Actual Client Performance:

Performance presented since January, 2013 represents actual returns of a portfolio that followed the published trends of TSP Safety Net (the predecessor to TSP Watchdog) and TSP Watchdog itself – a portfolio divided evenly across the four primary TSP funds – 25% F fund, 25% C fund, 25% S fund and 25% I fund – with annual rebalancing.

Back Tested Performance: 

Performance presented prior to January, 2013 is hypothetical (back-tested) using actual TSP prices and applying the exact methodology used by TSP Watchdog to these historical prices.

TSP Price Reporting: 

Prior to June, 2003 the TSP did not report daily share prices, but instead provided monthly performance information.  Using this performance data, we calculated monthly prices for the TSP funds, and back-tested using our trend following analysis on a monthly basis.  After June, 2003, we used the daily prices to calculate weekly trend analysis.

Cautions: 

The SEC requires that we say the following: the investment process that the back-tested results are based on can (theoretically) be changed at any time with the benefit of hindsight in order to show better results, and the process can (theoretically) continue to be adjusted until the desired results are achieved.

Please note: TSP Watchdog has not made any data-fitting adjustments to our trend following models.  We have only applied these models to historical price data to evaluate the historical effectiveness of the models.  Based on the historical performance of the models, we began applying the models in real time – and have had similar results in both real time and in our hypothetical back-testing.

Of course, just because the models have worked in the past does not guarantee that they will work in the future.