Good Evening, As most of you know I’m dealing with a death in the family. I also realize that there’s a lot of turmoil in the market that needs to be addressed so I’ll keep it short and sweet. The market continues to rise and fall on inflation news or more precisely speculation about how the Fed will react to inflation news. Inflation is hot and remains hotter than the Fed or investors expected it to be. The market continues to to struggle with pricing in the number of rate increases that the Fed will enact in the coming months. That will likely be the driving force for the volatility in the near future. This is a dynamic that has been with us for a while and will at some point resolve itself. As I said on Facebook, as inflation moderates so will the volatility affecting your thrift accounts. As long as earnings remain as good as they are now, the rally should remain intact when inflation eventually subsides. However, this at week there has been another problem and that is the Ukraine. Will Russia invade or will they not? The market sells off when the headlines support an invasion and rallies when hostilities subside. Today the market rallied as Russia announced the pullback of some of it’s troops from the Ukrainian border. Who knows about tomorrow when Putins involved. We’ll see. For now I’m in as long as I don’t get a sell signal for the C Fund. It’s simply day to day. One more piece of news that I need to mention is today’s announcement that the number of COVID cases are now 80% below their peak in January. That of course supports the economic recovery and as long as the recovery remains strong and corporate earnings stay good, we will be fine!

The days trading left us with the following results: Our TSP allotment posted a gain of +1.58%. For comparison, the Dow was up +1.22%, the Nasdaq +2.53%, and the S&P 500 +1.58%.

Dow jumps 400 points and snaps 3-day losing streak, Nasdaq pops 2.5%

The days action left us with the following signals: C-Hold, S-Hold, I-Hold, F-Sell. We are currently invested at 100/C. Our allocation is now -11.34% not including the days returns. Here are the latest posted returns:

02/14/22				Prior Prices
Fund	G Fund	F Fund	C Fund	S Fund	I Fund
Price	16.7707	20.0766	66.5447	74.6763	37.6926
$ Change	0.0025	-0.1081	-0.2523	-0.3754	-0.2860
% Change day	+0.01%	-0.54%	-0.38%	-0.50%	-0.75%
% Change week	+0.01%	-0.54%	-0.38%	-0.50%	-0.75%
% Change month	+0.07%	-1.83%	-2.46%	-0.48%	-0.50%
% Change year	+0.20%	-3.88%	-7.51%	-10.50%	-4.43%

 Now lets take a look at the charts. All signals are annotated with green circles. If you click on the charts they will become larger. If you want to learn more about technical analysis check out the website StockCharts.com.

C Fund:

S Fund:

I Fund:

F Fund:

Now is the time to keep praying for our group. We’ve been in tough markets before and God has always brought us through. Never forget. He inhabits the praises of the faithful. That said, I’m excited to see what He’s going to do for us next! That’s all for tonight. Have a nice evening and may God continue to bless your trades,

God bless, Scott 

 ***Just a reminder that you can review the performance of our allocation at the Web Site TSPTALK.com in the autotracker section under the screen name KyFan1.

I produce and publish this blog as both a ministry and for the benefit of any Federal Government Employee. This is done to offer you some guidance as to how to approach your retirement more financially successful. When it is time for you to retire, I recommend you utilize the services of a Professional Money Manager, who works with a reputable investment firm. He understands the guidance you have already received and he can manage your savings assets utilizing a more advanced investment program into the future. If you would like to receive more information about this introduction, please feel free to contact me at  KyFan1@aol.com. 

Good Day, Wow, what a frustrating market. We talked about this in some of our recent blogs. We discussed how the gains would be harder to come by in a rising interest rate environment. Well this is what I meant! Some of you are finding yourselves at a greater deficit than you’ve experienced in your investing careers. That’s the reason I talked about this so much in recent blogs. There’s nothing to really prepare you for investing in a market like this until you actually experience it. I tried my best to warn you but there is really no substitute for experience. Why is this market different? The interest rates are rising. Many if not most of you have never invested in an economy with rising inflation. It’s really not all that hard to understand. A plentiful money supply creates higher demand for goods and services. Therefore the prices rise. That’s inflation. So the Federal reserve tightens the money supply. In other words they make less money available. They do this by raising interest rates which they control. That is one of the tools they have to control inflation. Just for your information the Feds target rate for inflation is 2.00%. The current rate of inflation is now over 7.00%. Enough said about that!! The tighter money supply negatively affects the market because it increases their cost of doing business and in the case of small growth oriented companies makes if harder for them to get the capital they need to grow. Thus when the market hears that interest rates are being raised it sells off. Secondly, the market is different because the Federal Reserve is now decreasing stimulus that has been in place to one degree or the other since 2009. I won’t go into the various kinds of stimulus. I have written about that a lot in the past and you can review previous blogs to refresh your memory. All you need to understand now is that stimulus put in place to increase the money supply in tough economic conditions is now being taken away which adds even more to the effect of tightening the money supply. So there you have it. Money is getting tighter. Now, how does that make things different aside from the obvious? This is what it does. Dips, corrections, sell offs, and bear markets become more intense and take longer to resolve. I wrote about that (I think last week) when I told you about the bear market of 2000 taking 5 years to recover. That ladies and gentlemen is what I’m talking about. Last question….How do we deal with it? We sell quicker when our charts point to a decline. We no longer assume that the glorious V shaped recovery is going to come riding to our rescue. Bottom line, it takes more skill to do this and the buy and hold crowd will no longer be able to make the money that they have in the past 10 or so years. Welcome to the new world!!

