The opportunity of the week was to buy the C-fund on Wednesday. The C and S-fund pulled back sharply on Wednesday after the Federal Open Markets Committee took stage to deviate from investors' expectations of the Fed Fund rate path. The market has been pricing in a rate cut in the March meeting for some time, but the Fed and their chairman Jerome Powell are not so sure they want to pull the trigger so soon. The probability of a rate cut in March dropped sharply after the FOMC policy statement and press conference Wednesday, and now the forecast favors a rate cut in the May meeting.
On top of the Fed keeping borrowing costs higher for longer, investors had to deal with disappointing earnings from tech giants Microsoft and Alphabet. Their heavy index weight and poor stock performance helped to drag index prices down.
This gloomy Wednesday in the market was followed by a bounce back over the last two days of the week. And it was specifically the C-fund that bounced back with the most vitality. The C-fund gained 2.3% over the next two days.
Here are the weekly, monthly, and annual TSP fund returns for the week ending February 2:
Using just one IFT this week, a member holding the G-fund and with January IFTs still available on the last day of the month could have captured these gains to easily be crowned with the best trade of the week with a 100% buy of the C-fund. But it is only easy to see in retrospect. The uncertainty of the FOMC meeting and the general gloom that brought the market down would be hard to buy into the market that morning. And we actually did not see that specific trade play out among our non-premium members.
But one member made a trade that day that set them apart for the week. A more diversified trade that produced results to outperform the C-fund's 1.41% weekly gain. TSP Talk AutoTracker member slsmul made their first IFT of the year on Wednesday moving from 100% G-fund to a 50% C-fund and 50% S-fund allocation. That move gave slsmul a 1.92% gain for the week earning them the crown as best trade of the week. This gain boosted slsmul to 114 in the 2024 TSP Talk AutoTracker standings, while the G-fund holders were left behind tied for 373rd place in the standings.
This was an impressive move by slsmul, but they are actually a known sharpshooter. Slsmul ended 2023 with a 26.55% return to beat the C-fund for the year and land themselves at 22nd place in the 2023 TSP Talk AutoTracker standings. Slsmul did this while only using 8 IFTs for the year.
A special note that last week's best trade winner is currently sitting at the top of the TSP Talk AutoTracker standings. Last week we were impressed by HarleyLar who maneuvered themselves into the top 5 last week. Well that trade now has them sitting at the number one position in the TSP Talk AutoTracker standings. Keep it up!
If you want to be kept up to date when one of these investors makes their next IFT, sign up for the Last Look Report. We keep an eye on the IFTs made across our community up to 30 minutes before the TSP trade deadline. You can get five free reports by signing up here.
If you haven't yet, start your TSP Talk AutoTracker account for free today.
Good luck and thanks for reading! We will be back here next week with another TSP Wrap Up. You can read our daily market commentary at TSP Talk - Market Commentary. If you need some help deciding what to do with your account, perhaps one of our premium services can help.
Thomas Crowley
(TommyIV)
www.tsptalk.com
Weekly Wrap-Ups Archive
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The legal stuff: This information is for educational purposes only! This is not advice or a recommendation. We do not give investment advice. Do not act on this data. Do not buy, sell or trade the funds mentioned herein based on this information. We may trade these funds differently than discussed above. We use additional methods and strategies to determine fund positions.
