Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Is your glass usually half full, or is the same glass usually half empty?

Were you hard-wired to be happy, to see good in just about everything? Or have life experiences turned you into a realist who knows that bad times are just around the corner.

Take this official test devised by the American Head Case Company:

You arrive home. Your driveway is blocked by a huge mound of manure. Your choices:

1. The manure delivery company made its drop at the wrong address,
2. You are the victim of a sick prank, or
3. Daddy finally delivered the pony you wanted as a kid.

Well, if you already decided to name your pony , this will be good news. If not, it won’t.

The news is this:

There are 10 fund options available to federal-postal-military-retiree investors in the federal Thrift Savings Plan. The safest, and most conservative, is the G-fund made up of exclusive-to-feds Treasury securities. The G-fund never has a bad day, but because of its super-safe makeup, it was not designed to be the leader of the pack. Yet last month, February, the leader of the pack was the G-fund. It returned 0.24 percent. And it was followed by the bond-indexed F-fund which earned 0.16 percent in February.

The C, S and I funds, which normally have the best (and worst) returns, had a bad February. The C-fund which tracks the S &P 500 index, was down 3.28 percent. The S-fund (small and mid-cap stock index) was down 2.05 percent and the once high-flying international stock indexed I fund was down 0.66 percent. The C, S and I funds which had good-to-great returns in recent years, were all down for the 12 month period ending in February.

So are you an optimist, who sees this downturn as a temporary opportunity to buy while the funds are “on sale”? In which case, you buy them because you believe they are on sale.

Or are you concerned/convinced that the slumping markets are in for a long downward spiral, and this is the time to cut your losses and move from say the C, S or I funds into the G or F funds.

Most financial planners caution against letting emotions, specifically fear and/or greed, be your guide when investing. They also advise long-haul investors to diversify, rebalance and stay the course. But it’s your call based on your age, when you plan to retire, what you want in retirement and when you will start tapping your TSP account. For many feds, especially those under the CSRS retirement system, that could be many years after they retire. And, maybe, based on how you were hard-wired, at birth, as to how you view the world.

Nearly Useless Factoid

Or Useless Nearly Factoid, depending. Today’s is from John E. who says a dog is truly a man’s best friend. “If you don’t believe it, just try this experiment. Put your dog and your spouse in the trunk of the car for an hour. When you open the trunk, who is really happy to see you!?” I’ll trust him on this one. I like my dog too much to try it.

To reach me: mcausey@federalnewsradio.com

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