The short version

Wednesday was a down day for nearly everything except the G Fund. The C Fund dropped 1.21% to $119.3781, the only TSP fund to fall more than 1%. The G Fund edged up 0.01%. Every L Fund finished lower.

How the TSP funds moved

C Fund (S&P 500): Down 1.21%, which lines up with the S&P 500's 1.22% decline. The fund is still up 2.14% over five days and 8.78% for the year.

S Fund (Dow Jones U.S. Completion): Down 0.87% to $114.2377. Smaller and mid-sized companies fell less than the large-cap names that dominate the S&P 500. The S Fund is still ahead over five days (2.82%) and year to date (12.36%).

I Fund (MSCI ACWI ex-US ex-China): Down 0.38% to $64.9426. That's a mild loss next to the C Fund, and VXUS, a broad international ETF, gave back a similar 0.55%. The bigger story is the five-day gain of 5.04%, the largest of any TSP fund and well past the 1% mark. The I Fund is up 15.91% this year, the best of the individual funds.

F Fund (Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate): Down 0.38% to $20.9603. Bond prices fall when yields rise, and the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.463%, up 0.79% on the day. BND, a broad bond ETF, fell 0.37%, nearly identical to the F Fund.

G Fund (Treasury rate): Up 0.01% to $19.9819. It doesn't hold market-priced securities, so it doesn't react to yield moves the way the F Fund does. That's the point of it.

The L Funds

The L Funds blend the five core funds, so their losses tracked how much stock each one holds. L Income slipped just 0.25%. L 2030 fell 0.50%, L 2040 fell 0.65%, and L 2050 fell 0.74%. The longest-dated funds, L 2055 through L 2075, all lost 0.87%, with five-day gains of 3.21% and year-to-date returns of 11.67%.

What moved the IRA index funds

The index figures below are labeled as the prior session's close, but they track the TSP moves closely.

  • S&P 500: 7,420.1, down 1.22%
  • Nasdaq Composite: 26,021.66, down 1.34%, the weakest of the major indexes
  • Dow Jones Industrial Average: 51,492.551, down 0.97%, the only one of the three to stay above the 1% line
  • VTI (total U.S. stock market): $365.76, down 1.25%
  • VXUS (total international stock): $86.15, down 0.55%
  • BND (total bond market): $73.14, down 0.37%
  • 10-year Treasury yield: 4.463%, up 0.79%

Three of the four U.S. stock measures fell more than 1%, and the Nasdaq led the way down. International stocks held up better. Bonds had no cushion this time, because stocks and bonds fell together as yields moved up. That's a reminder that bonds don't always zig when stocks zag.

What it means for your plan

A 1.2% drop in the C Fund is an ordinary day for stocks, and the five-day and year-to-date numbers are still positive across the board. One session says very little about a plan built over decades. If your contributions and allocation match your goals and your timeline, a day like this is mostly noise.

This recap is general information, not personal advice. Your own situation, including how close you are to retirement, is what should guide any changes, not a single day's move.