Market Talk

[learning]

We needed a new week started. I suspect that SPAF is going to be a little busy. As others are going to be busy this week. Long Weekend and vacation for many. This is to include the market. I am Bullish for the rest of the year over all. A hit today may be good that means that I can increase my allotment in the stocks today and perhaps catch the rebound. I'm learning and don't follow me I just give some ideas and ask questions. Thats how you learn.

Good luck to all and Happy Thanksgiving. Thanks to all the people in the past and present that have made our country what it is today.:^

[tsptalk]

The Pullback took the early rounds this morning but the constant jabs by Thanksgiving week'sseasonality strengthare starting to wear down The Pullback. A nice reversal so far today.

Namor's has his horse racing analogy. I thought I'd throw in some boxing. :)

[namor]

tsptalk wrote:
Namor's has his horse racing analogy. I thought I'd throw in some boxing. :)
Actually, boxing with the wiggles was my original metaphor for battling the five funds. I will return to that analogy (plus maybe some craps and blackjack)after next week's stakes races are completed.

Thank you for your comments.

[coolhand]

Sure didn't look so good starting out this morning, but it turned around nicely.

Tom, have you discerned a support level yet or does it take more time? Things seem modestly bullish still.

My thought is that the main driver at the moment is oil. If it drops back down again, I would expectthe market to move up some more. Otherwise, the market mayget tempermental.

[tsptalk]

No real answer on the support yet even though the index was up nicely. Since the S&P 500 made a lower low and a lower high, we are still technicallyin a downtrend. The low was just under 1168 Monday so we haven't hit any of the support levels I talked about yet (1163, 1150 1140). I started to look for technical reasons why 1168 would act as support and I was able to find one weak trendline (in purple) that may be the answer. If that holds, wouldn't itbe a nice surprise?! :) If the pullback insists on continuing, it may justfloat in between that purple line and the 1185 area through the end of this week, thencome down. That's "If" the pullback needs more time.

http://www.tsptalk.com/images/sp500_112104.gif
Chart provided courtesy of http://www.decisionpoint.com (http://www.decisionpoint.com)

[vectorman]

Hi Tom,Help me to try to understand something I'm notice. I observe some members moving about from one fund to another without really riding on one for too long. Many times between movements they place in G fund. Now if one is stuck in the G fund on a good day for stocks ( I know you always recommend 50/50) and misses out, especially in an up trend. When they choose to re-enter the market they'll be paying a higher price per-share those reducing the share court which would bring in less money. Now I see this done regularly. You told me the name of the game is to make money, but now the member is paying more to play bypaying more per share and getting slightly less back because of less shares. Or is that less important as long as some money is made. I missed out on the last back to back ralley, so I went ahead and re-entered the stock funds. It cost me about 200 shares which turned out to be a big deal after seeing what little gains I received today after a nice ralley in the market. How do I get some shares back?At what point does the other member try to increase shares. Also,on election day, you were 50/50. So you missed out of half the ralley increase. When you re-enter 100% the next day,50% had to pay more per share.How do you try to make up for that lost opportunity down the road?Thanks

[Show-me]

Hey v-man,

Spell check is not working so I'm not going back to check. Sorry.

Most of us are not pro's at market timing. Some times I/we move to the G to find safe haven when we "think" the market is going to correct itself or react to bad news or economic reports. Some times I/we go partal in G if odds are not so favorable. Some times go G fullyif I am "chicken" or unsure of my thought process. Your right if you want to make money you have to be invested in stocks when there going up. Wish I could go back in time and change some of my decisions but you take the good with the bad and learn from the bad. If the markets going up and you are sitting in the G and never pull the trigger on getting back in the stock funds thats bad. Buying a stock higher is OK if the stock keeps going up. If you stay in the stock fund and the market is going down that's worse. It's a personal decision base on how much risk and "Pepto" you can take. In the last 2 months I am learning about the technical aspect of the market and am finding it is very time consuming and you must watch everything that go's on. One thing you can't antisipate is when things like what Greenspan did on Friday. I got LUCKY! I had decided to get back into stock anyway to catch the Thanksgiving bump and Greenspan shot off his mouth and sent the market south. Like Tom said we were due a correction but we may not have had one until after Thanksgiving. I think Greenspan gave the market the push it need to reevaluate things.

It's not about shares it's percet of return you are after. I never look at how many shares I have just what my gain/loss is. I hope for gain. Someone else might have more experianced inputs. Good luck.

