Thinking of putting everything in the G

[fant16]

Since theC and S both closed high,I am thinking of moving to the G this evening (5/28/04) when will it be effective (Monday is a Holiday)? Anyone else thinkthe market willtake a downward turn soon?

[Rolo]

The Thrift Savings Plan is closed on Monday, May 31, 2004 for Memorial Day. Therefore, share prices will not be updated and transactions will not be processed until the following business day.




[line]

I think it may pull back a little to digest a few gains, but not a downward turn. I am betting the indexeswill resume thier prior high course. I hope so...I have three stocks ready to break out. (SCSS, WBSN, RHAT...heh, canya tell I'm an IT guy?)

On what do I base that? I don't know, but it is something a little more advanced than tea leaves.

[thinks]

Welcome, fant16!

Rolo, you've got me curious.... I'm off to find out what your stock picks are.... are these the picks from USAA? I'll have to check out USAA too. I use quicken to track our spending.... aren't you the one who puts TSP in quicken and if so do you have any tips?

[tsptalk]

fant16 wrote:
Since theC and S both closed high,I am thinking of moving to the G this evening (5/28/04) when will it be effective (Monday is a Holiday)? Anyone else thinkthe market willtake a downward turn soon?
Welcome fant16!

Any transfer done between Friday at noon ET andTuesday at noon ET, will take affect Wednesday morning (You'll get Tuesday's closing prices).

Thanks for joining us!
Tom

[tsptalk]

By the way fant16, I will be playing it day by day. If we get a good rally Tuesday morning, I may put some in the G fund for Wednesday, but at most 40%. For what it's worth, the first week in June is historically stronger than average.

[Rolo]

Oh, yeah, welcome, fant16!

thinks wrote:

Welcome, fant16!

Rolo, you've got me curious.... I'm off to find out what your stock picks are.... are these the picks from USAA? I'll have to check out USAA too. I use quicken to track our spending.... aren't you the one who puts TSP in quicken and if so do you have any tips?

Yes, I put TSP share prices into Quicken pretty much every day, but only for C, S, and I funds. I can export them if anyone wants them.

Quicken is always open on my machine here, I have everything into it. I also have my Quicken database regularly backed up onto my server. Definitely have your files automatically backup to another disk, or another machine if possible.

Completely ignore the "Net Worth" figure at the bottom, hehe. :D (another topic on here, if you haven't seen it)

I like using the stock research tools in Quicken, the web pages to guage a company's health before I buy.

[line]

I didn't know USAA had stock picks, I'll have to look at that. I only put mutual funds into my IRA accounts, which I have with USAA, so I never looked at them for stocks, after seeing how high their fees are. Save for USAGX, I do not care for any of their funds, they are mediocre at best.

I honestly do not like dealing with them, but they have a pretty good selection of NTF funds, and I can get some funds through them that I cannot get through Scottrade.


WBSN(WebSense) isa product with which I am familiar. I resold it to a client after researching enterprise-level content filtering software. They are the leader in the field and have secured several patents. I had to buy their stock. I've traded in and out of it several times, usually right before major moves. I honestly do not know how I did that. It's a good stock to hold for a while, too, perhaps even years. (I generally only think 3-6 months ahead.)

I read about SCSS (Select Comfort) in Barron's and know two people who bought those beds and they love them. I've traded in and out of it as well. I bought it again on the news that they will be supplying beds to a hotel chain.

I have always believed RHAT (RedHat) will be the leader in supporting/distributing Linux operating systems. As a network engineer, I like it and getting it to replace Windows Server was pretty easy. It made a better Windows Server than Windows did. As a reseller, I like the larger profit-margin :)and my clients like the lesser cost. The only thing Linux needs now for the coup-detat is an Exchange-killer. SuSE is the only other major distributor and they primarily sell to Europe.

I read about SIRI and XMSR in Barron's almost a year ago. I hold both, kept SIRI, traded in and out of XMSR. Satellite Radio will go the route cable television did. I intend to hold SIRI for a long time, possibly XMSR, contingent upon earnings.

I bought VLCCF for the dividend yield (check it out, 40% right now). I heard about it on ptcrew.com (http://www.ptcrew.com), hehe

Mutual funds right now: MATFX, REYFX (thinking about ditching it, we'll see how the recovery goes), RIAFX (I love tech...but I keep an eye on it), RSPFX (was supposed to soften the blow, but didn't), DRBNX (I think biotech will pick up again), and SCOVX. I try to stick with top 10% within the fund's category (Quicken lists that).

One fund I really wanted was JAMFX, but I cannot get to it.

[fant16]

Thanks for the site and advice. I am glad I found this forum. To quote Sammy Sosa, the TSP "has been berrry, berrrygoood to me."

