Allocating TSP investments in portfolio evaluators

[tpsomer]

I'm using Morningstar's free, online portfolio evaluator to figure out where my next IRA investment should go. How should I account for my TSP investments in C, S and I? Morningstar doesn't recognize them, of course.

My first idea was to use the Barclays funds which the TSP funds are invested in (taking my balance and converting it into the equivalent number of shares in the Barclays fund), but info on them is hard to find since they aren't open to the public. I found a symbol for only one of them, and it used a character (according to Yahoo Finance) that Morningstar wouldn't accept.

My next idea was to use a similar index for each fund, but I'm hesitant because, for instance, C may be almost identical to the Vanguard S&P 500 Index, but that "almost" bothers me. Yes, I'm anal about this sort of thing!

Any suggestions?

[Spaf]

Hi tpsomer!

You will probably hear from Tom (tsptalk) shortly.

I would suggest exploring the site Tom made.

a. click home, then allocations for suggested long term allocations, and read about the current market.

b. click home, then click on TSP fund index quotes for corresponding funds mirroring the TSP.

[tsptalk]

Spaf wrote:
b. click home, then click on TSP fund index quotes for corresponding funds mirroring the TSP.

Welcome tpsomer. As Spaf said, I use these quotes ... "finance.yahoo.com/q?s=^gspc+^dwcp+efa+agg&d=t"

Cut & paste may be your best bet as I can never get these Yahoo links to work on this message baord.

It works for me but I'm not too "anal". Obsessive cumpulsive yes. Anal, no. :D

Thanks for joining us.
Tom

[tpsomer]

tsptalk wrote:
As Spaf said, I use these quotes ... "finance.yahoo.com/q?s=^gspc+^dwcp+efa+agg&d=t"

Cut & paste may be your best bet as I can never get these Yahoo links to work on this message baord.
Cut and paste did work -- thanks. Only problem is that my online evaluator will only recognize the symbol for the Ishares fund because the others use '^' which the evaluator won't accept. Silly, isn't it? So I've bitten the bullet and I'm using Vanguard's 500 Index for C and Vanguard's Extended Market Index for S (both recommended by a columnist I found online).

It's not like a few cents here and there will affect the big-picture view I need to decide on allocation. One more step in getting past my financial analness! (Is that a word?) :)

Thanks for the help!

[tsptalk]

tpsomer wrote:
One more step in getting past my financial analness! (Is that a word?) :)

It is now. :D