December 2018

Nice to have a positive month and a positive day to end on. We are seeing a lot of turbulent issues affecting the markets. Brexit, more than 2 years on is still weighing on the international markets, tariffs are playing a major role, uncertainty across the EU and Italy, and the fall of the tech/social media stocks are really making investing options very difficult. Even corporate bonds are being impacted as many companies that once entertained high bond ratings are nearing junk status. To provide specific examples, Apple is no longer the largest company by market capitalization anymore, Microsoft has once again regained the title. General Electric, once a company with $500B market capitalization is now nearing junk bond status with a debt burden over $100B and no good options. So although we are seeing devaluations of major companies and the evaporation of wealth in these companies, it is not widespread as other companies are still showing positive earnings and are adopting prudent strategies to pay down their debt burden. As a result, the churn in the markets makes for very volatile intra-day and intra-week swings. Trying to chase these swings with individual stocks is very difficult, chasing them with investment vehicles like the TSP are nigh impossible. Our markets appear to be operating as expected; not always efficiently, but when companies become overvalued, struggle in their sales, or make poor decisions and another company steps in to take market share, the markets adjust. I am comfortable with remaining 100% in the C Fund. Keep investing!