[Mike]

Timing enables you to lock in gains. Buy-and-hold simply puts your entire stash on the hook at all times. This is good for the time being, since we have entered a bull market. However, when things turn downward, it can take many years to earn back your losses. People who were fully invested in 2000-02 and ate those losses are just now getting back to even. A timer would have bought and sold on the smaller movements within the bear market, rather than having everything in the market the entire time. S/he may still have lost money, but it probably wouldn't have been nearly as much as a holder (see Tom's returns for that period for evidence of this).

I was in buy-and-hold mode this summer and paid dearly for it as the market cycled downward from July on. I then changed tactics in September and made money. So I guess the lesson here is to adapt.

[tsptalk]

Show-me wrote:
It's not about shares it's percet of return you are after. I never look at how many shares I have just what my gain/loss is. I hope for gain.
Exactly!

For example, if you bought 100 shares of stock at $45 a share for a total of $4500, and it goes to $48 a share before you sell ($4800), you made $300 ($4800 - $4500). The stock looks good and continues up to$50 a share so you decide to buy it back but you can only afford 96 shares now ($4800/50 = 96). The stock then goes to $60 by years end.

You now have 96 shares at $60 a share = $5760. A gain of $1260 or 28%. But you lost 4 shares.

Get the picture? If you waited to get those 4 shares back you'd still be sitting with your $4800. If things look good , get in when you can. Who cares about how many shares you have? It's about making gains with the moneyyou have. That's where the market is today, waiting to pick upshares could cost you.

But when I get out of stocks and get into the G fund whenI think we are due for a pullback, it is because I am trying to avoid losses. If the market does pullback and I get back in stocks, I will have picked up shares, but I look atas avoiding a loss rather than gaining shares. Think percentage gains and losses and forget about the shares you have. It's all about the return on your account balance.

Hope that helps.
Tom

[vectorman]

Tom , I need some help.I looked at my account balance for today and it shows 7185.6645 shares missing. That caused a big difference in what I received today after a great ralley compared to before. Has this ever happen before to any member?I traced it back to 11/4 req. transfer from S fund to 50 g, 20 c and 30 s for 11/5. Should not have been a problem. That's quite abit of shares to loose for one transfer. What do you think? I'll give TSP a call tomorrow. Maybe other members should check out there share count. My bad,it took me a week to notice it. I guess that's what got me asking about shares.Thanks Tom & Show me

[puertorico]

Common sense tell me that ...


I'll prefer to have more money than share
not more share and less money :^

But now by the other way here is may question...?

If u have more share then if the market go up u will gain more
than the other who has less share ? :?

Now a get confuse here :D

I just want to be shure ,what will be best ?[share or money]

" Look like money to me ":?

[puertorico]

what I figure out is...

In short term you will have more money but
in long term the one who has more share will CATH-UP or
be even wich the one who has more money ...:shock:,"If the market go up".

I Need more opinion,

This is importan stuff to know...:^

[vectorman]

puertorico wrote:



I'll prefer to have more money than share
not more share and less money :^

I too enjoy more money too, but for example, today I noticed my return after a good ralleywas quite a bit low compared to what I normally would have received. That's how I discovered a loss of 7185.6645 shares. I agree with Tom on percentages. While I don't go looking for extra shares, I gurantee you would noticed the difference if you were missingseveral thousand shares.:?

[Rod]

Why was the I Fund down yesterday while the EAFE was up .29%???

[puertorico]

euro vs dollar :D

[vectorman]

Hey Rod, I don't know. But after the C and S fund performed well today, I noticed in the past the I fund usually does pretty good the following day. We'll see.

[puertorico]

Vector I expect I fund tomorrow to go to the sky :^

[vectorman]

Hope so. I should get 25% worth.:^

[Rod]

I just found this in the I Fund forum below:

From the TSP website:

Why doesn't the change in the I Fund share price always correspond to the EAFE Index which it tracks?

Participants have asked why, on some days, the change in the I Fund share price reported by the TSP does not match the change reported for the Morgan Stanley EAFE (Europe, Australasia, Far East) index, which the I Fund tracks. This happens when the Board's investment manager, Barclays Global Investors (BGI) reprices its EAFE Equity Index Fund, in which the TSP invests, after the close of the foreign markets. This process, known as "fair valuation," occurs when there are large U.S. market or currency movements between the time the foreign markets close and 4:00 p.m., eastern time, when BGI's share prices are determined. Fair valuation ensures that traders cannot "market time" the I Fund by making investment decisions based on the "stale" prices, thus diluting the returns of other participants who invest in the I Fund. Because the EAFE uses the foreign market closing prices to calculate its values, its price change will differ from the TSP's on those days.
________________________________________

I guess that explains it.