As far as the market this week goes…..it continues to struggle between good earnings reports and higher inflation and interest rates. It depends on the news of the day as to which direction the market will move. Pretty much everything is run through the filter of whether or not it will cause the Fed to raise rates and if so by how much. The good news is that hot inflation is a result of a strong economy which will ultimately down the road resolve itself. Our task now is to find the road of less resistance to get there……..

On a personal note I must confess to you all that I cost us some money last Tuesday when I put in the IFT. I entered it one day early because I knew I was going to be on the road. The market turned higher on Tuesday afternoon and my plan was to watch it the next morning and get back in if technical support held on the charts. We had received the buy signal we were looking for on Tuesday afternoon but I had wanted to watch the next morning before I actually made the move. I received news that afternoon that my 90 year old Dad (Charles H. Grimes, Henderson Kentucky) was being put on comfort orders. For those of you that may not be familiar with what that is it is basically the hospital version of hospice… He has been given a short time to live and it is now day to day. I knew I was going to be on the road so I went ahead and moved the money that afternoon instead of waiting until the next morning. That ended up being the wrong decision. I apologize for that error. I covet your prayers for my Dad. He was a career Marine. He was what they call a mustang in that he started as a PFC and worked his way to being a commissioned officer. He retired as a 1st Lieutenant after over 20 years of service. He served in Vietnam where he was highly decorated most notably receiving the Navy Commendation Medal with a combat V. Since then he was an over the road truck driver. One of his trucks “Purple Passion” won best of show at the Mid America truck show in 2001, 2003, and 2005. The funny thing is that he did it on a dare. Somebody told that old Marine he couldn’t do that and you never tell a Marine what he can’t do! When I was a child I received more than one tongue lashing for using that word. Anyway he took his working class truck and starting with a Semper Fidelis license plate and eventually won the national championship three times. He has been married to the same women for 71 years and of course he has been a Dad for 63! I will miss him. All that noted I have investments too and will keep monitoring them as best as I can during this difficult time. If the money needs moving I will move it. Thank you all for your patience. God bless you all.

The days trading is currently giving us the following results: Our TSP allotment is up +0.60%. For comparison, the Dow is now +0.77%, the Nasdaq +0.88%, and the S&P 500 is +0.60%. I thank God we are up today.

Stocks rise slightly, Dow up 100 points as investors sift through corporate earnings

The the action is giving us the following signals: C-Hold, S-Hold, I-Hold, F-Sell. We are currently invested at 100/C. Our allocation is now -9.27% not including the days results. Here are the latest posted results:

02/07/22				Prior Prices
Fund	G Fund	F Fund	C Fund	S Fund	I Fund
Price	16.7648	20.2753	67.7616	74.609	38.1859
$ Change	0.0026	0.0101	-0.2508	0.2465	0.2101
% Change day	+0.02%	+0.05%	-0.37%	+0.33%	+0.55%
% Change week	+0.02%	+0.05%	-0.37%	+0.33%	+0.55%
% Change month	+0.03%	-0.86%	-0.68%	-0.57%	+0.81%
% Change year	+0.17%	-2.93%	-5.82%	-10.58%	-3.18%

 Now lets take a look at the charts. All signals are annotated with green circles. If you click on the charts they will become larger. If you want to learn more about technical analysis check out the website StockCharts.com.

C Fund:

S Fund:

I Fund:

F Fund:

Keep praying for our group and I covet your prayers for my family. That’s all for today. Have a nice day and may God bless your trades!

God bless, Scott 

 ***Just a reminder that you can review the performance of our allocation at the Web Site TSPTALK.com in the autotracker section under the screen name KyFan1.

I produce and publish this blog as both a ministry and for the benefit of any Federal Government Employee. This is done to offer you some guidance as to how to approach your retirement more financially successful. When it is time for you to retire, I recommend you utilize the services of a Professional Money Manager, who works with a reputable investment firm. He understands the guidance you have already received and he can manage your savings assets utilizing a more advanced investment program into the future. If you would like to receive more information about this introduction, please feel free to contact me at  KyFan1@aol.com. 

Good Evening, It’s time to adjust our allocation. The new allocation is 100/C. Please remember that this is the percentage of money that we have invested in each fund, not the money that is taken from your check and deposited into thrift. That deposit should always be 100% G Fund. That automatically protects your deposit in the event that it is made on a bad day for the market. The funds that accumulate in the G Fund are always picked up when you make your next interfund transfer.   As for today, you should make an interfund transfer for 100/C. Have a nice day and may God continue to bless your trades! Scott

PS- Remember that this is only a recommendation. Please feel free to alter it in any way that you feel comfortable with and by all means if what your doing is working great for you, then keep on doing it! 

