Scrap the F Fund??

[Chulke]

Is it time to start thinking about scrapping the F Fund from our seasonal strategies? With the FED beginning to raise interest rates the F fund is going to start tanking soon right? And to be honest I'm not impressed with the returns the F fund gives, its only averaging 2.63ish over the last 5 years...which is right on par with the G fund basically.

So why not cut the anguish over watching the F fund tank most of a month, like this month, and just settle for the lower and safer G fund return for those months that call for F fund in our seasonal strategies.

Just something to gnaw on...Aitrus...Is there a seasonal strategy that uses G fund in place of the F fund? If so, what was the CAGR?

I've got to really think about this...I might loose some potential, albeit small, gains but gain some sleep and keep what little hair I have left from turning the rest of the way gray. LOL!


Decisions, Decisions??


Cheers!

[Jokerswild]

True, the F fund is nothing grand but it's still the hedge I use when the stock market looks to have a universal downward trend. There are plenty of strategies on the tspcalc site that will give you the results of just never using the F fund. For example, just pick one of the top performers from any given date range, and you can amend it to void out any F fund IFTs if you should choose. I'm doubtful you'll find a way to filter a "show me the best strategy that never uses F" because F is a tracked fund through data points, but you can find a better answer to your question through his site IMHO.

[Scorpio70]

I like the L Income funds as a substitute for the F Fund for now. In 2008 the L Income was down by 5.08%.

[Jokerswild]

Chulke, check out #14506. I was slightly wrong on the tspcalc site, you can actually filter it enough to see leading strategies without ever using F Matt is the damn man, now he just needs to create a "predict market corrections" website, so we can avoid them all together. Lol

[Chulke]

I haven't completely bought into a "daily seasonal strategy" just yet...I'm still watching it. My biggest hold back on picking one to follow is lack of previous year's data...If the data sets went back further than 2004, I would probably already be in one of the strategies. Those strategies hold merit...just not enough to persuade me just yet.

As for L funds...well...I was in TSP when they first introduced them. I was still on Active Duty back then but already contributing to TSP...and at first they looked promising but their performance IMO has been "underwhelming" from what they advertised when initially released.


Thanks for the tip Joker...I will have to get on the TSPCalc website a dabble a bit more.


Cheers!

[harpole]

This was shared by another member recently.
http://tspcalc.com/seasonal.php?ID=1450 ... arks=12459

I think I'll start following it after the IFT today.

[cashworth]

I'm not saying which logic is right or wrong, but you are comparing statistics (F fund wins for the next 5 days the majority of the time when looking at the last 14 years of data) with emotion or speculation (F fund is bad because the Fed might raise interest rates in three months...maybe).
I do agree that subbing G for F will make you sleep better at night.

The math on the balance sheet unwind makes me not worry (unless I'm missing something)
$4.5 trillion @ a max pace of $50 billion/month reduction = 90 months = 7.5 years

Using this information for a short term decision is speculation in my book, and I suck at speculation! Just my 2 cents

[fordest]

Chulke, check out #14506. I was slightly wrong on the tspcalc site, you can actually filter it enough to see leading strategies without ever using F Matt is the damn man, now he just needs to create a "predict market corrections" website, so we can avoid them all together. Lol

13501 is another good one. Lower in SD but also lower in mean.

[evilanne]

The key is the filters. See attached screenshot for top mixes without using the F Fund. I simply put 0 for F fund.

[Jokerswild]

I infuse humor with almost everything I say, so please I hope not to offend anyone, but Chulke how much data do you need to convince you to buy into something? The calculator uses factual data ALL the way back to 2004, 13 years of facts, and you're still claiming there's not enough data. Maybe I'm different, but if you showed me in 2005 that you've got a calender of how the funds did overall each day per month, I'd prob follow that back then because I strongly agree that trends will continue to happen.

Not sure about your age, and I never was a circus carnie that could guess these things by just looking at someone, but 13 years of data is pretty darn solid. You may want to continue to hold off and wait until your magic number of factual data is met, but you may be missing some tremendous gains here. Here's where I infuse funny although sometimes offensive humor. If you stepped in a turd on a sidewalk, how do you know what animal it was from? Would it take me long to convince you that more than likely it was a dog turd over a parrot, based on size, color, smell, location, or would your thoughts be inconclusive because there's just not enough data to support the turd being a dogs without turning a sample in for more analysis since you didn't see the culprit? 13 years of data brother, jump on in, the waters fine.

[kavic]

I started the daily plan at the beginning of August and I'm sticking with the plan. There is a whole lot more data than I was using since I only looked at 10 year averages. I'm up $52,477.70 since Aug 1. Absolutely awesome!

[CDZ]

I'm new to all this. Still shooting in the dark, trial and error. I was in F at the beginning of this month and after several days of losses got frustrated and went ahead and moved to the C fund. I have positive returns there. Ill stay there till November. The strategy I am somewhat following calls for C as well in November but I will more than likely go to S and stay till years end. Not sure if that's a wise decision but I will find out. Any input on this idea would be appreciated.

[Jokerswild]

I'm new to all this. Still shooting in the dark, trial and error. I was in F at the beginning of this month and after several days of losses got frustrated and went ahead and moved to the C fund. I have positive returns there. Ill stay there till November. The strategy I am somewhat following calls for C as well in November but I will more than likely go to S and stay till years end. Not sure if that's a wise decision but I will find out. Any input on this idea would be appreciated.

Go to Tspcalc.com and find a strategy that works for you. It'll even spit out a color coded calendar to tell you when to make your IFTs. Trust in the data, continue to read posts here, and stick with the strategic plan. Once you start letting your own logic and emotions change your IFTs, you're probably going to lose greater than if you stood by a strategy on that site. Have faith

[evilanne]

Chulke, You need to take a look at fordest's post viewtopic.php?f=14&t=14918#p62795

[bamafamily]

I have a lot of the same feelings concerning the F Fund....On the advice of another member (thx 12^2), I went and took 14 of the higher MEAN/SD scores and replaced the F Fund with the G Fund.
The highest score I got is located in my sig....and the one I will be IFTing to today....
Mean - 30.3%
Std Dev - 8.3%