JTH

As with everything I do I have a contingency plan. It's like going to war, when war is declared, you pull out a canned plan and make the adjustments as needed. My plan was canned back in December 2009 and I blogged about it.

Plan A: Avoid the loss in the first place (duh). I could have done this, but just couldn't seem to find a good opportunity.

Plan B: Look for a 50% retracement, bump up contributions to lower the cost bases per share. For those who had the stones ...

This week it's about knowing what you're made of by managing you're trade and not hiding from it. If you've avoided the downslide, congratulations you've made the best trade of the year. My refusal to absorb a loss will perhaps be my downfall, but that's ok we all have our personal lessons to learn and I'm no different than anyone else. For me, managing my TSP account takes a back seat to my ROTH IRA and I did a great job of protecting myself there. For my TSP account I'm staying in, choosing time ...

On a day like this I tend to get excited looking for new buying opportunities, but today isn't one of those days. After a review of systems and charts, I cannot in good faith recommend a buy under these circumstances. What I can do is present a few things and let you draw your own conclusion.

The systems I monitor did not trigger a buy and don't appear to be in any hurry to do so. When prices fall this drastically 1 of 2 things need to happen. Either reality needs to catch up to prices ...

We've all seen how bonds have been a relatively safe place to harbor your cash off the March 2011 bottom, and the F-Fund has responded in kind with a nice 3.76% YTD return. This is more than twice the performance of the G-fund, so someone might wonder why I haven't IFT'd into the F-fund once in 2011? It's really quite simple, I'm operating under the "less is more" concept where I've been concentrating my efforts on fewer positions, less risk, and less exposure.

Fewer Positions: By ...

Last week was a short week and as such I felt this would make for a decent pause in price. While the Transports did close flat, much to my dismay the other major indexes posted stronger gains. Still, my analysis is telling me this is a good time to sit on my hands until I feel a better buying opportunity comes along. As for systems, I have 1 that posted a buy for bonds on 7 July, and two others that posted a sell for stocks on 5&6 July. Either ways, at this point in time I'm not recommending a buy ...