Good Day, This juncture in a market downturn is always the most difficult. You have a bunch of serial bottom callers that are constantly saying the bottom is in. The thing about that is that they only have to be right once. It doesn’t matter that they were wrong ten times before…. There were some real heroes such as the ones that called the great market crash in 1987 or the Dot com bubble that burst in 2000. They got it right once and were the media darlings, but did they ever get it right again? Did they have crystal ball accuracy again? No, you never heard of any of them again! You’ve often hear that disclaimer at the end of advertisements for various investments that says “Past performance does guarantee future results”. Well let me tell you there’s a reason they say that!!! The bottom line is this. When your dealing with your precious retirement money your goal is or should be to keep as much as you can, to reduce risk. If you do this efficiently then your average balance will take care of itself. After all what do you care about? Having the most money at the end to the week or having the most money you can have at the end of your career? You can invest for one or the other but it is virtually impossible to do both. No matter how hard you try you will never eliminate 100% of the risk in the market. Thus, your realistic goal is to reduce risk as much as you can. So here’s what you must consider with regard to the current market. The closer you try to get to the exact bottom the greater the risk you incur! It is also true that you will get a greater reward if you get it right. Obviously you can make more money if you pick the exact bottom! Good luck with that. You pick it one out of ten times and see if you make more money than a more prudent investor. The end result of that is that when you miss the bottom you lose more money. The law of averages is not with you! Sure you can buy and hold. After all, it has worked great the past ten years. You’ll definitely be there for the bottom of every decline. That is all well and good….er that is when you have government stimulus. Try it without stimulus and get caught in a lengthy market decline and see how that works for you! You will spend the rest of your career trying to get back what you could have had. But Scott, that never happens. Well in most of your careers it hasn’t but I am old and groaty….I’ve seen it happen on multiple occasions. The worst and most recent one (as I have noted many times) was when the dot com bubble burst in 2000. The market fell and TSP folks that bought and held an average of 34% of their accounts. Wanna know how long it took them to make that money back?? It was March of 2005. Almost five years! Five long years!! So, many of them worked an extra five years in order to get back what they needed to retire. What did they get? The same thing they could have had if they had just sold with the rest of us in December of 1999. Up until then they had scoffed at their co workers that played it safe. Not that time. Those folks who played it safe retired when they wanted to and the ones that didn’t retire added to their accounts and ultimately retired with an additional five years worth of gains that the others did not get. They say time is money and money is time…. All that said, I am not satisfied that there is a solid bottom just yet. My charts tell me that it is possible that we could see another leg down in this market. If I had to put a percentage on that I would say there is a 30-40% chance that we will see new lows. Yes, that means that there is a greater chance that we could move higher from here and when we do move higher we will have a clearer picture of things than we do right now. I just don’t like the odds today. Please remember that bottoming is a process. I do strongly believe that we will retest the lows once again before we move higher and how that plays out all depends on the remaining stimulus. As you know stimulus is being reduced but it is not gone just yet. So the question is can the remaining stimulus fuel yet another V Shaped recovery? I’m not sure there is anyone out there who can answer that, but if there is still enough money then we will move higher. However, as money becomes tighter you will not see the V shaped recoveries that you have seen the past 10 years. The market will struggle to recover where it has not in the recent past and recoveries from selloffs will take much longer. I can tell you that for sure. What I cannot tell you is when the stimulus will be reduced enough that such a scenario will take place. Thus, I am playing it safe for now. I am forgoing potential gains to protect my capital from a possible lengthy loss. In other words, I am choosing to forgo some gains in order to avoid the risk of a big loss of time. I can make the money back up a lot easier than I can get back the time. Those of you that want to get back into stocks now will probably be fine but as for my money…. I choose to wait and watch a little while longer.

Currently, our TSP allotment is steady in the G Fund. For comparison the Dow is flat at 0.00%, the Nasdaq is up +0.09%, and the S&P 500 is +0.02%. We will see where they go from here.

Stocks are little changed to start February after S&P 500’s worst month since March 2020

Our charts are generating the following signals: C-Sell, S-Sell, I-Sell, F-Hold. We are currently invested at 100/G. Our allocation is now -7.62% for the year. Here are the latest posted results:

01/31/22				Prior Prices
Fund	G Fund	F Fund	C Fund	S Fund	I Fund
Price	16.759	20.4504	68.2231	75.0386	37.8808
$ Change	0.0022	-0.0065	1.2657	2.7196	0.6864
% Change day	+0.01%	-0.03%	+1.89%	+3.76%	+1.85%
% Change week	+0.01%	-0.03%	+1.89%	+3.76%	+1.85%
% Change month	+0.13%	-2.09%	-5.18%	-10.07%	-3.96%
% Change year	+0.13%	-2.09%	-5.18%	-10.07%	-3.96%

 Now lets take a look at the charts. All signals are annotated with green circles. If you click on the charts they will become larger. If you want to learn more about technical analysis check out the website StockCharts.com.

C Fund:

S Fund:

I Fund:

F Fund:

Keep praying! That’s all for today. Have nice day and may God continue to bless your trades.

God bless, Scott 

 ***Just a reminder that you can review the performance of our allocation at the Web Site TSPTALK.com in the autotracker section under the screen name KyFan1.

I produce and publish this blog as both a ministry and for the benefit of any Federal Government Employee. This is done to offer you some guidance as to how to approach your retirement more financially successful. When it is time for you to retire, I recommend you utilize the services of a Professional Money Manager, who works with a reputable investment firm. He understands the guidance you have already received and he can manage your savings assets utilizing a more advanced investment program into the future. 
If you would like to receive more information about this introduction, please feel free to contact me at  KyFan1@aol.com. 

