on 2009/09/27 by Alex, [ETF,Exchange-traded funds]

Last week, we recommended stocks, though they were close to being overbought. Stocks did start going down abruptly mid-week, and we are no longer recommending them. Instead, we are recommending corporate bonds, which are in a low-risk up-trend.

on 2009/09/21 by Alex, [FAQ]

Question: How can I find the distribution of the 2010. 2020, etc plans? Could investing partially in these plans result in a similar investment strategy and outcome? Response: The distributions of the Lifecycle funds change gradually over time. It’s fairly straightforward to figure out what they are at any given point in time. But you [...]

on 2009/09/21 by Alex, [FAQ]

Question: In the two new newsletters, I note that the analysis of the direction of stocks is contradictory.  In the ETF letter, stocks are said to be the thing for the next week while in the TSP newsletter, stocks are seen as risky over the next two weeks.  Given that the only difference in the two letters [...]

on 2009/09/21 by Alex, [ETF,Exchange-traded funds]

We pick the mix of investments that maximizes the expected return while not exceeding a fixed maximum risk. Stocks, bonds, and commodities have all been going up in the past couple of weeks. For the coming week, though, stocks look the most promising.

on 2009/09/21 by Alex, [TSP,Thrift Savings Plan]

While we’ve made money in stocks in the past two weeks, the stock run-up could be weakening. For this reason, we are shifting some money out of stocks.

on 2009/09/14 by Alex, [FAQ]

Question: Does the (3rd party) tracker you’re using “purchase” additional amounts each period?  It looks like it just changes the existing/starting allocation, so that the comparison is like the usual “$10k invested at time x and then manipulated with our portfolio strategy would be worth $y today”.  But that’s not really how your Newsletter works.  [...]

on 2009/09/14 by Alex, [ETF,Exchange-traded funds]

While stocks have been doing well in recent weeks, they could be overbought at this point. We are thus switching into high yield corporate bonds. They have been doing consistently well, and they do not appear to be in danger of being overbought.

on 2009/09/07 by Alex, [ETF,Exchange-traded funds]

Stocks in many different sectors are doing well. However, in our estimation, the best bets for the coming week are Chinese stocks and large-cap American stocks, represented by the Dow.

on 2009/09/07 by Alex, [TSP,Thrift Savings Plan]

All of the stock funds are doing well, though their risk has gone up slightly in the last two weeks. We’re thus distributing our money among the stock funds, but leaving some in the money market and bond funds. We’re putting most of the money into large-cap US and foreign stocks. This is consistent with [...]