Ever board a bus to take you to a winter vacation in Daytona Beach only to wake up when it reached its true destination: Detroit?

Not that there’s anything wrong with Detroit but…

Your bad! But stuff happens. Sometimes you get on the wrong boat, bus, train or investment vehicle. One that isn’t going where they are thinking. It happens. A lot.

So how many Thrift Savings Plan investors don’t understand exactly know what their retirement nest egg is invested in? Maybe more than you think.

Example:

From time to time we hear from people who say the stock fund (C, S or I Fund) they’ve invested in isn’t doing as well as the returns reported in the newspaper. Sometimes it’s a timeline issue involving when the returns were reported. But sometimes people, through no fault of their own, are just in the wrong fund. Simple as that.

Recently heard from a fed who early this month contacted us about his investments in the C fund. He wrote, “How is it that the Dow Jones average went up 300 points, but the valuation of my TSP share went down…and I took a hit? The folks at the TSP cannot seem to answer that question.”

We found one. Kim Weaver, the spokesperson for the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (it runs the TSP) said:

Without knowing what fund he’s invested in, I can’t address his specific rate of return. However, as noted, the TSP Funds do not track the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). For U.S. stocks, we offer the C and S Funds:

The Dow Jones Completion Index (S Fund) offers the mid- and small capitalized stocks that compliment and “complete” the U.S. stock market when added to the C Fund.

I hope this is helpful. K.W.

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