on the silver market back in the 70's to pay a big chunk of my college costs by swing trading the metal, and learned how hard it is to outguess what will happen when people start acting in herd mentality and the market reacts contrary to what events say it should. I was lucky enough to sell my $3.80 silver for $28 in the Hunt brothers run, though. Perfect timing would have brought me $35, or a few days later almost nothing. The following drop and revelations of market manipulation opened my eyes to the risks of wanting the market to go up so bad that you don't recognize that it can go down. It kept me out of the metals market for 5 to 10 years, then I went into it again. Finally sold out again on a swing, and bought, developed, and sold speculative real estate for a while before the 2000 economic bubble burst.

Then, went to work for the Government as a semi-retirement job, and now playing at swing trading my TSP. After 8 years at maximum input, it's finally big enough to make the swing trade returns interesting.

This has been a good year to buy and hold, if you didn't buy and hold through the fall that preceded it. I've always been a buy and holder. And, my YTD return would put me in the top 50 on the tracker this year, just by virtue of buying and holding through the ramp up and a couple of swing trades as the market flattened in the last two months. But add in last fall, and I'm lucky to have more in my account than I had a year ago.

Being cautious, and trying to remember the lessons of greed I've painfully learned, I'm willing to give up a small bit of return, if it happens, for the security of knowing i'm limiting my losses if the floor falls out again.

If only I had a perfect futuretelling crystal ball.....

dave

 

[ssdave]

The last few days (weeks?) markets and news have got me convinced the market really wants to go down, but is being propped up by a number of factors. The only thing that shows an end to the recession is the stock market gains, which have been astronomical since last spring. Consumer spending for Christmas is cautious, jobs being created are all temp sales jobs, individual savings rate is still going up, GNP is flat or down indicating no growth in industry. Dollar value and stocks trading inversely to each other, with almost 100 percent correlation. Foreclosures continuing, and highly inflated real estate markets still dropping as banks trickle foreclosures out onto the market slowly to avoid more panic. Combine that with every investor with their finger on the sell button, wanting to avoid a double dip, and "substantial corrrection" in the back of the mind and we've got a very volatile setup.

The government and media has got everybody convinced that the recession is measured by the stock market numbers. Every time the market tries to go down, government steps in with a well timed announcement about stimulus, TARP, holding interest rates, etc. Combine that with an end of year when institutions and fund managers want the market to hold steady so their yearly bottom line looks good, a year when smart operators made huge gains that they don't want to pay taxes on, and a bias for holiday gain in the market, and you end up with volatility but trading sideways without any real gains.

The question is how will it all break out when the year closes? My thoughts are: Will nervous investors sell once taxes on their gains is deferred for another 12 months? Institutions and fund managers go back to sound basics and back away from perceived risk once they have a new accounting year to average out their corrections? Individual investors looking at their retirement funds decide to take their money and run, locking in their gains for this year to avoid the risk of a double dip eroding those hard fought gains? Beginning of year retirement rebalancing selling off stocks that have appreciated, and filling out bonds and cash assets that have had lower gains?

I'm in the F and holding, until I see a sustained positive gain in both stocks and the dollar together, or a market correction substantial enough to make stocks a bargain. I see a lot of close to retirement investors that have been gambling in stocks this summer when they seemed like a sure thing, retreating to the relative safety of bonds at any hint of a market drop. That demand for bonds should add another half percent of gain to the stock drop when I decide to go all in again.

dave

 

[dannyboy]

Welcome to the TSPCircus,
Follow the leaderboard, http://www.tsptalk.com/tracker/tsp_user_balance_all.php
Follow and read through the threads and you can do much better than solo.
You only have 2 IFT's, be careful and use them wisely!!! :notrust:

 

[ssdave]

Well, today's action is what I've been waiting to use my second IFT for, and I was tied up this morning and couldn't make the transfer. F is up, and I is down and I'm sitting in 100% F. If it carries through to tomorrow without a reversal, will look at going back into CSI, or if F stays up and CSI reverses, will go to G and wait until next month. Only one effective swing transfer a month really limits our options......

dave

 

[tsptalk]

Good patience ss. Today may have been a gift for those looking to buy, but we are right at support and we need some instant gratification or the technical picture starts to deteriorate some.

 

[ssdave]

Well, Monday will see how good a choice I made today. Went 30,40,30 CSI today from F.

