TSP Talk Weekly Wrap Up

Stocks managed to produce gains this week despite the history of negative seasonality, a threatening North Korea, and a hawkish Fed. A rise in bank shares kept the S&P 500 barely afloat. A slight jump up at Monday’s open pretty much marked the trading range for the index. This week was the smallest weekly range for the S&P 500 since November of 2014. This is all while the index is sitting around its highs.

The Fed met this week and though it was nearly certain there would be no rate hike this week, they came off more hawkish than usual suggesting one more rate hike this year. Traders are use to the Fed babying the issue of rate hikes as to not upset stocks but their remarks this week had no significant impact. Stocks sold off at first but dip buyers were there waiting.

Small caps (S-fund) did not have the same issue as it was just short of 1% in gains for the week. Bonds were down for the week giving the F-fund the only loss in the TSP funds.

Third quarter earnings will be coming in giving traders, humans and computer programs alike, somewhere to direct their focus.

Here are the weekly, monthly, and annual TSP fund returns for the week ending September 22nd:

The lack of movement in either diriection by the SPY (S&P 500 / C-fund) pushed the index right through short-term rising support. The fact that the index has an open gap within reach may have helped. If this index wants to carry on moving up in a healthy manner, it must fill the open gap first; In some sense this is mearly due to the psychology of traders. The C-fund was up 0.09% for the week.

The Dow Completion Index (S-fund) poduced new highs this week and closed for the week near them. This is impressive for the index after the decline it took the first half of August. There are open gaps below the current price and that goes along with what I mentioned with SPY. The S-fund led the TSP funds this week with a gain of 0.99%.

EFA (EAFE Index / I-fund) continues its relentless climbing performance it has put on this year so far. At the moment the index is near rising resistance which it did test Wednesday and the trend line still holds. This index also has an open gap below which we are use to due to the time difference in the European markets. The I-fund was up 0.70% for the week.

AGG (Bonds / F-fund) were down for the week and traded right between their 20-day EMA and 50-day EMA. This index does have open gaps above so I suspect the gaps will be filled when the other three indicies above fill theirs. The F-fund was down 0.15% 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
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