TSP Talk Weekly Wrap Up

Stocks fell day after day this week as the election is approaching with no clear winner. There is also no telling how the market will react to a win from either candidate. On top of that, the Fed met this week and conveyed the possibility of a rate hike in December despite the poor conditions the market has experienced the last couple of months.

The jobs report came out Friday and 161,000 jobs were added and the unemployment rate reported as 4.9%. This was less than the 175,000 expected added jobs and was on par with the expected unemployment rate. The report initially sparked some buying but by mid-day there were no more buyers and the S&P 500 sold off all of its gains and closed just off its lows to end the day with a slight loss. Friday marked the 9th day in row the S&P closed in negative territory.

The TSP stock funds were all down more than 1% while the F-fund led with a gain of 0.24% for the week.

Here are the weekly, monthly, and annual TSP fund returns for the week ending November 4th:

Here are the final TSP returns for the month of October:

All the TSP funds other than the G-fund were down in October. The S-fund took the hardest hit with a decline of 3.86% for October.

The SPY (S&P 500 / C-fund) closed below its 200-day EMA Thursday and again Friday after breaking back above it intra-day with the early buying from the response to the jobs report. The index now sits at declining support from the lows of August and September. Its hard to say whether that support could hold as there is no expectations for how the market will react to the election. The C-fund fell 1.89% for the week and lagged the TSP funds.

The Dow Completion Index (S-fund) felt support from its 200-day EMA Monday but that did not continue as the index closed below the 200-day EMA Tuesday and remained below it for the remainder of the week. Although the Dow Completion Index did take another loss over 1% for the week (-1.87%), it did have slight gains after the jobs report on Friday which helped the fund avoid being the worst TSP fund of the week (by 0.02%).

EFA (EAFE Index / I-fund) was down 4 of the 5 trading days this week which put it under its 200-day EMA. It now is just above an open gap from July but gapped down Friday to open a gap above the current price. The I-fund was down 1.52% for the week.

AGG (Bonds / F-fund) had some gains for the week as it closed the gap opened last week. Bonds did find resistance from the peaks of the head and shoulders formation. The F-fund was 0.24% for the week.

Good luck and thanks for reading. We will be back here next week with another TSP Wrap Up. You can read our daily market commentary at the Market Comments page. If you need more help deciding what to do with your account, perhaps one of our Premium Services can help.

Tommy Crowley
www.tsptalk.com
Weekly Wrap-Ups Archive
Facebook | Twitter

The legal stuff: This information is for educational purposes only! This is not advice or are commendation. We do not give investment advice. Do not act on this data. Do not buy, sell or trade the funds mentioned herein based on this information. We may trade these funds differently than discussed above. We use additional methods and strategies to determine fund positions.