Good Evening, There market recovered to post light gains after shaking off North Korea concerns. As I said yesterday, don’t expect much during the last week of September and the first week of October. Then you will feel blessed if an when you do make some gains which are rare this time of year. Let me tell you the real news on the day and I’m not sure that the media is focusing on it near as much as they should be. The Russell 2000 set a new record. For those of you who are new to investing, the Russell 2000 is an index made up of small caps. The ETF version you can track on your charts is the IWM. Actually it’s considered to be “the small cap index” by most professionals. So what is so significant about that?? By nature of the fact that they are small companies small cap stocks are considered speculative. Investors only invest in small caps when they are feeling risk on. When they feel conservative or another way of putting it when they are concerned about market, they move to safer investments such as large cap stocks, precious metals or bonds. As a result small caps are usually the first stocks to be sold when the market goes down and the first to be bought when it’s back on the way up. In other words they lead the market up and they lead the market down. So I consider today’s record by the Russell 2000 to be bullish. As a result I am bullish on the remainder of the year. Another thing to consider concerning TSP is that the S Fund is made up of a large amount of small caps. Actually, it’s a small cap mid cap blend. Now is probably a good time to put some money in the S Fund if you are not currently in one of he three equity based funds. You pretty much will not go wrong in either the S of I funds moving into the fall. Of course we are invested in the I Fund due to the weak dollar. It makes for a good exchange rate when investing in foreign stocks. For those reasons I would favor the S and I funds over the C at this time. The C Fund is made up of entirely large cap stocks. One more thing concerning this subject. The strong move in small caps also signals the movement of money into stocks and when money is moving into stocks it’s a good idea to stay out of the F Fund (bonds). That money moving into stocks usually comes from three places, bonds, precious metals, and cash that is on the side line. Oh yeah, almost forgot, and lastly don’t forget that November and December are the two best months out of the year for small caps. So there you go!
The days trading left us with the following results: Our TSP allotment gained +0.31%. For comparison, the Dow slipped -0.04%, the Nasdaq added +0.07%, and the S&P 500 was up +0.06%. Thank God for another good day!
The week’s action left us with the following signals: C-Buy, S-Buy, I-Buy, F-Neutral. We are currently invested at 100/I. Our allocation is now +14.49% on the year not including the day’s results. Here are the latest posted results:
| 09/21/17 | Prior Prices | ||||
| Fund | G Fund | F Fund | C Fund | S Fund | I Fund |
| Price | 15.4416 | 18.0385 | 34.9949 | 45.2755 | 29.4688 |
| $ Change | 0.0009 | 0.0029 | -0.1057 | -0.0907 | -0.1808 |
| % Change day | +0.01% | +0.02% | -0.30% | -0.20% | -0.61% |
| % Change week | +0.04% | -0.23% | +0.02% | +0.66% | +0.28% |
| % Change month | +0.12% | -0.46% | +1.27% | +2.11% | +2.08% |
| % Change year | +1.68% | +3.38% | +13.35% | +10.44% | +19.78% |
| L INC | L 2020 | L 2030 | L 2040 | L 2050 | |
| Price | 19.2057 | 26.1621 | 29.4802 | 31.9078 | 18.3813 |
| $ Change | -0.0136 | -0.0367 | -0.0684 | -0.0875 | -0.0573 |
| % Change day | -0.07% | -0.14% | -0.23% | -0.27% | -0.31% |
| % Change week | +0.05% | +0.08% | +0.12% | +0.14% | +0.17% |
| % Change month | +0.39% | +0.66% | +1.03% | +1.20% | +1.37% |
| % Change year | +4.32% | +6.88% | +9.85% | +11.29% | +12.59% |
