Good Evening, The word on the street today is that the fall in the Turkish lira is going to start a contagion. I can hear some of the new folks in our group now saying “a what?”. A contagion is a fancy word to describe something spreading. I prefer to think of it as falling like dominoes. In this particular case it’s talking about emerging economies being effected by the currency fluctuation. Starting with the ones in Europe. Friday I said any pullback would be a buying opportunity. That is not to say that there might not be some short term pain. Back in 1997 this same type of scenario happened. If memory serves me correctly. I believe the country was Thailand. The US markets held up fairly well in 1997 but on October 27 of that year they suffered what was then the single biggest point loss ever for the DJIA when it fell 554 points. There have been bigger percentage declines since then but that was the biggest point loss up to that time. In a matter of seven days the loss was recovered and there was a rally into the end of the year. When people think of an emerging market contagion they are always going to remember Thailand in 1997. The bottom line in all this is that we survived then and we’ll survive now. If anything, our economy is stronger now than it was then! It turned out to be a buying opportunity then and I think it will turn out to be a buying opportunity now.
The days trading left us with the following results: Our TSP allotment was off -0.49%. For comparison, the Dow fell -0.50%, the Nasdaq -0.25%, and the S&P 500 -0.40%.
The days action left us with the following signals: C-Neutral, S-Buy, I-Sell, F-Buy. We are currently invested at 100/S. Our allocation is now +7.94% on the year. Here are the latest posted results.
| 08/13/18 | Prior Prices | ||||
| Fund | G Fund | F Fund | C Fund | S Fund | I Fund |
| Price | 15.8088 | 17.9119 | 40.1529 | 52.753 | 29.7673 |
| $ Change | 0.0039 | -0.0211 | -0.1608 | -0.3184 | -0.2634 |
| % Change day | +0.02% | -0.12% | -0.40% | -0.60% | -0.88% |
| % Change week | +0.02% | -0.12% | -0.40% | -0.60% | -0.88% |
| % Change month | +0.11% | +0.41% | +0.30% | +0.87% | -3.48% |
| % Change year | +1.73% | -1.12% | +6.76% | +8.85% | -3.53% |
| L INC | L 2020 | L 2030 | L 2040 | L 2050 | |
| Price | 19.9562 | 27.5137 | 31.6541 | 34.5596 | 20.0677 |
| $ Change | -0.0203 | -0.0479 | -0.1095 | -0.1441 | -0.0961 |
| % Change day | -0.10% | -0.17% | -0.34% | -0.42% | -0.48% |
| % Change week | -0.10% | -0.17% | -0.34% | -0.42% | -0.48% |
| % Change month | -0.05% | -0.15% | -0.39% | -0.49% | -0.57% |
| % Change year | +2.07% | +2.32% | +2.99% | +3.23% | +3.46% |