Good Afternoon, Yesterday we sold our position in the C Fund and moved to the safety of the G Fund. We did so because all of our indicators (and there are many) with the exception of our primary indicator called for us to sell. Our primary indicator (which is proprietary) is still moving toward a sell signal and will likely get there in the coming days if something doesn’t change. The important thing to note here is that it has not as of yet generated that signal and that means a reversal is still possible. However, right now the current trend is down and there has been much damage to the charts that will have to be repaired before a bottom can be put it. I noted back in December that we would likely experience at the minimum a correction in the 15% range during the first quarter of this year. Right now the S&P is off around 11% but the market is still trending down. As of the writing of this blog the market is selling off again. We will be watching closely to see if the dip buyers show up again in the afternoon session. Fundamentally speaking, the thing of course that everyone is watching is today’s Fed meeting which will cumulate with tomorrow afternoons closing statement by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. It is widely expected that Chairman Powell will outline a series of interest rate increases beginning in March. Many investors say that the market is currently pricing in as many as four rate increases before the year ends. That is not surprise and surprises are what tend to create large moves in the market. So what can cause a surprise in this Fed meeting? What could cause the selling to accelerate? Here are a couple of things that I think might upset the apple cart so to speak. Both surround the Feds monthly bond purchase program that has been in place since 2009 but was doubled during the pandemic. The first is the rate of taper (or slowing down) of bond purchases. The Fed is currently scheduled to end these purchases I believe sometime this summer. There is now some speculation that the Fed could further accelerate this schedule or possibly even abruptly end the program at this meeting in order to clear the way for interest rate increases. There are those on the Fed board who believe that inflation is a problem now and must be dealt with now. Thus they feel the the asset purchasing program must end now and interest rate increases must start now. You see, it would be counter productive for the Fed to continue to apply stimulus by purchasing bonds while at the same time tightening the money supply by increasing rates. So many believe that it is possible that they could take those measures this month which would be a change from what they telegraphed in December. The second issue that could induce some selling would be if the Fed chose to begin reducing the massive balance sheet of assets they have already purchased. It was understood in the past that the Fed would allow these assets (mostly treasury bonds but also some mortgage securities) to run off as they expire. However, there are those on the Fed governing board that believe that is not enough and that they must begin actively selling off these assets. AS I mentioned in last weeks blog that would not only end stimulus but would in fact actively remove liquidity from the market. So, think about it Folks, if you flood the market with bonds then bond prices will go down and if bond prices go down then bond yields and corresponding interest rates will rise. In the end it’s all about interest rates for the market. Higher rates make it more expensive for companies to do business and harder for new corporations to borrow the money they need to expand. That is what they mean when they say they are tightening the money supply and make no mistake that means higher rates for you as well. Higher mortgages, higher car loans etc. etc. So you get the picture. One other important aspect to all this is somewhat of a wildcard. Because this stimulus has been in place for so many years now many folks have become accustomed to trading with the safety net created by the government stimulus present since 2009. For others, it is all they have known. How will they react a cycle of the market where rates are increasing? They have become so dependent on V shaped recoveries that they may not know what to do or how to react to a market that just doesn’t turn higher from a decline as the market did back in 2000 when it took five years for investors who rode the market down to make their money back! I believe they will panic. We will see. Either way, we will continue to monitor the action from the safety of the G fund until we feel that a sufficient bottom has been put in. I already have folks asking how long that will be. I just can’t say. It might be a few days, a few weeks, or a few months. We will just have to wait patiently and find out. Also…..one more word of caution. Don’t trust the first bounce you see. Some of the biggest and best bounces occur in down trending markets. Bottoming is a process that usually takes days or weeks and requires multiple retests of the lower resistance. Never forget, you will soon be operating without the safety net that has been government stimulus….. and that changes the game altogether!

Today our allocation is steady in the G Fund. For comparison, the Dow is now off-1.38%, the Nasdaq -3.04%, and the S&P 500 -2.18%. We’ll see if the dip buyers show up and drive it higher in the afternoon session as they did yesterday. I find it unlikely ahead of tomorrow’s Fed news conference. Looking at the current action I have to give God all the praise for guiding us to the G Fund. He has been so good to our group!

Dow falls more than 400 points, Nasdaq sheds 3% as January wild trading continues

The days action has generated the following signals: C-Sell, S-Sell, I-Sell, F-Sell. We are currently invested at 100/G. Our allocation is now -7.65% for the year. Here are the latest posted results:

01/24/22				Prior Prices
Fund	G Fund	F Fund	C Fund	S Fund	I Fund
Price	16.7539	20.5114	66.6178	74.2811	37.7682
$ Change	0.0022	-0.0212	0.1850	1.2775	-0.4925
% Change day	+0.01%	-0.10%	+0.28%	+1.75%	-1.29%
% Change week	+0.01%	-0.10%	+0.28%	+1.75%	-1.29%
% Change month	+0.10%	-1.80%	-7.41%	-10.98%	-4.24%
% Change year	+0.10%	-1.80%	-7.41%	-10.98%	-4.24%

 Now lets take a look at the charts. All signals are annotated with green circles. If you click on the charts they will become larger. If you want to learn more about technical analysis check out the website StockCharts.com.

