Strate's Account Talk

[strates]

Just got started before the end of the year, so nothing really interesting. I'm going to hold onto 100% G until February, after the January downtick.

The plan, in general is to evaluate positions at the beginning of each month, so I'll have a max of 1 transfer per month. I've got some analysis which back-tests pretty good, but I don't put much faith in back-testing. So my real TSP account is pretty much Buy and hold, with 10% that I play around with.

 

[strates]

So, as I have been working 12 hour shifts this holiday weekend, which have been particularly boring, I have had plenty of time to do some analysis.

One question I've had for a while is, if you were to be spot perfect in timing your IFTs, how much could you ideally make.

So using the price history all the way back to 2-Jun-03, and starting with 100 shares of C Fund. I got a grand total of $1,624,990,349.68. ($1.6 Billion, from a starting balance of $1003.)

This is based on IFTing all available shares into the fund that is going to have the best performance on the next business day. It also assumes no IFT restrictions.

Kind of a useless exercise, but still pretty interesting. (I learned some neat excel tricks, too)

Maybe a bit more useful:
Percentage of Days each fund was the best performer:
G: 13.97
F: 18.36
C: 7.88
S: 29.10
I: 30.69

Also, Percentage of Days each fund was the worst performer:
G: 19.42
F: 21.64
C: 8.52
S: 23.49
I: 26.93

I'm sure somebody has done this before, so I figured I would post it here.

I'm also formally predicting that the Stock funds are going to underperform in January, so I am sticking with 100%G.

 

[2manyirons]

Yea that, “If I had only” stuff will drive you nuts. But it’s that way with the lottery, horse racing and other gambling.

Each time I make an IFT, I keep track of the,” what ifs”, if I had moved into one of the other funds, or if I had stayed, kind of thing. It’s easy to do with the,” My TSP Portfolio” option on iGoogle.

Some would say this was a useless exercise also, but I say it’s a way to see how well your TSP investment game plan is working.

Also, I agree about a pullback soon, (I’m 100% S now), but will the pullback be this week or first of the year, is the question. I got my finger on the IFT “G” key, and will push it if I see a one day big spike up. But I would like to go into the first of the year in the S fund. A lot of the opinions out there are that the first week or two in the New year will be good.

 

[JTH]

I'm also formally predicting that the Stock funds are going to underperform in January, so I am sticking with 100%G.

Thanks for posting the stats, folks love to know that sort of stuff. As for your predictions, I change my projections all the time, if the prices dictate a change is needed. There's nothing worse than sitting on the sidelines while a rally develops...

 

[nnuut]

Welcome strates a plan is a plan.
Best of luck and welcome to the Message Board.
Norman

 

[strates]

I'm sitting pretty in the G fund for now. I am looking for the S fund to go back under $20, probably, to buy in. Will it happen this year? I don't know, but at this point, it's too expensive for my tastes.

 

[strates]

As far as the autotracker is concerned, I am still waiting for an entry point. I'm guessing it will probably be a couple months, but I'm looking for the second quarter to be down.

In my actual TSP is decided an all time high for the S-fund was a good opportunity to skim a bit off the top, just to protect my profits a bit. So I transferred 5% from S to G, this amounted to about 25% of my realized gains since moving into the S fund 8 months ago.

 

[nasa1974]

Having something in the S fund the last 8 months has been a good move. S fund has rocked.