Welcome to TSP Center

[bigredned]

Hello, everyone. I've been poking around the site for a couple of weeks and finally decided to come out of hiding. I began government service almost 6 months ago, so I am still a newbie by any standard. I lost about $150 my first couple of months into TSP because I had no idea what I was doing. Then I got lucky in July/early August and made it all back and a few bucks to boot because L 2040 had a good run. I've been contributing 15% to my TSP from the beginning, and I am quite amazed at how fast the money is accumulating in the account. Very few people at my workplace know much about TSP... in fact, it seems like few of them care. I'm a bit of a tightwad, I suppose, so I found this site looking for a place to educate me on how best to invest this money to help it work harder for me. In all honesty, a couple of days before finding this site, I even thought to myself "wouldn't it be cool if there was an online game like fantasy football, except it revolved around TSP investment?" LOL. Great minds think alike, I suppose, Mr. Bill. I am happy to be here and even happier than I found this wonderful site. Looks great, and I hope you keep it up for the next 25 years so I can follow everyones investments all the way to retirement!

Unfortunately, I made my first move post-TSP Center into the F fund... and it lost .17%. Oh well. Maybe it will bounce back. LOL.

[Windnott]

Hello Everyone,

[Windnott]

Let me try again, Hello Everyone, I've been a lurker long enough. Hope I can contribute something. First, a question: What's up with the bull run today? I'm all in now, and I guess Im betting it will last. I'm CSRS-offset, have 33 years in and plan to retire in 2013 at 62. Putting in the max + catch up.

[barryusa]

Hello,
My name is Michael. I'm 37 and became a Federal employee 18 months ago. Until now, I have only invested in stocks, but with a 5% contribution and the agency doubles it, you can't beat it. I am a career firefighter, but I have always owned a small business on the side, I have an MBA, and I've had great success through the Oxford Club investment group. I love talking about investments and hearing others perspective.

[denton5]

Bill, thanks for all of your efforts on this site. I'm currently deployed to Iraq and was interested in learning more about managing my TSP account. Appreciate your devotion to helping gov and military folks get the most from our account.

Respectfully,

Ivan (denton5 on this site)

[kohliekohl]

TSPking,

Just wanted to say hi. I have been in G for 20 years. This site is awesome. I am an active investor to begin with, and your site makes TSP investing way easier. I will be spreading this site to all my co workers.

[TSPking]

Glad you like the site and thanks for spreading the word. I really appreciate it...

bill

[Cardsfan]

I just found this site. I have been DOC employee for five years. One kid graduating college this year and the other starting next year. It is time to concentrate on Mom and Dad's future. Looking foreword to learning a lot.

[HookemDann]

Thanks for the great website. I am a 32 year flight instructor for the National Guard. I am obsessed with the TSP and have 4 yrs to go until retirement. I look for some good advice and insights. There are a lot of smart poeple here that can help other fellow government employees. I am wondering if I should go away to the F and G for the summer? Dan

[skiehawk11]

Thanks for the great website. I am a 32 year flight instructor for the National Guard. I am obsessed with the TSP and have 4 yrs to go until retirement. I look for some good advice and insights. There are a lot of smart poeple here that can help other fellow government employees. I am wondering if I should go away to the F and G for the summer? Dan

Welcome to the site!

According to the seasonal pattern, you should have started looking for a buyout when the MACD turned negative after April 1st. Essentially, you are getting a jump on the people who follow the Sell in May and go away strategy.

Another method is to simply follow crossovers of 2 different moving averages. I have found success with 3,13 and using 39 as an intermediate trend indicator.

Currently, I am working on creating a strategy using window functions and infinite impulse response filtering functions which are better than moving averages in theory.

The moving average is a very simple finite impulse response digital filter and it has its shortcomings. Better smoothing, over shorter intervals, can be obtained with more elegant filters. Spectral window functions (Blackman, Hann, Hamming, Gauss, flat-top, raised cosine, etc.) might give better results than simple moving averages. Moving average filters respond more to high frequencies (sudden changes in price) faster than they need to, compared to better filtering functions. The better functions will give the same amount of smoothing but using fewer data points.

Even better than window functions might be IIR (infinite impulse response) filtering functions. These have less delay than a window function - the minimum delay, in fact, and that is why they are called "minimum phase" filters. In other words, they will weight recent prices more heavily than older prices. (A moving average weights all equally.) I would suggest a Gaussian or Bessel polynomial transformed to IIR for stock price filtering. These polynomials have no overshoot (Gibbs phenomenon).

I tend to be technical in my approach, but it has worked for me so far. I tend to enjoy trading short term intervals since patterns and trends are easier to predict. Combine that with leverage and correct risk management, I am content to just keep my TSP meeting market returns on a 5 year averge basis.

[BodhiDrool]

I see you've been running full steam with the spectra idea. Kudos to you and hopefully mucho success in the markets!

[skiehawk11]

I see you've been running full steam with the spectra idea. Kudos to you and hopefully mucho success in the markets!

Well, I get the concept. Since spectral analysis isn't my area of expertise, I've been trying to find some resources to help out. Once I get the general logic process of the spectral analysis I should be set.

[bilco]

Hey, I've got 26 years in now, 2 years and 10 months away from retiring at 60. I had a gut feeling right when the 2007/2008 stuff hit the fan and I moved the whole balance to the G fund. I am trying to balance the inflation vs. risk with such a short time frame before I retire. I have moved 10% of my biweekly contributions back into 5% C, 3% F and 2% S. I have done more or less the same thing with the existing balance. I am contributing the max amount and the max catch-up contribution amount. I am looking forward to learning from this site and maybe getting at least a little more aggressive without putting too much of my nest egg balance at risk. Thanks for the cool site, bilco

[LAL]

I just got on. Hope to learn and perform better with this forum. I've been playing the TSP game for 13 years.

[TSPBuilder]

Greetings to all of you awesome TSP involved people. First, special thanks to TSPking for the site. I used to use TSPMoney until it went bellyup or became this site. Your tools and graphics are what makes it possible for me to have a grasp on what is happening to my TSP funds and steer my investments profitably. I'm cheap but I would consider a donation to defray your costs to keep you running. Thought about building something like what you have here at one time but couldn't have done it half as well. Just started the Fantasy side of the site and I'm liking how it tracks allocations and immediate returns for me specifically. Kudos!! Really nice seeing what other people's philosophies are and how they impement them. Live long and prosper