C Fund:

S Fund:

I Fund:

F Fund:

Be patient. Tribulation brings patience. Don’t be concerned about this market. Turn it over to our Lord and Savior. He will guide our hand as He always has. We will watch our charts and react to what we see just as we always have. Have a nice day and may God continue to bless your trades.

God bless, Scott 

 ***Just a reminder that you can review the performance of our allocation at the Web Site TSPTALK.com in the autotracker section under the screen name KyFan1.

I produce and publish this blog as both a ministry and for the benefit of any Federal Government Employee. This is done to offer you some guidance as to how to approach your retirement more financially successful. When it is time for you to retire, I recommend you utilize the services of a Professional Money Manager, who works with a reputable investment firm. He understands the guidance you have already received and he can manage your savings assets utilizing a more advanced investment program into the future. 
If you would like to receive more information about this introduction, please feel free to contact me at  KyFan1@aol.com. 

Good Morning, It’s time to adjust our allocation. The new allocation is 100/G. Please remember that this is the percentage of money that we have invested in each fund, not the money that is taken from your check and deposited into thrift. That deposit should always be 100% G Fund. That automatically protects your deposit in the event that it is made on a bad day for the market. The funds that accumulate in the G Fund are always picked up when you make your next interfund transfer.   As for today, you should make an interfund transfer for 100/G. Have a nice day and may God continue to bless your trades! Scott

PS- Remember that this is only a recommendation. Please feel free to alter it in any way that you feel comfortable with and by all means if what your doing is working great for you, then keep on doing it! 

Good Evening, So far the market is struggling in 2022. We discussed how it might in a blog or two last quarter. At the time I said that I expected at the minimum a correction in the coming months. This may well be the action that we anticipated. The Nasdaq actually entered correction territory today defined as a decline of 10% or more from it’s last high. That is just the Nasdaq mind you, but tech which makes up a large percentage of the Nasdaq often leads the rest of the market lower. However, as of today the Dow and S&P 500 have not reached correction territory. So what gives? Its a battle between earnings and interest rates. Depending on which one has the upper hand on a particular day you will know which way the market is heading. If treasury yields which are closely related to treasury rates rise then you can bet the market is going to have a bad day. However, if the treasury rates don’t move much or possibly even dip and we get good corporate earnings reports that day then the market rallies. Analysts would describe this as the market pricing in future interest rate increases by the Fed which they could do as many as three to four times before the end of the year. You can also factor in the fact that many economists as well as the Fed have said that the growing rate of inflation will moderate once current supply chain issues are resolved. You know, Econ 101, supply and demand. Nonetheless, recent Fed meeting minutes have indicated that Fed members were surprised at the stubborn rate of inflation that seems to be hanging on much longer than they had anticipated. Thus they have accelerated the decrease of monthly bond purchases that they were using to stimulate the market before and during the pandemic. That is the process you hear described as tapering. In addition, they have indicated that they may even actively sell the bonds that are currently on their balance sheet. This would be actively remove liquidity from the market. Finally, the Fed has stated that they will start to increase interest rates to further fight inflation. These rate increases often occur at rates of a quarter point to a half point at a time. Again, the have said that there will possibly be as many as three to four rate increases before the end of the year. This amounts to a much more aggressive plan to control inflation than they had a quarter ago. In essence the Fed has been surprised at the way this high rate of inflation has hung around and is now moving aggressively to slow it down. Some would even say they have been too slow to act. So….to tie this all up. While rates are still at historic lows, the market doesn’t like higher rates. They tighten the money supply leading to less investment and make it more expensive for corporations to borrow money increasing their costs. This is especially hard on smaller growth oriented stocks. The end result of all of this is that the valuation of stocks (their value) goes down and that ladies and gentlemen is why the market does not like rapidly rising rates. Complicated isn’t it? So to understand where this market is going you must understand this relationship. I will be the first to tell you that I for one could learn more. I think I probably know just enough to scrape by. So why are we still invested in equities?? As I have often said we don’t make investment decisions on what we think might happen because we are wrong a good percentage of the time. No, we mange risk by making our decisions based on our technical charts and right now our chart for the C Fund has not put up a sell signal according to the criteria we use. Also, there are a myriad of additional indicators that we follow and some of the ones that we value the most have not told us to sell just yet. The bottom line is that market trends have a way of moving in one direction or the other much longer than we think they should. So we watch all our indicators and make our investment decisions based on the greater weight of the analysis. Carl Swenlin who is a great technical analyst said that technical analysis is more like a wind sock than a crystal ball. I agree totally and will add emphatically that no one has a crystal ball. They just want you to think that they do……….

The days trading left us with the following results: Our TSP allotment had a rough day at -1.84%. For comparison, the Dow dropped -1.51%, the Nasdaq -2.60%, and the S&P 500 -1.84%. Mother said there would be days like this but God said He’d be with us through them all. Can we give Him some praise? If we can praise Him when the market goes up then we should praise Him when it goes down. He has always always blessed this group!