[Rolo]

Yeah, I did not put much time into tweaking my TSP until I discovered TSPTalk. We'll have to treat Tom to a five-star dinner and deduct it as a business expense, since it will be a convention and all, hehe.

Oh yeah, VLCCF is Knightsbridge Tankers, or Very Large Crude Carrier Fleet. I like the way that sounds, it has a"Whooooooh!" factor.

[puertorico]

Welcome fant16:^

From Tuesday I will begin to put a least 60% in G-FUND

and play wich 40% around stock only.And keep taking

10% out until get 100% G.

Nobody want to buy top,"too risky"sell high?buy low !

I learn a lesson two week ago.

Have been a big week .That put me in shape waiting

for another round buying low.

That just my game plan.

[Rolo]

Think you may be cashing out too early? (I fear that more than losing, but that is emotion talking, now isn't it?)

[puertorico]

After a big week I can handler 40%stock winning just a little big more is ok

but no handler a big down 100%stock in the top.



Tom said one time ago...something like this ....

-------------------------------------------------

When u go down 50%, take 100% up to

get where u were before.

--------------------------------------------------

Just taking a little caution even the firstdays of the

month, most of the time look good.

[tsptalk]

Many of you weren't with me in January. Right after Xmas I started to see the signs of the marketbeing very overbought and I hid in the G fund. Three or four weeks later the market about topped. That killed me. I had just started the site and the market was taking off without me on a daily basis. Of course every rally had me more bearish and I would say so in the comments. At one time I think the C and S funds were 4 to 6% ahead of my return.

It has been an uphill battle and I could have played a lot of things better, but I scratched my way back to some respectability with the return. (http://www.tsptalk.com/returns/returns.html)

My point is, even if the market is overbought, sometimes you have to wait for the signs of weakness before you get out because you could miss the boat. And even more now that the indicators for the intermediate term are positive. They were getting negative in January.

If you are moving 100% out and in, just be quick and react to the market. If you are wrong, adjust quickly. My indicators help tremendously but sometimes I have to let the daily market activity tell me what is going on.

[Rolo]

That is a very helpful post. hehe, I rode January all the way uuuuuup.....and...dowwwwwwn. :dah:

Can you explain the overbought/oversold indications?

[puertorico]

Here is something basic baby step I find around finance yahoo

. Preserve your capital.

This is perhaps the most important rule. Managing your losses and waiting for the right opportunity to enter trades are critical: A 50% drawdown requires a 100% gain just to get back to break-even. The easiest way to preserve your capital is by keeping your losses small, patiently
. Never let a profit turn into a loss.
Profits are hard enough to come by, so letting one slip away and -- even worse -- turn into a loss, is a sin. One way to avoid this is with a trailing stop, which is a stop order that is entered at some fixed percentage below the market price (for a long position). If the stock moves higher, the stop order moves up, or "trails," proportionately. However, the stop price doesn't move lower if the stock does, essentially putting a floor on where you'll sell the stock without limiting your upside.
Once you have a substantial gain, place a stop just at or slightly above your buy point.
. Take big gains and small losses.
"The whole secret to winning big in the stock market is not to be right all the time, but to lose the least amount possible when you're wrong." I limit losses to 7%, and I take some gains when I am up 20% to 25% on a position. Different percentages may work better for you, but control your losses and lock in substantial gains.

note:
I post all this basic rule not becouse the market
going down but just to limit the losses after big gain
is a win-win situation becouse do not let winning
becoming losses. Just caution my-self wich the basic rules.

Unemployment report friday june 4.:D

[Rolo]

puertorico wrote:
"The whole secret to winning big in the stock market is not to be right all the time, but to lose the least amount possible when you're wrong." I limit losses to 7%, and I take some gains when I am up 20% to 25% on a position. Different percentages may work better for you, but control your losses and lock in substantial gains.

Y'know, I know that (academically) so well that I can tell you that Bill O'Neil wrote that in How to Make Money in Stocks, the first book on stocks I ever read. I even subscribe to his IBD!

Yet, for whatever reason, I just had to go through it myself and really lock in the knowledge the hard way. :'



Thanks for posting that necessary reminder. Placing floors on the way up is a good idea. It is nota bad idea for mutual funds, either.

I do not actually place stop loss orders, and Bill O'Neill will also tell you that. It tips your hand and you could inadvertantly sell your equitiy during a shakeout. Set e-mail/cell phone notifications near your stop loss price instead.

I had to learn that the hard way too when one of my stocks sold on astop loss during an intra-day dip. Then it went up quite a bit. That was my second or third trade ever, so I was a little too protective of my capital, hehe.

