For the second week in a row, the S&P 500 bottomed out on Wednesday, then closed near the high of the week on Friday. I don’t know what the significance of that might be except that in market timing and technical analysis, we are sometimes just watching out for patterns because they tend to repeatRead… Read more »
Holiday weeks tend to have a positive bias, but what we saw last week was not typical. We saw big gains with nearly 4% returns in each of the TSP stock funds. The question now of course is, what will a post-holiday market look like? Here are the TSP fund returns for the week ofRead… Read more »
Last week was a bit of a rollercoaster ride for the stock market as we saw strong gains early in the week, a big sell-off in the middle of the week, and another rally on Friday. Greece, Spain, economic data, and some bank downgrades helped shape the action. Here are the TSP fund returns forRead… Read more »
Last week started out shaky for the stock market as we saw a sell-off on Monday, which experience a hangover from the jobs report. Despite some nice rallies, the indices struggled to move above the break-even mark through Thursday, but on Friday the bulls took charge and it moved stocks into positive territory for theRead… Read more »
Last week was a holiday shortened week and we went into Friday with just minor losses in the stock market, but as you may have heard, the May jobs report came in well below expectation and stocks sold off sharply. If you missed it, estimates were looking for an increase of 150,000 jobs and weRead… Read more »
Worst week of the year The stock market and the TSP stock funds experienced a precipitous decline last week with barely a notice of any kind of relief rally. The buyers have gone on vacation apparently, while the trouble in Europe dictates the action. Here are the TSP fund returns for the week of MayRead… Read more »
Usually, in todays economy, most federal employees I speak with have doubts on their thrift savings plan retirement. The older employees have an interesting mindset. They feel the market is too unpredictable to dabble in interfund transfers. “Too dangerous” is what I get most of the time. As of this post, I am 32 yearsRead… Read more »
Social Connect via: My original plan this week was to post about March Madness which is the usual spending that seems to occur as the end of the government fiscal year approaches. That post will be released next week. This week, I want to address Canada’s Action Plan released by the Government of Canada asRead… Read more »
Ralph Smith is the president and a co-founder of FedSmith.com. Sign up for the FedSmith.com free daily email newsletter to get the latest news affecting federal employees. There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about our economic future. Headlines from Europe scream about countries defaulting with investors in Greece potentially taking a 70% lossRead… Read more »
Attention all crafty, connected GovLoopers… What are the best upcoming continuing education and/or professional development events in 2012? Ideally the conference(s) are focused on management, business intelligence, transparency, and governance issues, while also budget-friendly given the continuing financial crunch. For example, the 2012 MDMS event below features best-selling authors Dave Norton, Dan Pink, and MarkRead… Read more »