It’s been a good week, overall, for the economy.  The Dow is up about 150 points and the S&P 500 is up about 15 points (about a full percentage point) this week, the Labor Department’s jobless numbers were far better than anyone expected, and news articles are starting to pop up about the economy maybe not being as bad off as people have been thinking. (here, here, and here, among others).

So it’s not surprising to see some decent numbers from the Thrift Savings Plan for the month of April.  The C, S, and I funds are all up about five per cent for the month.  The lifecycle funds all gained too. 

What does that mean?  That means if you got scared last month and sold C, S, and I shares in your TSP account, they will now cost you about five percent more to buy back.  You sold low, and now you have to buy high.  That’s the exact opposite of how you’re supposed to do it.

That’s also compounded by the fact that the G fund tied February’s .24% gain (that’s a quarter of a percentage point) for lowest increase in at least a year.  Not only did you lose money by selling the stock funds low, you didn’t make much on the money that you took from selling low and stashing it in the G fund.  You’ve lost a whole month’s potential growth.

The unexpected economic news, especially the unemployment numbers, also reminds us that you don’t know what’s going to happen in the market, such that you can then take that knowledge and time the market (or in this case the TSP).

Liz Pulliam Weston, our guest on Your Turn this week, told us that she loves the buy-and-hold philosophy the TSP is intended for.  She only had one gripe about the TSP: “I can’t get in it!”

If the days of economic gloom and doom are indeed numbered, you should check your TSP account and make sure you’re buying into what you want to buy into.  If the market heads up again, five years from now your share prices from 2008 will look like bargains, no matter what you paid.