[puertorico]

I'm 100% I Fund tuesday 23 :shock::D

[Rod]

puertorico wrote:
I'm 100% I Fund tuesday 23 :shock::D
You GO. BOY!!!:l

[vectorman]

Good show . Had I arrived home before 12est I planned on doing the same thing. Good luck tomorrow :^

[Rod]

Check'em out... we're look'n GREEN!:D

http://money.cnn.com/markets/world_markets/

God Bless:^

[Rod]

vectorman wrote:
Good show . Had I arrived home before 12est I planned on doing the same thing. Good luck tomorrow :^
Tomorrow??? I'm already in tomorrow!:D

[vectorman]

Boy, how time flys.

[Rod]

vectorman wrote:
Boy, how time flys.
:l

[vectorman]

Rod, did you see the question I had for Tom. Look up. At 2:55am post. Have you ever had alot of shares missing from your account?:X

[puertorico]

I'm happy everybody is in the bus this time :shock::D:l

[Rod]

vectorman wrote:
Rod, did you see the question I had for Tom. Look up. At 2:55am post. Have you ever had alot of shares missing from your account?:X





Yeah, but Tom's right. Unless you are a buy-n-holder don't worry about how many shares you have or don't have.

Concentrate on how much $$$ you gain or lose each day. This is what I do each trading day- I go to the TSP site and print out my account balance. I then figure out how much I either gained or lost from the previous day.

I keep a running tally on each daily printout of how much I am either up or down for the month.

It's really a simple method- right below the total balance, I place either a (+) or a (-) followed by the amount I either gained or lost from the previous day.

I then add that amount to my "running tally" I have on the bottom of the page.

My running tally only reflects my gains. So if I incur a loss that day, I simply subtract it from my running tally. To sum up, you have-

1. Total Balance of your account reflecting any gains & losses w/ (+) or (-) then the amount.

2. Running Tally of your gains

This is simplistic and works for me.

God Bless:^

[swsop]

Rod I too print out my tsp account balance every day, but never thought about puttting either a (+) or a (-) followed by the amount I either gained or lost from the previous day. Very good advice.

Thank you
swsop

[Rod]

swsop wrote:
Rod I too print out my tsp account balance every day, but never thought about puttting either a (+) or a (-) followed by the amount I either gained or lost from the previous day. Very good advice.

Thank you
swsop

Yeah... since I'm a pretty simplistic kind of guy, it works out great for me.

Then like I said, I keep a running tally on the bottom- say, for the entire month so far.

I'll then start off with a new tally on the 1st.

[Dakota]

Rod wrote:
swsop wrote:
Rod I too print out my tsp account balance every day, but never thought about puttting either a (+) or a (-) followed by the amount I either gained or lost from the previous day. Very good advice.

Thank you
swsop

Yeah... since I'm a pretty simplistic kind of guy, it works out great for me.

Then like I said, I keep a running tally on the bottom- say, for the entire month so far.

I'll then start off with a new tally on the 1st.

I'm with you

[vectorman]

Tom, I just what to say thanks again for all the time you put into this site.The experience, comments, links, financial suggestions and decussions have really beenhelpful. Thanks for expaining your moves. Thanks for taking the time to answer the many questions I recently asked you. I doing much better now with my TSP acct. than before.:D

[tsptalk]

Great to hear the feedback v-man. I appreciate it, and you are very welcome!

[Rod]

At this point in time, the premarket indexes for Fridayareshaping up to berather healthy, especially that NAZ!

DJIA: +4 (.04%)

NAZ: +10 (.63%)

S&P: +4.1 (.35%)

God Bless:^

[smine]

The international markets are open today and doing well. That really surprised me yesterday.

[Rod]

smine wrote:
The international markets are open today and doing well. That really surprised me yesterday.
Yeah... I'm stillin I @ 30%, so I'll be enjoying those gains today.:^

[Mike]

I might sell some Friday... not sure yet. The C-fund has irritated me. Maybe it won't break out 'til after another rate hike. Hmmm.

[coolhand]

The "C" fund has been a little disappoiniting lately. I put in a transfer for this morning to 50/20/30 GSI. Future market's up a little. I want to see just how well retail does this weekend (biggest shopping time of the year). Oil up again :(too.