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Thread: ssdave's Account Talk

  1. #1

    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    Black Hills, SD
    Posts
    84

    Default ssdave's Account Talk

    New to the forum, been lurking about a month. I'm a recovering hold and hope TSP'er, I held through the last years meltdown, and held up until Sept 23, when I decided to take control of my own destiny, for better or worse. I did my first IFT that day, by luck picked a high and managed to make 5% by rebuying back into CSI at the next low, and going to G on one of the Monday peaks last month. Rebought again on Black Friday, and transferred back into the F yesterday, again locking in gains from the current peak.

    I've spent the last two months learning how to do fund transfers, watching the markets, tracking the funds. I've learned a lot by reading here, some fits my philosophy, some doesn't.

    My strategy is ultimately simple, and of course, totally unworkable: Buy low and sell high. My real goal is to use IFT's to reduce risk by not sitting through another pronounced meltdown or bubble burst again. I don't expect to outperform Hold and Hopers in a Bull Market, but will be able to limit my losses in a meltdown, if one occurs.

    Thanks for the opportunity to learn here!

    dave


  2.  
  3. #2

    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Europe
    Posts
    8,430
    Blog Entries
    297

    Default Re: ssdave's Account Talk

    Welcome, good to have you here
    Retired, 55G/15C/15S/15I (Paper Trading)_ BLOG: Stats for March, Stats for Q1, 2024 Stats

  4.  
  5. #3

    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    West of Atlanta
    Posts
    2,580

    Default Re: ssdave's Account Talk

    Welcome Dave!

  6.  
  7. #4

    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    Cleveland, Ohio
    Posts
    12,148

    Default Re: ssdave's Account Talk

    Welcome aboard. Your heading in the right direction. Lots of great information on this MB.
    May the force be with us.

  8.  
  9. #5

    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Missouri
    Posts
    8,619

    Default Re: ssdave's Account Talk

    Glad to have ya around, welcome.
    Socrates: "Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequaled alike."

  10.  
  11. #6

    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Location
    Petersburg, Alaska
    Posts
    471

    Default Re: ssdave's Account Talk

    Newbies of the mmb unite. Been lurking myself and have made/saved a load soaking in the mmb info. Wanted to do premium service but how do you top service of Steady, Uptrend, PermaBull (BT), Coolhand, JTH (chartmeister), FedG, PoolM...

    Plus, the freakin' humor is unreal. Its a Steady dose, with some Bull manure, and Sugar and Spice thrown in. Whoever said "more investing and less Philing" had me off my chair...

    Honestly think all i need to do is check what Cool/UPTr/JTH are up to and i'm only spending a few minutes a week and it feels like a premium service...

    Appreciate everyone's input, it surely beats buy and hold even if the numbers aren't always positive.

    E

  12.  
  13. #7

    Default Re: ssdave's Account Talk

    Hi Dave. Your goals are good ones and quite realistic. It will be tough to beat the buy and holder in a bull market, but during downdrafts it can be very rewarding to be sitting on the sidelines.

    Good luck!
    Tom
    Market Commentary | My Blog | TSP Talk Plus | |

    I am not a Registered Investment Advisor and this is not investment advice. Please do your own due diligence.

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  15. #8

    Default Re: ssdave's Account Talk

    Welcome to the board ssdave -

    Yes you lock in gains, but what will you pay for shares the next time
    you decide to risk the markets? In a real bull market less likely the dips
    will be lower than when you sold-out last. Just food for thought no pressure.

    There are 58 people in the Tracker now with 100% G, another 30 that
    have up to half in the G. The rest of us are making some money this week.

    Tom, if downdraft means what happened last fall I AGREE- there is a time to get out
    to preserve your profits. But having tryed BHSL during brief dips or surges it was more trouble
    than what it was worth.

    Ssdave pay attention to the Leader board youll see whos making the highest % and what
    they did do get there, Have fun!

  16.  
  17. #9

    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    Boiled Peanut, Georgia, USA
    Posts
    76,389

    Default Re: ssdave's Account Talk

    Welcome to the Board ssdave and shitepoke best of luck with your investments.
    Norman




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  19. #10

    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    Black Hills, SD
    Posts
    84

    Default Re: ssdave's Account Talk

    Thanks for the welcome and advice, all.