I do place stop limit orders at my target selling price soon after buying to catchlarge spikes upward or if the stock moves more quickly than anticipated. I also have e-mail alerts for when a stock moves 5% or more in one day, up or down.

[tsptalk]

Rolo wrote:
Can you explain the overbought/oversold indications?

They are indicators I follow on http://www.decisionpoint.com (http://www.decisionpoint.com) (pay site). With their permission, I post these charts on the site from time to time. People smarterthanme figure out the numbers and put them on a chart for me to read. Here is their explaination of the overbought/oversold indicator and the McClellen Oscillator.

OVERBOUGHT/OVERSOLD

The term OVERBOUGHT means that the market has run out of buyers and OVERSOLD means that the market has run out of sellers. Users of these terms perceive that the market (stock, commodity, etc.) has reached an extreme limit in one direction or the other and that a retracement or consolidation is likely to take place.

The related terms of OVERVALUED and UNDERVALUED refer to market valuations. OVERVALUED means that the market is demanding too much of a premium to fair value. UNDERVALUED means that the stock (market, commodity, etc.) is selling at a discount to fair value.

McCLELLAN OSCILLATOR
The exact calculation of the McClellan Oscillator is covered below, but it is basically the result of subtracting a 0.05 exponential average (40-day moving average) of advances minus declines from the 0.10 exponential average (20-day moving average).

The McClellan Oscillator is an intermediate-term indicator, but it can also be used for short-term timing when it bottoms in oversold territory -- in the area of -100 and below. When the McClellan Oscillator moves below the Zero Line a SELL Signal is rendered, and a BUY Signal results when it moves above zero; however, these are general guide lines not hard rules guaranteed to result in profitable trading.

A "typical" McClellan Oscillator pattern series consists of consecutive formation of a Complex Bottom, a Middle Spike, and a Buy Spike. The typical Complex Bottom is a bowl-shaped series of oscillations below the Zero Line while the market is declining. This is followed by a move above well above zero which begins the formation of the Middle Spike -- a stalactite between the move above zero and the move back below zero. The Middle Spike signals the beginning of an intermediate-term up move, but it is usually followed by another down move, possibly to lower lows. After the down leg of the Middle Spike has concluded, we can expect a Buy Spike, which as the name implies signals a new up trend in the market. Buy Spikes are normally formed in oversold territory (-80 and below), but rising series of Buy Spikes is also a possibility.

While this is a typical series of chart formations that will help us identify changes in market direction and determine current market status, unfortunately, they may not appear in the specified order . . . or at all.

[Rolo]

Ah! I see, thanks. I kept thinking "overbought" meant "all-kinda-people-are-buyin'" and it was a good thing, but it is the signal of the end of that good thing.

Overbought = diminished demand = prices drop; Oversold = high demand = premium pricing



From investopedia:



A market breadth indicator that is based on the difference between the number of advancing and declining issues on the NYSE. It is primarily used for short and intermediate term trading.

To calculate subtract a 39 day EMA (of advancing issues - declining issues) from a 19 day EMA (of advancing issues - declining issues).

Simplified, it looks as follows: (19 Day EMA of Advances - Declines) - (39 Day EMA of Advances - Declines)


Usually, a small number of stocks making large gains characterizes a weakening bull market. This gives the perception that the overall market is healthy, but in reality it isn't, as rising prices are being driven by a small number of stocks. Conversely, when a bear market is still declining, but a smaller amount of stocks are declining, an end to the bear market may be near.


hmmmm...I wonder if that is what I have been seeing when I see a small number of strong companies making big advances when the market appears to be churning; I would interpret that as a leading indicator of an impendingoverall market advance. Perhaps I have that backwards. Perhaps both apply in certain conditions. AAAAAGH! heh. Thoughts?

[Rolo]

Market Breadth

A technical analysis theory that predicts the strength of the market according to the number of stocks that advance or decline in a particular trading day.

The breadth of market indicator is used to gauge the number of stocks advancing and declining for the day. If the breadth indicator is strong, this theory predicts that the market will be rising and vice versa.


Advance/Decline Line

A technical analysis tool representing the total of differences between advances and declines of security prices. The advance/decline line is considered the best indicator of market movement as a whole. Stock indexes such as the DJIA only tell us the strength of 30 stocks where as the A/D line provides much more insight.

If the markets are up but there are more declining stocks than advancing ones it's usually a sign that the markets are losing their breadth. If the number of advancing issues are dominating the declining issues and the market is then said to be healthy. If it is falling, then the market is not healthy.


Ah! The MCO considers this to determine market tops/bottoms/reversals.

If I understand the similarities, we have a "FrizzB Oscillator (FBO)" :D

[tsptalk]

If I understand the similarities, we have a "FrizzB Oscillator (FBO)"
Exactly!

