I did nothing although I was tempted to buy a few percent of equities. But I did have an interesting experience tied to the recent volatility. Last Wednesday I opened the door to my mailman and he popped out the question, "do you know anything about investing." I think he has seen both financial mail and Federal Government related mail and guessed I might know something about the Federal TSP. Kind of an odd way to seek financial advice (which I told him) but what the heck. Well, this turned into a 20 minute discussion of his TSP account. He was about a 60/40 stock to bonds investor and was panicking and thinking of bailing to the G fund (principle guaranteed Government bond fund). He is 43 and hopes to retire in 14-15 years. I counseled the standard mantra around here about leaving things alone. I pointed out that 60/40 is not aggressive for someone his age with a 15 year work horizon and a COLAd pension. He seemed reassured. Then yesterday I saw him again and he told me that he panicked on Thursday and bailed entirely to the G Fund - both current holdings and prospective contributions. Now he was feeling like he made a big mistake. I assured him that he did. We kicked things around again for another 20 minutes, going over the fact that volatile changes are not real gains and losses unless you sell into them, covering the fact that many investors jump in and out of the market, losing ground with each move, blah, blah. He said he was going to reverse his actions and make a hard nosed commitment to avoid market timing. I told him that would be good if, and only if, he can really avoid jumping in and out like he is doing this week. Otherwise he would be better off staying entirely in the G Fund. This is a nice guy, not at all dumb. I can see why the average investor doesn't stay close to the market as a whole. You can lead a horse to water...
