TSP Market Summary: Week of April 25, 2020

By Roy Weisert, PhD, CFP

Key Takeaways

  • S&P 500 at 2,836 recovered about half the decline from February all-time highs
  • C fund crossed above 50-day moving average with positive performance ranking this week
  • Markets still digesting coronavirus treatment news and $484B relief bill for reopening

The S&P 500 closed at 2836 on Friday, thereby retracing about half of its downside move from its 19 February all-time high. And a lot has happened over these last two months. This week the markets are still trying to absorb all the news about possible coronavirus medications, the $484 billion relief bill for small businesses and hospitals, and when the country will “reopen”. Those reopen guidelines call for two metrics in each of the following three categories, that being 1) symptoms, 2) cases, and 3) hospitals. Progress towards meeting that reopen criteria is then displayed on various charts. That said, it got me thinking about “Trending Investment Portfolio Strategies (TIPS)” and the similarities with reopen criteria. With TIPS we use fund “reopen” criteria to determine 1) when to get in the market, 2) which sector and 3) how much. With price charts (e.g. # of new cases), we then primarily utilize two technical analysis indicators, 1) Performance Ranking (PR) and 2) Moving Averages (MA) to answer those when, where and how much questions. For TSP TIPS, last week I stated that the “C fund crossed above its 50 day Moving Average (MA)” and “if we see fund PR’s turning positive next week, we will most likely reopen that equity allocation.” Well, the C fund’s PR turned positive this week which leads us to the following reallocation.

Recommended Allocation (Moderate Profile)

This is our historical recommendation from this date. For current recommendations, subscribe.

G FundF FundC FundS FundI Fund
0% 30% 70% 0% 0%