TSP Talk Blog

Stocks continued their winning ways on Monday with some slight to modest gains, depending where you looked. The Dow gained a solid 96-points, or 0.34%, while the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 each gained 2+ points, or about 0.1%. The Nasdaq added 0.23% making it nine straight positive closes there. Both the dollar and bonds were down.

Daily TSP Funds Return More returns

The action was slow and typical for a holiday week, so after a rally leading up to the holidays, the market didn't relent despite investors having many reasons to take profits this late in a good year for stocks.

Today is the one year anniversary of the worst Christmas Eve ever for stocks (-2.8%). Somehow I think that record is safe this year. There are still 5 trading days left in the year and we'll see a jockeying for position leading up to 2020 as some money managers look to pack their portfolios with winners for their annual reports, and others take profits to lock in the 2019 gains.

I'll cut this short today and take this time to wish all of our readers a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays this year, and if you're done for the year with the stock market, a Happy New Year! I'll be here for the rest of the year with some brief commentaries, assuming the market action remains uneventful.

In the meantime, the 2019 Guess the Dow Contest is getting close to wrapping up, and we'll start a 2020 version in the Forum after the holidays.

From www.tsp.gov: Some financial markets will be closed on Wednesday, December 25 in observance of the Christmas Day holiday. The Thrift Savings Plan will also be closed. Transactions that would have been processed Wednesday night (December 25) will be processed Thursday night (December 26), at Thursday's closing share prices.

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The S&P 500 (C-fund) ticked up again, and at this point every positive close is a new record. Trading volume dried up as we might expect during this week, after the big volume spike on expiration Friday. At this point most investors are likely positioned where they want to be and normal pension inflows could keep the positive bias rolling. That is unless something happens to shake things up which, in a light trading environment, could spike volatility.




The DWCPF (S-fund) was up slightly in typical holiday action yesterday. The short-term trading channel is quite narrow and may be short-lived as it looks unsustainable. That doesn't mean it can't break to the upside. I'm just saying the channel is too narrow to hold much longer.




The EFA / I-fund was up slightly and may have needed a negative reversal in the dollar to hold up.




The dollar rallied hard to start the day on Monday, filled that small open gap (blue), then got slammed back down to close in negative territory. Interesting action. The open gaps are now all on the downside.




The AGG (F-fund / bonds) continues to dance above its 50-day EMA, while the flag / wedge-like formation continues to grow.




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Thanks for reading. Merry Christmas!

Tom Crowley


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