Timing the market crash and my tsp

[Anonymous]

what do these abbreviations mean?

I G S etc

[Anonymous]

Instead of moving everything out while trying to time things you should keep an asset allocation based on your time horizon and risk tolerance. Instead of being 100% in stocks consider moving to an 80/20 or even 70/30 split which will reduce volatility but still allow you to ride future market growth.

[Anonymous]

I took one of those week-long retirement classes awhile back and the smartest advice I got came from the financial guy. He said never put anything in G or a Life Cycle fund. Put it 50:50 in C:S and ride out all storms. Even if you’re near or in retirement— it’s not like you’re going to suddenly liquidate and historically it always recovers and grows. I had $400 K in 2012 and have $2.4 M today, following his advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I took one of those week-long retirement classes awhile back and the smartest advice I got came from the financial guy. He said never put anything in G or a Life Cycle fund. Put it 50:50 in C:S and ride out all storms. Even if you’re near or in retirement— it’s not like you’re going to suddenly liquidate and historically it always recovers and grows. I had $400 K in 2012 and have $2.4 M today, following his advice.

PS I’m still working and contributing; my salary is high (200K plus) so that helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:what do these abbreviations mean?

I G S etc

Those are fund types.

I for international fund
S for small cap
C for s&p500 fund
L for lifecycle fund based on your expected retirement date

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sell high. If you are going to move things do it before the drops.
FWIW I had all mine in a life cycle fund and that handled 2001, 2008, 2020 better than any other fund.

This is dumb. Managed funds often do weather bad years a little better, but they underperform on the good years. So maybe you get a smidge less volatility, but you get significantly worse long term returns.

Not what I experienced with L2020.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I took one of those week-long retirement classes awhile back and the smartest advice I got came from the financial guy. He said never put anything in G or a Life Cycle fund. Put it 50:50 in C:S and ride out all storms. Even if you’re near or in retirement— it’s not like you’re going to suddenly liquidate and historically it always recovers and grows. I had $400 K in 2012 and have $2.4 M today, following his advice.

That's crappy advice for too many reasons to list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know. I know. You can’t time the market. However, it feels like we are getting into bubble burst territory in the coming months. That’s my feeling. If I see things on a downward trajectory I don’t want to just lose all my tsp gains and let it sit and wait for the market to sort or slowly come back up over the years like it always does.

If you think there will be a crash in a few months, or a year, because of tariffs and you have 500,000 in your tsp. 300,000 is in the I fund, the rest is in the c fund and also in BTCFX in the mutual fund window.

So if the crash and you see it begin as a series of drops over a few days or weeks, and you think it’s time to pull your money into somewhere safe within the tsp. You see stocks start to fall over a couple days and begin to think the crash you predicted is happening.

Where do you move the money quickly into a safer fund in the tsp to preserve the most amount? You know the stock market always goes back up but for now the market will probably have an extended down turn for a few years. You want the ability to keep the money safe and then buy back into one of the funds later when the market is farther down and stocks are cheaper. Would moving money into the G fund be the best place to let it sit until stock prices have fallen into a cheaper place of re-entry?

I believe in the stock market, but I believe in the cyclical nature of things. Is G fund the best place to park it?

I know for my BTCFX I would sell and park the money into a gold mutual fund in the MFW, if Bitcoin started its sort of every 4-year crypto winter crash scenario. I’d park it in gold or the money market fund for a while.

But really I am just trying to game out how to be proactive if the market appears to show an inevitable pattern of slide, or crash.

I get most people here are bogleheads and will just say: “wait it out. Don’t do anything. Get out of BTCFX now actually.” Anyway, thanks.

There are no projected issues in 2025 and 2026. Could something come out of the blue? Of course. Could Trump mess things up? Yes. But nothing so far has had an impact and the economy is quite strong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Leave it and avert your eyes.

+1. Unless you are retiring this year, maybe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What an idiot, trying to time the stock market over your feelings. Good luck with that!

I don’t know. I moved around $500k into a money market right after the election and moved it back when the market tanked in April. I’m very happy with my returns. Sure it was lucky but it’s also about charts and patterns.

Good for you! Please let us know when we should sell or buy based on your charts and patterns.

