TSP plummets in August – Where does that leave your retirement?

The Thrift Savings Plan took a dip in August. With the exception of the government-securities G Fund, all the funds in the Thrift Savings Plan finished August in negative territory.

Kim Weaver is the Director of External Affairs at the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board. She told Chris Dorobek on the DorobekINSIDER program that August was not a pleasant month for the TSP.

Withdraws and loans

“In August there was also an increase in withdraws and loans. We don’t know yet if that was an anomaly. We are going to be sending out a participant survey next week with a question directly reflecting the increase in withdraws and loans. We will be asking if the budget constraints, participants have been facing at work has caused them to make changes to their TSP participation or contribution,” said Weaver.

New contractor

“We have a new enterprise support services contractor, SAIC. They will do record keeping, which in the 401K world means storing the information about a participant:

• The amount the individual contributes
• The amount their employer contributes
• Earnings

“All that information is the stuff SAIC will hold for us. They also do information security and other IT support services,” said Weaver.

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