TSP Board Acting Chairman hates buying low selling high.

[Show-me]

Did I read this right? Typo or acting idiot in charge?

http://www.frtib.gov/pdf/minutes/2011Feb.pdf

Ms. Ray reported that participants transferred $1.7 billion from equity funds to the G and F Funds during the last three days of February. Mr. Sanchez remarked that participants do themselves a disfavor by buying low and selling high.

[James48843]

I do believe sir, that you have that exactly accurate, as reflected in the minutes. The minutes do indeed state he said that we shareholders do ourselves a dis-service when we buy low and sell high. You wouldn't know it, but Mr. Sanchez is a professional banker by trade.


And I will also note the interest rate the G fund is paying-

Ms. Ray reported that the G Fund rate remains at 2.88 percent.
The 30-year T-bond is yielding 4.51 percent and the 10-year note is yielding 3.40 percent

Several years ago, the present board discussed at a meeting, the fact that most of the G fund balance was in long term treasury notes- 30 year bonds, and earning much higher rates back then. The discussion at the time was - why is it in 30 year notes, when much of the G fund will be paid out to the current holders before 30 years is up. Ms. Ray's recommendation, as I recall, is to change to short term notes of 3-5 years. She also worried that if all the G fund holder switched OUT of the G fund, they would have to sell a lot of 30 year notes and lower rates. So she recommended shorting the term on all the G fund notes.

So they did.

And as a result, instead of getting 4+ percent interest in the G fund, now G funders are only getting 2.88 percent return.

That folks, is a crime.

My two cents.

[Lostdawg]

Ship of fools started playing in my head as I read those minutes.

A bit of searching and I realized you can't even contact these people.
I did read that Mr. Sanchez (Acting Chairman) resides in Florida. Wonder where the money for his commute comes from? If you answer us, your probably right. One way or another. But to me, none of his contributions in the minutes seem worth the price of a plane ticket. He seemed like a 2 bit actor in a bad comedy. Except that it's real.

Then we have Ms. Wilder, Director, Research and Strategic Planning, who attributes the mailing out of pamphlets as the factor that convinced 30k people to enroll in January. Really? You honestly believe that? So I have a question. Are you actually extremely smart and it's just that the SPAM was your idea and well, er, a bunch of money was spent on it, so you had to have a positive result. Fade in ...Crazy on a ship of fools... If it was such a great pamphlet why did only 30,000 out of 396,000 follow it? Enter Mr. Long to pop your bubble and explain that it probably wasn't the pamphlet. He gets some kudos for that, but if he approved the funding for this then take the kudos away and smack him in the back of the head. They mailed out 396,000 pamphlets, based on the wording in the minutes! Pretty sure an electronic SPAM would have been cheaper and netted the same results.

The G fund thing just smells bad.

Nothing like a floundering ship.

Now time to go to work. At least I earn my frozen paycheck, FRTIB!

[nasa1974]

Prior to joining TSPTalk I was pretty clueless about my TSP and those that manage it. But just after joining I started to follow the FRTIB process. I came to a conclusion very early that their best interest was not in the members of the TSP, but how many members they could get on board and how to protect the company that did the investing. They have no interest to give us the tools we need to earn as much money as possible for our retirement. If they could force all of us into the G fund I think they would be very happy. Just my opinion.

[Frixxxx]

Another letter to my representative to remove this guy....ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

It's my money and I control it with my wishes. Not his!

I am contacting the FRTIB today....will post later.

Thanks Show-me...

[peterson82]

I didn't read the minutes, but seems like it could just be an error. Buying high and selling low would make sense as being a dis-service.

[FundSurfer]

I still read the minutes monthly. It raises my blood pressure. The board is extreamly conservative and thinks you should be very conservative with your retirement money as well. So much so that they have taken steps to limit your ability to take risk.

I still get steamed over the move to limit our number of trades and that ending up costing us higher fees instead of lowering fees by reducing "excessive trading".

I'm also PO'd that the board monitors this website. It is one of the reasons I vanished for a while. You might think that I'm paranoid, but I can give concrete examples of the board taking steps to curtail methods developed by folks on this board. Ask some tsptalk old timers about the G-fund penny.

Enough rant. I need to think about my blue heaven for a while to lower my blood pressure.

[FUTURESTRADER]

take out your max loan amount and sell way out of the money emini s&p puts:-)

[FAB1]

I'm also PO'd that the board monitors this website. It is one of the reasons I vanished for a while. You might think that I'm paranoid, but I can give concrete examples of the board taking steps to curtail methods developed by folks on this board. Ask some tsptalk old timers about the G-fund penny.

Enough rant. I need to think about my blue heaven for a while to lower my blood pressure.

I hope they read this: Fire Ray and Sanchez.

Paying these imcompetants is a waste of our money. I too will write my Congresscritter - put the pressure on them.

[tsptalk]

I came to a conclusion very early that their best interest was not in the members of the TSP, but how many members they could get on board and how to protect the company that did the investing. They have no interest to give us the tools we need to earn as much money as possible for our retirement. If they could force all of us into the G fund I think they would be very happy. Just my opinion.

You're right. They really put a lot of effort into the participation rates in their reports.

I see that the administrative costs are up compared to 2007 (when they were blaming our IFT's for increasing costs)



....but I don't see the costs of running the funds (transaction fees). Can anyone find that in the minutes?
.

[Wrngway]

Could administrative costs be going up due to increased participation?

[Steel_Magnolia]

Could administrative costs be going up due to increased participation?

I hope not. There should be additional economys of scale that would make administrative costs get smaller per share with each additional shareholder. If that's not happening then they're doing it way wrong!