Good Evening, We fired cruise missiles at a Syrian air base and the official jobs report came in below expectations after a sterling jobs report by ADP just yesterday. Remember when I said that sometimes the two reports don’t always agree…. That comment was well timed if I must say so myself. Adding to the confusion was the fact that unemployment actually dropped a notch. All this resulted in the major indices finishing the week slightly in the red. While there was plenty of news all week it didn’t seem evoke and emotion in the market. The dips were quickly bought and the spikes were quickly sold which left things pretty flat. This kind of action is great for day trading but doesn’t offer much for trend followers like us.
I received an interesting question that comes up from time to time about the occasional difference in price concerning the I Fund. Actually it occurs in all the other thrift funds as well. Just to a lesser degree. This used to drive me nuts so I asked a lot of questions and this is the answer that I came up with. It’s been a little while but I’ll do my best to explain it like a remember it. The I Fund is designed to track the Morgan Stanley EAFE which stands for Europe AustrailAsia Far East. It is an Exchange Traded Fund or ETF as they are commonly called made up of an collection of stocks from Europe, Australia, Asia, and the Far East. The I Fund tracks EAFE but it is it is not the EAFE. So they may not close at the same price but they go pretty much the same place….This is mainly due to the fact that like all good government offices TSP shuts down at 4:00PM Eastern Time which as I have been told results in Thrift Funds being closed out before the final bell rings in New York. That results in a difference in the price that often shows up in the I Fund on the next trading day. Although, the prices are different for a short time the I Fund and the EAFE ultimately end up in pretty much the same place. The more movement in price that occurs during the last 30 minutes of trading the longer it takes for the two funds to agree even though the I Fund is tracks the EAFE. A simple way to put it is that they take different roads but end up at the same destination…. One other thing that occurs that causes the prices to differ is when maintenance Fees are taken. Both Morgan Stanley and Thrift deduct fees necessary to operate the funds. There are two things that will occasionally make the price between the I Fund and EAFE differ. #1 The Fees are different. Actually they are less for TSP. TSP Funds all gain ground here. #2. The time that the fees are deducted from the funds are different. Thus there are times that the prices of the two funds differ even though they are invested in basically the same thing. This is the way it was explained to me several years ago. This used to bother me quite a bit, but I just came to realize that occasionally they will be different at least for the short run.
The days trading left us with the following results: Our TSP allotment slipped -0.06%. For comparison, the Dow eased off -0.03%, the Nasdaq -0.02%, and the S&P 500 -0.08%.
Wall Street down after weak jobs, Fed comments, Syria airstrikes
The weeks action left us with the following signals: C-Neutral, S-Neutral, I-Neutral, F-Neutral. We are currently invested at 100/I. Our allocation is now +1.94% on the year. Here are the latest posted results:
| 04/07/17 | Prior Prices | ||||
| Fund | G Fund | F Fund | C Fund | S Fund | I Fund |
| Price | 15.2831 | 17.64 | 32.6677 | 42.4456 | 26.2396 |
| $ Change | 0.0010 | -0.0283 | -0.0268 | -0.0163 | -0.0028 |
| % Change day | +0.01% | -0.16% | -0.08% | -0.04% | -0.01% |
| % Change week | +0.05% | +0.17% | -0.24% | -0.99% | -0.65% |
| % Change month | +0.05% | +0.17% | -0.24% | -0.99% | -0.65% |
| % Change year | +0.63% | +1.10% | +5.81% | +3.54% | +6.66% |
| L INC | L 2020 | L 2030 | L 2040 | L 2050 | |
| Price | 18.7188 | 25.1507 | 27.8665 | 29.9257 | 17.1194 |
| $ Change | -0.0029 | -0.0070 | -0.0116 | -0.0142 | -0.0087 |
| % Change day | -0.02% | -0.03% | -0.04% | -0.05% | -0.05% |
| % Change week | -0.05% | -0.16% | -0.28% | -0.34% | -0.40% |
| % Change month | -0.05% | -0.16% | -0.28% | -0.34% | -0.40% |
| % Change year | +1.68% | +2.75% | +3.84% | +4.38% | +4.86% |