Dow drops 540 points, Nasdaq falls 2.6% as 10-year yield rises to 2-year high

The days action left us with the following signals: C-Hold, S-Sell, I-Hold, F-Sell. We are currently invested at 100/C. Our allocation is now -2.11% for the year not including the days results. Here are the latest posted results:

01/14/22				Prior Prices
Fund	G Fund	F Fund	C Fund	S Fund	I Fund
Price	16.7465	20.5224	70.4269	78.9942	39.4062
$ Change	0.0007	-0.1096	0.0593	-0.1357	-0.2014
% Change day	+0.00%	-0.53%	+0.08%	-0.17%	-0.51%
% Change week	+0.03%	-0.31%	-0.29%	-1.15%	+0.19%
% Change month	+0.06%	-1.74%	-2.11%	-5.33%	-0.09%
% Change year	+0.06%	-1.74%	-2.11%	-5.33%	-0.09%

More Prices & Returns

 Now lets take a look at the charts. All signals are annotated with green circles. If you click on the charts they will become larger. If you want to learn more about technical analysis check out the website StockCharts.com.

C Fund:

S Fund:

I Fund:

F Fund:

It’s going to be a tough year, but we’re up for it! That’s all for tonight. Have a nice evening and may God continue to bless your trades!

God bless, Scott 

 ***Just a reminder that you can review the performance of our allocation at the Web Site TSPTALK.com in the autotracker section under the screen name KyFan1.

I produce and publish this blog as both a ministry and for the benefit of any Federal Government Employee. This is done to offer you some guidance as to how to approach your retirement more financially successful. When it is time for you to retire, I recommend you utilize the services of a Professional Money Manager, who works with a reputable investment firm. He understands the guidance you have already received and he can manage your savings assets utilizing a more advanced investment program into the future. 
If you would like to receive more information about this introduction, please feel free to contact me at  KyFan1@aol.com. 

Good Evening, So far the new year has been defined by volatility created by pressure from rising treasury rates. The most widely watched benchmark for treasury rates the 10 year bond briefly eclipsed a yield of 1.80 % during yesterdays trading which is the highest it has been in quite a while. However, it did manage to retreat today as we got a reprieve from the selling of the last three sessions. The Fed has already said it will raise interest rates to control inflation with Fed Chairman Jerome Powell reiterating that statement during testimony at his confirmation hearing before the Senate today. As I mentioned in last weeks blog the Fed will reduce or taper their stimulus program of monthly bond purchases and then allow their inventory of bonds they have already purchased to start expiring. Those are the primary tools they can use right now to bring rising inflation under control. Not to rehash last weeks entire blog, but the thing here that would take this a step further would be if they started to sell the bonds on their inventory in addition to just allowing them to expire. This would in fact would actively remove liquidity from the market. In effect we would move rapidly from adding liquidity to the market to removing it. Let there be little doubt, in the event that this were to take place there will be a sell off and probably a big one. As of today, to my knowledge that measure has not been mentioned by the Fed, but it is something that we should definitely keep an eye on. Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at the Leuthold Group, said “Historically, the stock market has suffered some nasty ‘temper tantrums,’ and numerous rate hikes eventually led to recessionary bear markets,” Paulsen said in a note Monday evening. “However, the current focus among investors may be misplaced. The stock market’s response may have less to do with the timing and number of rate hikes than it does with the ‘direction’ of real earnings.” So makes it really hard to tell for sure just where this thing is heading. That’s the reason we keep our eyes on our charts and react to the information that’s in front of us. Making predictions can be perilous!

James DePorre had and interesting observation about the current market today. According to James

“Many current market participants have never experienced a hawkish Fed. The last time there was a full cycle of rate hikes way back from June 2004 to June 2006 when rates went from 1% to 5.25%. The S&P500 enjoyed a solid uptrend during the period, but it was coming off a bear market that started in 2000 and lasted until early 2003.

Since then, there have been a few rate hikes and some threats of increased hawkishness, but it never lasted very long. In late 2018 a hawkish Jerome Powell caused a sharp drop, but coordinated dovishness by central banks around the world put an end to it, and that created another good uptrend until the pandemic hit in early 2020.

This hawkish transition by the Fed is a very major shift for the market, and it is likely to be a bumpy ride.”

I agree with that and will add that a large part of this volatility is being determined by how these inexperienced investors react to this cycle of rate increases. Simply put they panic and sell. I will also add that it has been an extraordinarily long period of time since the last cycle of increases due to all the unprecedented economic stimulus that has been put in place by the government. As we have noted before there is a price to be paid for all this……

That and Covid are pretty much what’s driving the market these days. There were several news reports on Covid and how it is starting to disrupt the supply chain once again. That is definitely contributing to the volatility so far in 2022. I won’t add anything else here because you all have been inundated with COVID news. If you don’t know about this then you’ve probably turned the news off because your so disgusted with it. I’ve thought about doing that……

The days trading left us with the following results: Our TSP allotment posted a gain of +0.92%. For comparison. the Dow added +0.51%, the Nasdaq +1.41%, and the S&P 500 +0.92%. Praise God for today’s rally!

