TSP dips in May, but mostly stays out of the red

The Thrift Savings Plan took a turn for the worse in May, as all the funds except G and I fell from their April returns. That said, the S Fund was the only one to dip into the red. Every other fund remained positive.

This isn’t unusual behavior; most TSP funds have dropped from April to May for the past two years, sometimes much more drastically. For example, in 2019, both C and S funds lost more than 10 percentage points during that time.

The international stock index I fund was the clear winner this May, coming in at 3.61%, which is a 0.52 percentage point increase over April’s returns. That keeps its year-to-date performance strong at 10.58%. Meanwhile, the securities-backed G fund held steady at 0.13%, neither gaining nor losing ground. Its year-to-date returns stand at 0.53%.

The rest of the TSP funds did not fare so well. The small capitalization stock index S fund saw the biggest drop, falling 4.89 percentage points to come in at -0.66%, the only fund to dip into the red. Despite this, its year-to-date returns remain high, standing at 11.60%. The common stock index investment C fund saw the next biggest drop, falling 4.64 percentage points to wind up at 0.69%. Its year-to-date returns are highest out of all the funds, at 12.61%. The fixed income investment F fund only fell slightly, from 0.82% to 0.34%, though a string of poor performance earlier in the year has left it with a year-to-date return of -2.22%.

The Lifecycle funds all followed suit, with downturns ranging from 0.67 percentage points to 2.85 percentage points. The L Income had the smallest downturn as well as the smallest return, at 0.47%. Returns and downturns scaled up from there, with the L 2055, 2060 and 2065 funds all showing the greatest decrease, coming in at 1.50%.