I had a few things said to me this week that I thought were interesting. When are we going to break out and get out of this grind? Once you make that mile stone, then what? I also made a few observation intentionally last week. No one said anything about the oil thing, so I’m ending any post on that trade and setup. I didn’t make a TSP chart post last week and I actually had one person ask why? That made me smile. Thanks. Ok, let’s do the charts first and I may do a separate post on a few of those comments.
The S&P 500 has been coiling up for awhile and it appears that Thursday may have marked the point that the march higher resumes. No one can predict that, but we can read the history and assume until proven otherwise that we are going in a direction. Friday we closed at a new all time high. Making new highs is nice to talk about, but closing at highs is important because that’s what makes us money. We have no warnings here and structure is still intact.
The Small Cap this week lagged behind the S&P and International index but still had a 1.25% gain for the week. Thursday we closed at an all time high, but come Friday we gave a bit back. Everything here as far as structure is still intact. I heard some people saying in the background that the Small Cap is slowing down and a pullback is inevitable. To me, structure of higher highs and higher lows still looks good. Just look at the green uptrend lines. If what they say is true, then those lines should start to falter.
If you could only go back in time and know that January 3rd was going to be the low that sparked this 10 plus percent move in the I-fund. Yes, it is the leader of the year and has been marching to it’s own tune for awhile now. This index is making year to date highs and all structure is intact. Even I expect this index to slow down soon and do some consolidating, but until given a reason why, I’m staying invested.
Bonds are doing what I call grinding and making no progress. Equal highs and equal lows and nothing getting done. 21 trading days and nothing. But with that said, there are no warnings here. I can see a few more weeks of this happening, grind, before something is going to break in one direction or the other.
So let me get to that one statement or question. When are we going to get out of this grind. I have to wonder what that person was invested in as far as their tsp money goes. Sure the S&P did a little consolidation and Bonds are definitely grinding, but what about the Small Cap and International? Is this person only invested in the F and S? If so, then I understand the question a little bit. But if you compare Year to Date earnings on our indexes to last year, I think you will see we are way ahead of last year with the exception of the F-fund.
The blue column is 2014 and 2015 green. I mean hell, look at those year to date numbers for yourself and you have to wonder what they are invested in. The S and I are kicking ass compared to last year. The F-fund and L-income are the only laggards. I know your looking at the G and saying, well so is the G, but the G will almost match by the end of the month. So this goes back to me telling folks, follow the monthly moves and invest in what the charts say to be in. Picking just one fund may not always work long term.
Someone asked, once you make that mile stone or goal in your TSP account, what then? Taking it out and put it all in the G? No and No! Look, it took me 29 years to build my account to this point. It took two major crashes to make me wake up and start learning how to run this account. So once I retire, I will use what I learned while working to run it the next 30 years or until I die. This will never end. But making 12 checks a year to get an answer on how to invest my retirement account is easy stuff.
I need to do a post again about where I should be if I would have run my retirement account properly and where I am now. I learned a lot of lessons all the younger generation should use. But here is quick example of why you need to run your account even after you retire. I do not care if your withdrawing funds out of the account or not. It should make no difference.
My contributions for the last 5 years have been about $150k including matching funds. My account has increased in value $660k. So you can see just by looking at those numbers that the increase in your account value is not totally dictated by the new money coming in. You have to run it.
Next Thursday is the end of the month and I will post the monthly moves that night so if there is a change, you can make them Friday morning. Unless we get a major move next week, I see no change rolling into May.
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