Thread: Boricua's account talk

Originally Posted by Boricua

Hello all,

Man, was I confused about IFT's. I always thought I could go from the G fund, into a Stock Fund or F fund and jump back to G fund, with an IFT left to go back into the Stock Funds or F fund. Well, I went to jump back into stocks today ( I was G fund 12/30/2014, went into S Fund 1/6/2015 and back into G Fund 1/13/2015) and it stated that I had completed my 2 IFT's for the month. That Sucks!!!!. I called TSP and the lady told me my IFT's have been completed for the month, I can jump within the stock funds 2 times a month, but once I am back into the G fund, from a stock fund, that's it, I am done; those are my 2 IFT's, That is ridiculous!!!


Anways, venting.

B

Yep 2 IFT's a month. Many of us complain about it.

Let's say you have made your 2 IFT's for the month but you have most of your shares not in the G fund. You can make as many moves to the G fund that you want for the rest of the month as long as you have shares in the other funds. You just can't take shares out of the G fund and put it in any of the other funds. Example; You used up both IFT's by the 15th of the month but you still had 70% not in the G fund. You could move up to 5% per day back to the G fund. That would be almost another 15 IFT's for the month. Just saying.

Yeah, its totally bogus. When making moves, i have to know w absolute certainty the fund will make "X" amount of gains, for several days. Having only 2 IFTs is more like gambling than managing a retirement fund.
If its nearing the end of month and you have an IFT left, use it to set up account for the following month. You may lose some money, but may make it up next month. And then you'll have 2 IFTs to play w.

Jason,
I agree wholeheartedly, I just thought that if you jumped into c, s,I, that you could jump out and that would be 1, but, geez, come on, that's 2, I now think this is ludicrous. This is gambling, that's b.s..

Originally Posted by nasa1974

Yep 2 IFT's a month. Many of us complain about it.

Let's say you have made your 2 IFT's for the month but you have most of your shares not in the G fund. You can make as many moves to the G fund that you want for the rest of the month as long as you have shares in the other funds. You just can't take shares out of the G fund and put it in any of the other funds. Example; You used up both IFT's by the 15th of the month but you still had 70% not in the G fund. You could move up to 5% per day back to the G fund. That would be almost another 15 IFT's for the month. Just saying.

That would explain how certain members have up to 7 IFT's this month in the Auto Tracker. When I go to G fund it's usually 100%. So I better not use up one of my two IFT's to do that. Thanks.

Dear Nasa1974,

Thank you for this information. I was unaware about transferring into the G-fund in piecemeal. This is wonderful and yet a little quirky as I am suprised they would allow this. Once again thanks!

Originally Posted by Dinicti

Dear Nasa1974,

Thank you for this information. I was unaware about transferring into the G-fund in piecemeal. This is wonderful and yet a little quirky as I am suprised they would allow this. Once again thanks!

We could talk about the >1% option but I don't want to confuse you. It does seem a bit strange but the G fund is considered the safety net so you can move shares to the G fund as many times as you like. The restriction is moving between the real money funds F, C, S & I more than twice. Just remember if one of your first 2 IFT's for the month is to the G fund it counts against your 2 IFT's. After that the only move you can make is to the G fund.
The biggest excuse we are given from the FRTIB is that the two IFT's a month saves us money. Everytime you make a transaction it costs a few bucks to do so. These transaction costs effect everyone in the TSP not the individual making the change. So at the end of the day the FRTIB is hit with the transaction fees that come out of the TSP overall fund. Their thinking is that if a handful of us make more than 2 IFT's a month that the whole group suffers, so why penalize those that don't make IFT's any more than they have to or at all. At one time we had the option of making an IFT once a day. But that's another story. We have come a long way in making our IFT's compared to the way it was when the TSP first started up. But again that is another story.

Dinicti, good luck and keep asking questions.

Ok, now I'm dying to know. Go slow and I'll try to keeip up. What is the >1% option?

Originally Posted by nasa1974

We could talk about the >1% option but I don't want to confuse you. It does seem a bit strange but the G fund is considered the safety net so you can move shares to the G fund as many times as you like. The restriction is moving between the real money funds F, C, S & I more than twice. Just remember if one of your first 2 IFT's for the month is to the G fund it counts against your 2 IFT's. After that the only move you can make is to the G fund.
The biggest excuse we are given from the FRTIB is that the two IFT's a month saves us money. Everytime you make a transaction it costs a few bucks to do so. These transaction costs effect everyone in the TSP not the individual making the change. So at the end of the day the FRTIB is hit with the transaction fees that come out of the TSP overall fund. Their thinking is that if a handful of us make more than 2 IFT's a month that the whole group suffers, so why penalize those that don't make IFT's any more than they have to or at all. At one time we had the option of making an IFT once a day. But that's another story. We have come a long way in making our IFT's compared to the way it was when the TSP first started up. But again that is another story.

Dinicti, good luck and keep asking questions.

As I understand it you can still make IFTs after your 2 IFT limit as long as you don't go over 1%. I think that is a consequence of our L Funds that rebalance everyday. The idea is you can rebalance your funds as well. For example say you move to 50:50 G & C. Then pretend after day 1 you made some in the C Fund so your balance is now 49.9% G : 50.1% C. You are suppose to be able to rebalance you funds so they are back to 50:50 or 49:51. Some people on here have used this to slowly increase exposure everyday. Personally I think it's too much trouble for too little gain and have never tried it.

This is how the TSP worded it in their April 2008 memo:

Q2. What are the new limits on interfund transfers?
For each calendar month, the first two IFTs can redistribute a participant’s account
among any or all of the TSP funds. After that, for the remainder of the month,
participants may only move money into the Government Securities Investment (G)
Fund (in which case the participant will increase the percentage of the account held in
the G Fund by reducing the percentage held in one or more of the other TSP funds).
We will count the interfund transfer based on its process date, not the date the interfund
transfer is requested.
If the first or second interfund transfer in a month moves money only to the G
Fund, it still counts toward the two (2) unrestricted interfund transfers per month
limit.

Good brief explanation about <1% IFT Cactus! I agree it is usually not worth the trouble. However I've used it occasionally... If you have a fairly large nest-egg in TSP (where a fraction of a % means more) and you used your 2nd IFT early in the month, and the market is going UPPPPP (& even better, if you have some peanut-butter spread of your TSP across a few funds), then doing <1% IFTs a few times, increasing your market exposure a few % each time, that can amount to a DCA into the up-swing of up to 10% or even 20% by month's end... perhaps worth a few bucks gain overall.

Dear Cactus, that is great information. I may never use it, but just learning about these quirky possibilites is interesting. None of this is listed in the TSP website, and I would be ignorant without this forum. Once again thanks.