Nasdaq rises for a second day as investors buy tech shares on the dip, Dow gains

The days action left us with the following signals: C-Buy, S-Sell, I-Buy, F-Sell. We are currently invested at 100/C. Our allocation is now -1.07% for the year not including the days results. Here are the latest posted results:

01/11/22				Prior Prices
Fund	G Fund	F Fund	C Fund	S Fund	I Fund
Price	16.7444	20.6036	71.1743	80.933	39.4203
$ Change	0.0007	0.0369	0.6459	1.1755	0.4735
% Change day	+0.00%	+0.18%	+0.92%	+1.47%	+1.22%
% Change week	+0.02%	+0.09%	+0.77%	+1.28%	+0.23%
% Change month	+0.05%	-1.36%	-1.07%	-3.01%	-0.05%
% Change year	+0.05%	-1.36%	-1.07%	-3.01%	-0.05%

 Now lets take a look at the charts. All signals are annotated with green circles. If you click on the charts they will become larger. If you want to learn more about technical analysis check out the website StockCharts.com.

C Fund:

S Fund:

I Fund:

F Fund:

God bless, Scott 

 ***Just a reminder that you can review the performance of our allocation at the Web Site TSPTALK.com in the autotracker section under the screen name KyFan1.

I produce and publish this blog as both a ministry and for the benefit of any Federal Government Employee. This is done to offer you some guidance as to how to approach your retirement more financially successful. When it is time for you to retire, I recommend you utilize the services of a Professional Money Manager, who works with a reputable investment firm. He understands the guidance you have already received and he can manage your savings assets utilizing a more advanced investment program into the future. 
If you would like to receive more information about this introduction, please feel free to contact me at  KyFan1@aol.com. 

Good Evening, We find ourselves off to a good start in 2022 with two relatively decent days for the market so far. The Dow is up today but the Dow is only 30 stocks and is not truly representative of the market as a whole. The S&P 500 which was up yesterday and is flat today is a little better gauge for what is going on but is far from perfect. When taken as a whole the major indices failed to reflect the true nature of the market in 2021 and if the first two trading days of 2022 are any indication that could be the case again this year. Right now treasury yields are crushing a lot of small cap and tech stocks. While the Russell 2000 (IWM) did put up a buy signal it seems little weak and nothing to bet the farm on. Small caps stocks should be purchased selectively and with at least a small dose of caution at this time. This market remains bifurcated due to the higher treasury yields. A case in point is that the C Fund closed flat at -0.04% while the S Fund ended the day well in the red at -0.81%. That is actually the closest they traded all day with S Fund actually being off more than -1.20% at one point. I expect the treasury yields to continue to put pressure on the small and midcaps that make up the S Fund. On another note, conditions like this favor a stronger dollar which in turn favors the I fund as US goods become more expensive and inversely foreign goods become cheaper. With this in mind I’m watching the I Fund as it could come into to play for us in 2022. It has begun to pick up recently and would probably be even stronger if not for the supply chain issues. Once the world economy starts humming the I Fund probably will too!

The days trading left us with the following results: Our TSP allocation was flat at -0.06%. For comparison, the Dow was up +0.59%, the Nasdaq fell -1.33%, and the S&P 500 was close to even at -0.06%. The I Fund which I mentioned above had a great day closing up +0.57%. The best of our TSP funds today…..

Dow rises to new record, but Nasdaq falls nearly 2% as higher rates divide the market

The days action left us with the following signals: C-Buy, S-Hold, I-Buy, F-Sell. We are currently invested at 100/C. Our allocation is now +0.64% for the year not including the days results. By the way, for those of you that don’t already know we closed the books on 2021 with a gain of +14.64%. A little off our average which is closer to 18.00% but if I were given the opportunity I’d take it every year! As usual I thank God for His guidance of our group to yet another successful year. Give Him all the praise and all the glory for He is worthy!! Here are the latest posted results:

01/03/22				Prior Prices
Fund	G Fund	F Fund	C Fund	S Fund	I Fund
Price	16.7386	20.7363	72.4061	83.8284	39.3497
$ Change	0.0021	-0.1504	0.4591	0.3874	-0.0919
% Change day	+0.01%	-0.72%	+0.64%	+0.46%	-0.23%
% Change week	+0.01%	-0.72%	+0.64%	+0.46%	-0.23%
% Change month	+0.01%	-0.72%	+0.64%	+0.46%	-0.23%
% Change year	+0.01%	-0.72%	+0.64%	+0.46%	-0.23%

More Prices & Returns

 Now lets take a look at the charts. All signals are annotated with green circles. If you click on the charts they will become larger. If you want to learn more about technical analysis check out the website StockCharts.com.

C Fund:

S Fund:

I Fund:

F Fund:

So far we’re in the green. I pray that we can stay there all year but I know there are going to to some serious bumps along the way. So buckle up, it’s going to be another wild one!! That’s all for tonight. Have a nice evening and may God continue to bless your trades!

God bless, Scott 

 ***Just a reminder that you can review the performance of our allocation at the Web Site TSPTALK.com in the autotracker section under the screen name KyFan1.

I produce and publish this blog as both a ministry and for the benefit of any Federal Government Employee. This is done to offer you some guidance as to how to approach your retirement more financially successful. When it is time for you to retire, I recommend you utilize the services of a Professional Money Manager, who works with a reputable investment firm. He understands the guidance you have already received and he can manage your savings assets utilizing a more advanced investment program into the future. 
If you would like to receive more information about this introduction, please feel free to contact me at  KyFan1@aol.com. 

