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Thread: Question about IFTs, balances, calculations, and even premium services

  1. #1

    Default Question about IFTs, balances, calculations, and even premium services

    When I first started federal service (about 3.5 years ago), I moved to accept the job. As a result, a lot of my paperwork (account numbers/initial passwords) were sent to the old address.

    This put a few of my contributions into the G fund (or maybe it was the match?) before I was able to switch account allocations to other funds. What you see here is my rough allocations since:
    6/11 - 12/11 C/S/I @ 30/10/60
    1/12 - 12/14 C/S/I @ 20/40/40

    I did this because historically, I had good luck in I. Seems that at the time, I was buying cheap, which helped a lot.
    Looking at it lately, as of the end of the month 12/14, I switched the allocation to 40/40/20.

    I still have a small amount in G (almost 25 shares, so not much). My current allocation balances are:
    G - 0.83%
    C - 23.98%
    S - 36.43%
    I - 38.76%

    Is it possible for me to transfer that 0.83% from G into one or more of the other 3 w/o transferring out of the other 3?
    e.g. can I make G - 0% and just increase one of the others by that 0.83%?

    In June/July, the I fund was trading at $26-27/share and it's now down to ~$24.2183 (12/31/14).

    If I transfer that G percentage into I now, and ride it back up to $26-27, which I think it will eventually do, it might earn me a little more. (probably only about $40-50, so is that really worth the effort? - and that's assuming it won't earn more in G sitting there until I reaches the 26-27/share.)

    Same question applies to all the funds, though, really. Can I transfer a percentage out of one fund and into another fund (say 25% out of S and into C, for an example) without affecting the balances of the others, or does it cash everything out and places it all back into the respective funds that you allocate percentages at (and if you didn't change one, just puts the same % back into it?)

    For what it's worth, I just turned 43 (late start in federal civilian service, but I did buy back a little over 3 years military time). I'm planning on retiring at either 60, or 62, so I have 17-19 years left to go. My annual returns with the "not touched returns" were:
    2011 - not enough data
    2012 - 15.95%
    2013 - 28.46%
    2014 - not available yet, but quarter earnings were:

    2014 Q1 - 20.73%
    2014 Q2 - 23.69%
    2014 Q3 - 8.48%

    I think the Q4 was 7.96%, but the numbers haven't posted yet for me. I subtracted the Q3 ending balance from the 12/31/14 ending balance, and divided by Q3 ending balance to get .079584. I also took those 4 numbers, converted to decimal, subtracted by 1, and divided by 4 (because I have 4 quarters?) to get 18.72% as a cumulative rate of return. If I just average them, I get 15.22% which is still a good annual return. My listing on TSPtalk shows 3.25%. I didn't make any IFTs in 2014, so I'm not sure why it shows that much difference from what my returns show?

    However, I'm curious to a couple more things on the site. Essentially, since I started putting $ into the TSP, I've been a "stick it in there and forget about it" type of guy, but at the percentages above (30/10/60 or 20/40/40). Since I recently changed to 40/40/20, I don't think I've made a contribution allocation at those percentages yet. Looking at the folks at the top, well - I can't now. After they moved to the final rankings, it won't show me their previous year (2013). But earlier, I saw one of the top 5 had percentages > 20% for the last two years. That's outstanding which leads to the other questions.

    Is this essentially what IFTs are used for:
    1. track supposed patterns in prices, world news, financial market, alignment of the stars & planets.
    2. When you have $ in CSI and think they are going to drop (by how much? or how long?), you transfer all the $ from CSI into G (thus avoiding losing the $ when it drops)
    3. When you think the drop(s) are over, you transfer the $ back into whatever CSI allocation you want to ride it back up (by buying more shares at the lower price and watching them climb back up).

    Repeat steps 1-3 throughout the year, possibly making 1-4 IFTs per year (2 for sure, potentially up to 2 more back into G at any time?) to get timing right and maximize the # of shares purchased of CSI throughout the year?

    Now, for premium services - do they monitor/track/provide best times to make these IFTS for #2 and #3 based on their analysis? Because, rest be assured, my analysis couldn't/shouldn't be used for such a thing. I did click on a couple of the sample premium reports, but that still looks like a whole lot of data I don't currently have time to try & understand. Is there a simple "you should probably switch to G by Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, or Fri' and 'now is a good time to cash out G into CSI because things are about to climb again..." strategy included in the premium services (knowing, of course, nothing/nobody would be held accountable except me for my $)?

    I changed my future contributions in TSP to 40/40/20 - do I need to make that change also on tsptalk so it reflects my current new allocation, even though my current distribution of funds doesn't match it?

    Finally, I apologize. I know that this post, like all the others is massive and contains a lot of questions/data.


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  3. #2

    Default Re: Question about IFTs, balances, calculations, and even premium services

    An additional question: If I look at an annual statement from TSP, it shows beginning balance, contributions/additions, withdrawals/deductions, interfund transfers, investment gain/loss, and ending balance. It also shows "Your 1-Year Rate of Return". How do I use the figures that are provided in the statement to get the 1-Year RoR that the statement shows? I wanted to use this to calculate my 2014 value, but my #s don't add up for the 2013 correctly to the percentage it shows.

    I was doing: (final balance - contributions/additions - minus withdrawals/deductions) / starting balance * 100.
    However that shows a higher 1-Yr. RoR (about 8% higher), so that is obviously incorrect.

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