    Fab1, I'm quite aware of being so nervous that you crop the top off all the gains, and buy back in at the middle to top of the next rise trying to wait for the lows that never go as low as you'd like. I made enough on the silver market back in the 70's to pay a big chunk of my college costs by swing trading the metal, and learned how hard it is to outguess what will happen when people start acting in herd mentality and the market reacts contrary to what events say it should. I was lucky enough to sell my $3.80 silver for $28 in the Hunt brothers run, though. Perfect timing would have brought me $35, or a few days later almost nothing. The following drop and revelations of market manipulation opened my eyes to the risks of wanting the market to go up so bad that you don't recognize that it can go down. It kept me out of the metals market for 5 to 10 years, then I went into it again. Finally sold out again on a swing, and bought, developed, and sold speculative real estate for a while before the 2000 economic bubble burst.

    Then, went to work for the Government as a semi-retirement job, and now playing at swing trading my TSP. After 8 years at maximum input, it's finally big enough to make the swing trade returns interesting.

    This has been a good year to buy and hold, if you didn't buy and hold through the fall that preceded it. I've always been a buy and holder. And, my YTD return would put me in the top 50 on the tracker this year, just by virtue of buying and holding through the ramp up and a couple of swing trades as the market flattened in the last two months. But add in last fall, and I'm lucky to have more in my account than I had a year ago.

    Being cautious, and trying to remember the lessons of greed I've painfully learned, I'm willing to give up a small bit of return, if it happens, for the security of knowing i'm limiting my losses if the floor falls out again.

    If only I had a perfect futuretelling crystal ball.....

    dave

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  21. #11

    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    Black Hills, SD
    Posts
    84

    Default Re: ssdave's Account Talk

    The last few days (weeks?) markets and news have got me convinced the market really wants to go down, but is being propped up by a number of factors. The only thing that shows an end to the recession is the stock market gains, which have been astronomical since last spring. Consumer spending for Christmas is cautious, jobs being created are all temp sales jobs, individual savings rate is still going up, GNP is flat or down indicating no growth in industry. Dollar value and stocks trading inversely to each other, with almost 100 percent correlation. Foreclosures continuing, and highly inflated real estate markets still dropping as banks trickle foreclosures out onto the market slowly to avoid more panic. Combine that with every investor with their finger on the sell button, wanting to avoid a double dip, and "substantial corrrection" in the back of the mind and we've got a very volatile setup.

    The government and media has got everybody convinced that the recession is measured by the stock market numbers. Every time the market tries to go down, government steps in with a well timed announcement about stimulus, TARP, holding interest rates, etc. Combine that with an end of year when institutions and fund managers want the market to hold steady so their yearly bottom line looks good, a year when smart operators made huge gains that they don't want to pay taxes on, and a bias for holiday gain in the market, and you end up with volatility but trading sideways without any real gains.

    The question is how will it all break out when the year closes? My thoughts are: Will nervous investors sell once taxes on their gains is deferred for another 12 months? Institutions and fund managers go back to sound basics and back away from perceived risk once they have a new accounting year to average out their corrections? Individual investors looking at their retirement funds decide to take their money and run, locking in their gains for this year to avoid the risk of a double dip eroding those hard fought gains? Beginning of year retirement rebalancing selling off stocks that have appreciated, and filling out bonds and cash assets that have had lower gains?

    I'm in the F and holding, until I see a sustained positive gain in both stocks and the dollar together, or a market correction substantial enough to make stocks a bargain. I see a lot of close to retirement investors that have been gambling in stocks this summer when they seemed like a sure thing, retreating to the relative safety of bonds at any hint of a market drop. That demand for bonds should add another half percent of gain to the stock drop when I decide to go all in again.

    dave

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  23. #12

    Default Re: ssdave's Account Talk

    Welcome to the TSPCircus,
    Follow the leaderboard, http://www.tsptalk.com/tracker/tsp_user_balance_all.php
    Follow and read through the threads and you can do much better than solo.
    You only have 2 IFT's, be careful and use them wisely!!!

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