The way I see it, F is going to move temporarily upwards in a small way as people jump from the market, but long term is going to go down as the rates paid by borrowers have to go up to get people to buy. Cheap money isn't going to be around forever, and any regulation on banks will make money harder to borrow, thus more expensive. Inflationary pressures of course will also contribute to the rate rise. I see the only way we'll get out of the huge government debt being run up is by allowing inflation to eat up some of the debt. So, the only choice is when and how, not if, to get out of F fund.

Choice was jump to G, or take advantage of hopefully a swing low to get into the market. I chose to go into the market, my best guess is that we're in a volatile swing, not a long term correction. If I'm wrong, I'll jump to G once my personal loss stop limit is reached. The potential gain long term outweighs the risk of a loss that I can limit by self control in invoking my stop loss transfer.

dave

 

[nnuut]

I did the same, 50% "C", 50% "S", but with Obama Exploding the Markets I'm nervous as a cat. We shall see Monday.

 

[ssdave]

Went 70% G, 30% I today from 30,40,30 CSI.

I don't trust the market to move up (or even stay flat) with a state of the union address scheduled to "speak to the masses about what the president intends to do about the economy". BHO thinks that speaking to the masses means handing out gravy and taking from the "rich". Never good for the market, as we saw from his swipe at the banks last week. Hopefully he's getting and taking better advice on his State of the Union Address, but somehow I think not.

I don't think I fund has recovered from last Friday yet, so will keep my stake in there. If the dollar drops on the presidents address and the Fed meeting, will maybe help out I fund a bit, and then I'll take a profit.

Have to remember in a normal year without the huge gains we saw from March on last year, a lot of little 1% gains adds up to a pretty good yearly return.

dave

 

[Steadygain]

Hi Dave,
You live in what was regarded as the most sacred area for many years. It's amazing how highly that area was 'cherished' and when it came to losing their land ~~ and to the largest degree it really was their land ~~ of course they had the fullest assurance that the Black Hills would be spared No need to worry

I can't go through your area without remembering it's history and because of that I also regard it as a sacred place.

I think you're right on the TSP Stuff and it looks like you'll be a good one to keep up with. Locking in what you have at 70% is a good move ~~ yet leaving 30% I is also smart because it's the one most likely to make some kind of gain.

I'm usually too 'chicken' to stay in when I've had enough exposure and subsequently more than not it was a mistake.

Anyway -- I think the idea of grabbing some 'fast gains' is the way to go for awhile.

Welcome !!!! and you've got some great stuff !

Steady

 

[ssdave]

Thanks for the message, Steady. Hills is a nice area, but very urban forest for me. More like a tree farm than a forest. I spent 21 years up in Northern Idaho, but that's becoming very populous now too, expecially around Coeur d'Alene and Post Falls. At least you can get away there. I don't think you can get more than 1000 feet from a road here, and see people everywhere you go.

Glad I bailed back to G today, even at a break even or slight loss from my buy on Friday. Was worth a chance, but not going to sit in on the risk through the rest of the week.

Main worry to me is that the market is ignoring all good news and good earnings, too many worriers. I'll sit out for a bit, have to anyway, done with my 2 IFT.

dave

 

[Blindman]

Thanks for the message, Steady. Hills is a nice area, but very urban forest for me. More like a tree farm than a forest. I spent 21 years up in Northern Idaho, but that's becoming very populous now too, expecially around Coeur d'Alene and Post Falls. At least you can get away there. I don't think you can get more than 1000 feet from a road here, and see people everywhere you go.

Glad I bailed back to G today, even at a break even or slight loss from my buy on Friday. Was worth a chance, but not going to sit in on the risk through the rest of the week.

Main worry to me is that the market is ignoring all good news and good earnings, too many worriers. I'll sit out for a bit, have to anyway, done with my 2 IFT.

dave

SSDave
I have been to that area in Idaho you talk about. It was one of my better TDY area destinations. Loved going to Spokane in the summer. Not been to the SD area, but hopefully one day......we just got hills here in OK and not many trees!! Ole mother nature likes to take them out, whether it be a tornado or ICE!! and looks like we maybe in for some of the wintery mix tomorrow. (1-2"'s of ice, they say)
Brighter side is, Makes it fun getting to work!!! Let the bumper cars begin!


Blindman