One thing, and this kind of started this whole discussion, sometimes when the market is overbought and stretching the limits of that indicator (as we are seeing now) we can still have big moves upward. Also, the ob/os indicator can come down from high toa more normal level while the market isflat or only slightly down for a few days. It doesn't necessarily mean the market is going to pullback.



So it's a great tool for trying to pick tops and bottoms in the market but you risk potentialbig moves in the direction of the indicator (Big rallies even though the indicator is overbought). That catches me off guard a lot. That is why I was saying I wanted to see a sign of weakness here before I hide some money in the G fund. Let's see how strong this market is first.

[Frizz B.]

Rolo, Thanks for the compliment, I think.

FrizzB.

[Rolo]

Frizz B. wrote:
Rolo, Thanks for the compliment, I think.

hehe...Yes, you're worthy of an acronym!



tsptalk wrote:
One thing, and this kind of started this whole discussion, sometimes when the market is overbought and stretching the limits of that indicator (as we are seeing now) we can still have big moves upward.

A Voyager probe sling-shot comes to mind. Would this event also mark where a resistance line becomes a support line?



tsptalk wrote:
Also, the ob/os indicator can come down from high toa more normal level while the market isflat or only slightly down for a few days. It doesn't necessarily mean the market is going to pullback.

Ah, like a few tiny black days after a run-up? Flags and pennants come to mind, too, as well asthe handle portion of a base.

[azanon]

Since theC and S both closed high,I am thinking of moving to the G this evening (5/28/04) when will it be effective (Monday is a Holiday)? Anyone else thinkthe market willtake a downward turn soon?

Short-term (meaning market timing short) perhaps, but I dont care. I can sort of make sense out of monthy timers, give or take, but this daily jumping around I think will just produce frustration. Of all the timing models ive seen, the wisest ones seem to be those that reassess the markets about once a month or so, then reevaluate the 1-year outlook. I am glad Tom is also doing that for us, and that is the one i'm following. I wouldnt be shocked at all if his 1-year timer beats his day-to-day jumping around :-). (currently 35%C, 35%S, 30%I, for aggressive).

In the mid-term (1 year), i think stocks will be strong from here on out, particularly mid and large cap growth. Too bad we dont have one of those for TSP, but all my Roths are mid/large cap growth atm.

[puertorico]

[Mondays most of the time are down ].

[Fridays most of the time are up] .

It's the true ? :?

[tsptalk]

puertorico wrote:
[Mondays most of the time are down].

[Fridays most of the time are up] .

It's the true ? :?

From 1950 to 2202, Monday's werethe worst performing day but it actually had a positive average return when the S&P 500 was trading above its 220 day moving average (which it is now).

Fridays and Wednesdays are close as the top performing days of the week.

[puertorico]

Thank Toms for the numbers

I was checking my numbers and there not a big difference in this year.

-Fridays-C-fund-----{january to may}

10-up

8-down

2-flat

-Mondays-C-fund------{january to may}

10-up

10-down

1-flat

[puertorico]

References

October is the cruelest month for the U.S.stock market

In 1929 october 29 the market collapse

---12.8% $14 billion

....In October 19, 1987 !crash !

---22.6% $500 billion

For reference *octoberand september worst down*

I'm doing my home-work...:D

[tsptalk]

S&P 500 on Tuesdayafter Memorial Day...

2003 - Up 1.9%
2002 - Down .85%
2001 - Down .78%
2000 - Up 3.2%
1999 - Down .58%
1998 - Down 1.5%

Seems to be down more often but the up days were big. We are so due for a pullback but I have a feeling if we can get through the weekend without a major catastrophe, we may have a good Tuesday. Then it may be time to protect a little of the account.

[Rolo]

"October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February."

-Mark Twain



I've noticed periods where Mondays seemed habitually down/Fridays up and the reverse, Mondays up/Fridays down. I thought I read somewhere where they were indicative of the type of market, i.e. Bull/Bear respectively. I do not know if there is any validity to that, but I had noticed it on occasion.

[puertorico]

Tom I'm not feel to positive becouse last week there was twices "big up".

But I hope rally

I'm in the bote too TAKING CHANCES:?



tHE best holidays

after Thankgiving almost always- up {15 to 1}

after Christmas most of the time up about{12 to 5}

[puertorico]

more references

big rallys of this year

1-January 5 Monday {134}

2-January 26 Monday {134}

3-March 25 thursday {171}

4-April 22 thursday {144}

5-may 25 Tuesday {159}was the 2nd big rally of the year

[puertorico]

numbers for S and I

FRIDAYS "this year"

S-13 up------8 down

I-11 UP--------10 down

-------------------------------

MONDAYS"this year"

S-13 up-------8 down

I-12 up---------9 down