Mock me all you want! I also bought my house in 2010 at pretty much the bottom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I took one of those week-long retirement classes awhile back and the smartest advice I got came from the financial guy. He said never put anything in G or a Life Cycle fund. Put it 50:50 in C:S and ride out all storms. Even if you’re near or in retirement— it’s not like you’re going to suddenly liquidate and historically it always recovers and grows. I had $400 K in 2012 and have $2.4 M today, following his advice.

That's crappy advice for too many reasons to list.

Actually, it isn't for feds thanks to pension and SS/SS supplement. For many, you don't even have to touch TSP. I personally wouldn't do 50/50 between CS but I am also 100% in CS (similar balance as PP ~2.3)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What an idiot, trying to time the stock market over your feelings. Good luck with that!

I don’t know. I moved around $500k into a money market right after the election and moved it back when the market tanked in April. I’m very happy with my returns. Sure it was lucky but it’s also about charts and patterns.

Good for you! Please let us know when we should sell or buy based on your charts and patterns.

Mock me all you want! I also bought my house in 2010 at pretty much the bottom.

And refinanced part of the mortgage in 2020 at 2.5%. Yes some is luck but the rest is common sense. I cringed but kept quiet when my friends told me in early April they were moving money out of the market on the same days I was buying. I know they would have thought I was crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Market timers almost always lose.

Your retirement allocation should be set according to your appetite for risk. Set it and forget it.

I’m going to time the market and I don’t care.

I bought BTCFX earlier this year and have made like $70k on it. I predicted when the housing market crash was going to happen. It doesn’t take a genius to see that the market is at all time highs, is unsustainable, tariffs will restrict growth soon and have market reverberations, values are super high, meme stocks are back, basically I predict we have a continued bull run for awhile, but maybe in the near future (two years or less) we start to see signs of a pull back or even a big recession.

Or Powell gets fired. Compliant Fed chief installed, interest rates go down for a while juicing the market, and it overheats, crypto melts down and is so intertwined with the system, yada yada…a recession is coming at some point soon. Mostly from tariff fault out most likely. Anyway, if I start to read news about prolonged (over weeks) downturn I am moving a big portion of my funds into the G fund and the BTCFX in the mutual fund window into a commodities, healthcare or energy fund for an indefinite period of time before moving it back into the C fund when the market has dropped significantly.

All you set it and forget it people can do that, that’s fine. I’m more hands on.

Ok, enjoy the ride. You will almost certainly lose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I took one of those week-long retirement classes awhile back and the smartest advice I got came from the financial guy. He said never put anything in G or a Life Cycle fund. Put it 50:50 in C:S and ride out all storms. Even if you’re near or in retirement— it’s not like you’re going to suddenly liquidate and historically it always recovers and grows. I had $400 K in 2012 and have $2.4 M today, following his advice.

That's crappy advice for too many reasons to list.

Actually, it isn't for feds thanks to pension and SS/SS supplement. For many, you don't even have to touch TSP. I personally wouldn't do 50/50 between CS but I am also 100% in CS (similar balance as PP ~2.3)

The question then becomes how much cash flow are you counting on from TSP. If you can meet all of your expenses from your pension then by all means take whatever risks you want with your TSP, but if you need $75 or $100k a year from TSP to support your lifestyle you probably want to manage the risks thst comes with a 100% stock portfolio and mix in some fixed income (especially the G fund which has the best risk adjusted return of any fixed income investment)

And the fact that this approach worked well over the incredible bull market of the last 10 years is not evidence it will always work (some people might suggest it’s actually less likely to work well over the next 10 years but who knows).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I took one of those week-long retirement classes awhile back and the smartest advice I got came from the financial guy. He said never put anything in G or a Life Cycle fund. Put it 50:50 in C:S and ride out all storms. Even if you’re near or in retirement— it’s not like you’re going to suddenly liquidate and historically it always recovers and grows. I had $400 K in 2012 and have $2.4 M today, following his advice.

That's crappy advice for too many reasons to list.

Actually, it isn't for feds thanks to pension and SS/SS supplement. For many, you don't even have to touch TSP. I personally wouldn't do 50/50 between CS but I am also 100% in CS (similar balance as PP ~2.3)

Most retired feds aren't GS 15s retiring with fat cat pensions, so they will absolutely be withdrawing from their TSP.

Very few people, especially those on retirement have the risk tolerance for 100% equity.

Not recommending any international is kind of crazy, especially considering the fact that all lifecycle funds include international.

Recommending 50% small cap is also not advisable due to volatility and very thin evidence that a small cap premium without a quality filter exists.