Thread: CHASING RETURNS

Garnertr,

Honestly, and I say this with respect to your present position and situation, if you plan to do IFTs on a daily basis you will wear yourself out. You actually need, IMHO, many more years of aggressive and active accumulation of money. The first law of investing other than time is you need money to make money. Presently your allocations are set up to thin, you should concentrate your available funds on 2 TSP funds instead of across the board. That way if you hit a winner it becmes more profitable. As an example - with limited time in grade my selection would look like this: 75% C fund, and 25% I fund, with the same dollar cost averaging allocation. There just is no way around putting in more money than time permits. Now once you achieve substantial sums in your account it becomes more advisable to try the pistol game. Unfortunately when most participants achieve that $400,000 mark they begin to pull their heads into the G shelter. What a waste of power. Use this board to gain self confidence and knowledge and when you are ready - go make the dollars don't play with copper - collect silver. I apologize if I sound to presumptuous, I wish I had some one telling me what to do when I was younger- I'd probably be retired by now - oh well.

The Technician thinks that my strategy is aggressive and anyone who listens to me will end up like lambs to the slaughter. There is a Yogi and Chicken Little in every small town across this great country. Just don't believe their message of doom.

Thanks for the information, unfortunately, I'll not see 400K for way too long, i've got 6-years left in the navy until I retire, I joined back in 1991 and didn't start TSP until 2001 (when it was first started).

However, I like the suggestion and will think about that... (75/25) and I'll be thinking more and more about future ideas...

though, as I preach to everyone @ work, INVEST NOW, I keep saying it over/over/over especially to our young military personnel, I keep telling them that if they start now, max it out and when THEY retire in 20-years, their TSP will be faboulous... unlike mine, I had only a few years to do as much as I could...

So thank you and thank you! No offense was taken ad none will ever be taken, I'm here to learn and to preach my education to others.!!!

Again, thanks!

Garnertr,

When you get out and find future employment - think about working for your Uncle- you'll be right back in TSP with the ability to maximize your contributions of over $20,000 a year - actually even more because starting in 2007, the $15,000 limit will be indexed to inflation and maybe by then you will qualify for matching contributions. I bet you can't wait to hit 50 - you get an extra $5000/year to contribute as the catch up. I think you are on the right track- I had a cousin who retired from the Navy and ended up working for the postal service - he now has a beautiful piece ol lake property in New Hampshire - sure knows how to make me jealous. Take carfe

Yup, I'm getting there! I'm a CTA and I've been looking into working @ a SCIF. I have a TS clearance and it will be up-to-date upon my retirement (I can COUNT on that one).

So, I PLAN on working some-kind of government tie-in... and you can BET that I'll maximize whatever I can on that as well!

Just have to be patient and that I am not good at...

Thanks again,

Take a look at the ones here who make the most transfers. go back and track theirprogress. I dont think you will like what you see. You need to have a set strategy and find opportunities in share price to exploit.You cant keep switching trying to catch your loss. It just wont work.

sugarandspice wrote:

Take a look at the ones here who make the most transfers. go back and track theirprogress. I dont think you will like what you see. You need to have a set strategy and find opportunities in share price to exploit.You cant keep switching trying to catch your loss. It just wont work.

You'll be suprise with what you'll see. They are actually doing better than long term holder. I should know, I track all of you...:^

Pyriel,

I'll have to respectfully disagree. Through May 2005, 78% of the TSPTalk traders achieved a lower rate of return than a passive 20% allocation to each fund. Unless June is very different, I'd say that sugarandspice has a valid point.

Incidentally, it might be interesting to see if there is a correlation between the number of ITFs and returns - up or down.

I think it is likely that analysis will discover that neither a long term "buy and hold" or sentiment based market chasing will produce the best results. Buy and hold (2000-2003) may be just as disastrous as over guessing. One must be especially careful in a terror based economic climate.

A signal based trend system will likely enjoy much of the gains of an uptrend, and avoid the losses of a sustained downturn. A signal based trend system that is informed by events may do even better. Especially one that can be adjusted and improved over time.

The trick is to adhere to an approach, and avoid emotional based trigger pulling.Also, one must avoid too much market anticipation, as the market rarely does what we think it will.This will soon reveal itself as novice style gambling, and lead to wreck and ruin.

However, any approach must be evaluated on a longer scale than just a few months.

BTW, an equal 20% distribution of funds appears to have produced only a 1.32% gain since the beginning of the year... anyone beating that?

Ultimately, just another opinion :s

rokid wrote:

Pyriel,

I'll have to respectfully disagree. Through May 2005, 78% of the TSPTalk traders achieved a lower rate of return than a passive 20% allocation to each fund. Unless June is very different, I'd say that sugarandspice has a valid point.

Incidentally, it might be interesting to see if there is a correlation between the number of ITFs and returns - up or down.

Rokid, not sure about that. Please provide facts by sending me a copy of everyone's track sheet so I can compare it with mine.:shock: I am currently tracking 25 people here and majority of them are long term posters.:^ For those who would like to receive everyone's track sheet on a weekly basis, please pm me your email...:dude: BTW, I am not saying that one way of investing is better than the other. But these guys tend to beat the average returns. They proved it last year and I am sure they'll prove it this year. This is the reason why I started tracking everyone so that I can see for myself and not guess which one is better than the other..

Pyriel,

I'm just looking at your TallyMay '05. You've tracked 14 individuals since the begining of the year. 3 beat the 20% each fund passive holding - G-man, Systemtrader,and Safetyguy. 11 didn't.

If you just consider the last three months,6 beat the passive 20% allocation, G-man, Safetyguy, TSPTalk, Citizen, Tekno, and Cowboy.13 didn't (68%).

rokid wrote:

Pyriel,

I'm just looking at your TallyMay '05. You've tracked 14 individuals since the begining of the year. 3 beat the 20% each fund passive holding - G-man, Systemtrader,and Safetyguy. 11 didn't.

;-)... I see your point. Many have joined in since then and are doing well jumping. I feel confident that these jumpers will beat the average return by this year. :^ As for me, I should just stick with real estate...