Good Evening, I’ve had a few questions asking if this is the end of the December rally. I don’t know and I won’t even venture a guess. The thing you must understand about the last trading week of the year is that you can’t take anything from it. Why?? For three reasons. First, the trading is on low volume. Many traders have shut down their desks for the year. Second: There is a lot of selling for tax purposes and Third: There is a lot of positioning and repositioning for the upcoming year. So you can’t make any decisions based on the action during the last week. Any data you may take from it can be misleading. I would also remind everyone that the success we’ve had here is a attributable to #1 Gods blessing and #2 The fact that we refuse to engage in short term trading. Make no mistake about the latter. We used to trade almost exclusively short term but that was when we had unlimited trades in Thrift and before the advent of high speed computer algorithm trading. Those two things plus a few more issues made it nearly impossible for us to trade short term. So we adapted and retooled our charts for the medium to long term game. We don’t worry about the days or weeks anymore. Only months and years.

In all my years of trading this has been one of the most difficult that I have experienced. It has been bifurcated and volatile. We spent the first part of the year in in the S Fund when small caps and tech were out performing the market. Then folks started returning to work and investors started selling stay at home stocks such as Zoom and tech reversed. So recovery stocks such as Hotels and Cruise Lines took over the leadership. You can also add energy to that as people started gassing up their vehicles once again. This led to a surge in the S&P 500 (C Fund) and a drop in the VXF or S Fund. That ladies and gentlemen was the last time that small caps and large caps moved together. The market has been bifurcated in one way or the other since that time. It’s been led by either small caps or large caps, Tech or value, OR stay at home or recovery stocks. With these dynamics going we found ourselves chasing different sectors most of the year when we were not in fact running from the latest Covid outbreak. While we have survived we didn’t exactly thrive. However, I do want to take time to thank God for another profitable year! He has been so good to our group with only three losing years since 1997 and those added together were less than two percent. Give Him all the praise!!

So……. We end the year hanging on in Large Caps at 100/C. Where do we go from here? You all know I don’t prognosticate, but I do plan! Based on past experience small cap stocks are the canary on the coal mine. They are the first to fall and the first to rally. The first to find the bottom in a bear market and many many small cap stocks are indeed in bear market territory defined as a decline of 20% or more at this time. There is nothing written in stone but my experience has been that large caps stocks will eventually follow the small caps. The large gap that now exists between the two sectors will not be there forever. You can pretty well bank on that. Where one goes so will the other. Usually they will move in the same direction but one will outperform the other. With that noted, if I were forced to guess I would say that there will be at the least a correction (a drop of 10% or more) in the large cap indices sometime in the next quarter or so. With that in mind my contingency plan is to ride the large caps as far as they can go and then sell and move to the G Fund when the charts give the signal. At that time I’ll watch the small caps to see when they form a bottom and get back in and do all over it again. Once again, this is only a plan! Things could move in totally different direction in which case our plan will change. In other words we will react to the action we see before us on our charts whatever that might be and wherever that might take us……..

The days trading left us with the following results: Our TSP allotment slipped slightly at -0.10%. For comparison, the Dow gained +0.26%, the Nasdaq dropped -0.56%, and the S&P 500 fell slightly at -0.10%. I thank God that we held onto most of yesterdays gains!

Dow notches 5-day winning streak, S&P 500 dips from record as investors weigh omicron

The days action left us with the following signals: C-Buy, S-Hold, I-Buy, F-Sell. We are currently invested at 100/C. Our allocation is now +17.48% on the year not including the days results. Here are the latest posted results:

12/27/21				Prior Prices
Fund	G Fund	F Fund	C Fund	S Fund	I Fund
Price	16.7339	20.8928	72.3143	84.135	39.3482
$ Change	0.0028	0.0248	0.9904	0.6233	0.2782
% Change day	+0.02%	+0.12%	+1.39%	+0.75%	+0.71%
% Change week	+0.02%	+0.12%	+1.39%	+0.75%	+0.71%
% Change month	+0.11%	-0.29%	+5.02%	+1.42%	+4.85%
% Change year	+1.37%	-1.43%	+29.34%	+13.39%	+11.19%

 Now lets take a look at the charts. All signals are annotated with green circles. If you click on the charts they will become larger. If you want to learn more about technical analysis check out the website StockCharts.com.

C Fund:

S Fund:

I Fund:

F Fund:

I want to take this time to wish each and every one of you a Happy New Year! May God bless your families and keep them safe in 2022. That’s all for 2021. I’ll see you next year!!! Have a great rest of your year and may God continue to bless your trades!

God bless, Scott 

 ***Just a reminder that you can review the performance of our allocation at the Web Site TSPTALK.com in the autotracker section under the screen name KyFan1.

I produce and publish this blog as both a ministry and for the benefit of any Federal Government Employee. This is done to offer you some guidance as to how to approach your retirement more financially successful. When it is time for you to retire, I recommend you utilize the services of a Professional Money Manager, who works with a reputable investment firm. He understands the guidance you have already received and he can manage your savings assets utilizing a more advanced investment program into the future. 
If you would like to receive more information about this introduction, please feel free to contact me at  KyFan1@aol.com.